More common sights.

Couple Shirts

A common way young couples display their affection in public is to wear "couple shirts". We accidentally engaged in couple shirt action when we bought the same shirt to cheer on Korea's national soccer team during the World Cup.

Entrepreneurial recycling.

The carts here really put the rigs of the grocery cart dudes in Halifax to shame.

Seasonality.

A couple weeks ago was when the chilis started ripening. They're commonly dried out, then used in... well, practically everything. :) Watermelon season's just about over, and now it's all peaches, grapes, and a local favourite, Ulsan pears. They look like giant golden delicious apples:

and the best part is... because they are local, and probably not cross-bred with silver birch, Jim isn't allergic to them!

Take out.

Most small restaurants have delivery service happening all the time. Small plastic suitcases of food are scootered over from the restaurant, then dirty plates are picked up by scooters outfitted with buckets, and washed back at the restaurant.

DVD Rooms.


One of our favourite things: you rent a flick at the counter, then get escorted to a private screening room to watch it. We've been catching up on all the flicks we've been missing at home. And this'll be a good way to finally check out Korean flicks, as well.

More Jinha

And we thought it was crowded the first time we went - try going on a national holiday!


The beach became even more crowded when the jellyfish attacked.


As for us, there was chess (Jim and Adam - pic by Heather):


Human sand-sculpting (Miranda):


Napping:


And some special moments with Cass (Becka, and Morlin):



(Thanks, Heather, for supplying most of these pics!)

Sunday Day Trip: Jinha Beach

Trip Diary: Pablo, Betty, and Gwangali

August 1st, 9:30am:

We'd said our good-byes to Yvon and Michelle last night, so we successfully avoid waking them up to leave. We hurry past the VERY LOUD cicadas in the park, and grab the subway toward the Seoul Museum of Art. We manage to meet our friend Betty (and her friends) just in time for the museum to open. We're certainly not alone, either - the line up for tickets to the Picasso show is quite long, and dozens upon dozens of folks are milling about, waiting for the building to open for the day.

As we wander through the exhibition (whose curatorial premise is simply "the women in Picasso's life"), we're nearly trampled by about 75 people following a museum tour guide. This is the first time a show including many of Picasso's original paintings has come to South Korea, so it's a pretty big deal, indeed.

Many kids, like our own students, are on a short holiday from the private English academies they attend. That doesn't mean they get a break from learning, though. We see a few kids wandering around with English-language homework assignments, asking them questions about the show. A few kids actually use this show as an opportunity to sketch on their own, too.



These little girls remind me of many older/younger sister sets, including myself and my sister. The older sister painstakingly copies the portrait of Jacqueline Roque, scrutinizing every last mark she makes on her page, while the younger sister draws a lemon-coloured teddy bear and makes absolutely no reference to what she's seeing on the wall.

The show takes up most of the entire museum. In between rooms, we take a closer look at a gigantic film/lightbox installation in the centre of the museum. It's by a relatively young Korean artist, whose name I am still looking for in my notes. I am a little perturbed that the museum doesn't turn the lightbox on to properly display the piece.



Finally, we make our way back down to the large, central, entryway, where a piece by Paik Nam June (백남즌) is permanently installed. Very few people stop to watch this flashy piece. Instead, they're lined up on the opposite wall to get a picture taken with the 14-foot tall poster for the Picasso show.





We realize it's taken us almost three hours to view the entire exhibition, and Jim and I say hasty good-byes before running to catch our train to Busan. We make it in time, though we miss our opportunity for lunch. No matter. At an average of about 275 kph, the KTX train will get us to the other end of the country in less than three hours!





We relax and marvel at the countryside inbetween naps all the way down to the southern coast of the Korean peninsula.



Sweaty, starving, and weighed down by heavy knapsacks, we make our way to Gwangali Beach for supper. We watch the sky go pastel on us as we have one last western-style supper, a couple beer, and a listen to the beach-inspired American 60s tunes blasting from the beachfront PA across the street.

8:15pm
We're on a bus about to depart from Haeundae Beach (just a few subway stops north of Gwangali where we had supper). We're full, sleepy, travel-weary, and blissed out. Our bus driver take curvy roads at 110 kph and plays a 노래방 sort of cassette which is mostly pan flute interpretations of 70s and 80s English-language hits. I realize that for the first time, I've taken a vacation that isn't linked to a work-type of event. Also, we've managed to stay on budget without constant obsessing over it - also a first. The bus drops us off one block from our apartment, where we sleep like logs and imagine future trips.

Trip Diary: Yvon (pt. 2), Michelle, and The Gong Show

July 31st, 4pm:

Showered and fed, Jim and I have taken the two-hour subway journey back into Seoul. We've met up once more with Yvon, and he's showing us more of the city - Insa-dong (full of little shops that run the gamut from tacky trinket to high-end traditional craft), Namsan Market (otherwise known as guitar heaven), Itaewon (the foreigner section, which felt like downtown Toronto to me). Somewhere between Insa-dong and guitar heaven is one of Seoul's many busy Buddhist temples:



Jim and Yvon contemplate going in:


8:30pm:
We're finishing a huge, amazing Indian dinner in Itaewon (Chhakra, where I've since found out Mandy'd eaten a few times years ago), and we're about to take a super speedy cab ride back to Hongdae, giving us another cross-section view of the city. About 8 million people live here.

9:30pm:
Yvon and Jim pack up a couple of Yvon's guitars. We're heading over to the Club Palm, where Yvon hosts a weekly Open Stage. Among other tunes, Yvon plays "Sonny's Dream" for the Korean audience. Then Jim introduces another song from the east coast of Canada, also about staying and leaving. Then he plays his version of "Long Lake".


The Club Palm was originally conceived three years ago as a jazz club. The owner, Mr. Gong, we're told, also plays and sings. After a lot of cajoling, we get the very shy Mr. Gong onto the stage. He delivers "I Started a Joke" with the most melancholic croon this side of Roy Orbison. It's amazing. Later on, he'll come sit with us and talk about his youth in the early 70s, and try and impress upon us just how much change folks from his generation in Korea have had to adapt to all their lives. Most of his friends have moved to Canada in the last five years, he'll tell us.

It's also difficult to convince Michelle to play. She's an exceptionally skilled pianist; she teaches, too. But it takes a lot of energy from the audience before she'll get up.


This is our last evening with Yvon and Michelle on this trip, but we're already making plans to go back.

Trip Diary: Franz and Hedwig

July 30th, 12pm:

After a lazy morning, and an almost fruitless search for good coffee (where the heck was that place Yvon showed us yesterday? Dammit. Looks like we'll have to settle for Starbucks.), we head back to the subway to begin the trek out to Incheon.

The Seoul subway system is top-notch, by the way. Speedy, well-designed stations, and quite cheap. In our "Moving to Seoul" mental list, we make note of this in our "pro" column.

1:10pm:
We transfer from the Seoul subway line to the Incheon line at Bupyeong - Amanda's former stomping grounds!! As instructed, we give a shout out on her behalf. Hey Mandy, look how the station's changed since you've been there!



3pm:
Jim and I have checked ourselves into the Songdo Beach Ramada, because we decided we're just getting too old to do the rock-festival-camping thing with our friends. We'd also been warned that the festival grounds were ridiculously muddy. This is no exaggeration. We get onsite and find single flip-flops half buried in mud everywhere. Yesterday was the official last day of the rainy season here, and it sure gave Incheon one big last blast.



We catch up with Mark, Miranda, Kai, and Morlin (not pictured) by their campsite. And by "catch up", I mean "drink some cold beer".



Apparently, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs had opted for a 2pm timeslot on Friday - good thing we didn't bust our asses to get up here Friday night. Most of the headliners were stopping here en route to the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan. Last night was the Black Eyed Peas show. We hear they'd tried to do a cover of "Sweet Child O' Mine" but realized they had no appropriate backing track to pull it off, so they stopped after a few bars. At least Fergie didn't pee her pants this time.

5pm:
Over at the 2nd Stage, a hip hop act called Atmosphere are soundchecking. We're allowed to bring in as much to drink as we like, but we can't bring any caps with us - they're collected at the door. One theory for this: those 2-liter bottles of Cass Beer can be used as weapons, so it's a security thing. Another theory: a lot of people are drunkenly wandering around barefoot at this point, and they want to limit the foot injuries.

But back to the show itself: the soundcheck guys for Atmosphere get almost as much applause as the band itself when they take the stage. Everyone here is just so darn appreciative that such a music festival is even happening. There aren't whole lot of (English-speaking) big acts that stop here. So, with this in mind, there was a lot of hands-in-the-air-like-they-just-don't-care going on.



6:30pm
Taking awhile to chill out, have a quick bite at the food tents, and wonder whether or not our feet will ever be clean again.


Overall, the crowd at this festival of 15,000 is about half Korean and half "waygookin" (foreigner) - and the proportions shift a bit either way throughout the day, depending on who is playing at any given time. There really isn't a whole lot of mixing, except for during the really big (mostly English-speaking, international) acts. Jim and I meet two guys who've only been in Korea for a week, just starting their new teaching jobs. They're from Halifax. They were in a band, they know a lot of the same folks we know. (Rachelle, Chris and Paul from Running With Scissors say hi.)



8:30pm
The sun sets, and folks start making their way to the main stage to see Franz Ferdinand. We pass by the merch booth, noting one t-shirt design that looks like a standard emo-stripey shirt, only with the "Franz Ferdinand" logo emblazoned on the front. Fireworks, glowsticks, and all that jazz light up the field. We get a great spot, and wait for the lads to come out.



They make their entrance to a bit of music from the end of Neutral Milk Hotel's song, "Two Headed Boy", and greet the crowd with a big, rock and roll-style "HEEEELLLLOOOO, South Korea!" After tearing through a couple songs, the lead singer manages to wrap his mouth around a very deliberate "AAHN-YOUNG-HAH-SAAAY-YO!" and anoints South Korean audiences as the best they've ever seen. I'm not sure whether he's looked out to notice that about 2/3 of the audience is obviously not of Korean descent, but anyway, people get excited again and off they go into 3-4 more songs from the latest record. We dance, we enjoy the energy. "KAAHM-SAH-HAAM-NEEE-DAAH!" The lead singer says. Then he coyly sings, "what's wrong with a little destruction?" to the crowd, and we sing along, and I'm somehow reminded of the fact that we're only about 50 km from the DMZ. I enjoy myself, but I can't decide what it is that feels weird to me about this set. All I can think is how I wish I'd been around to see the Kinks in their early days and Blondie at their height of fame.

11:00pm
A good proportion of the foreigner crowd takes off after Franz Ferdinand, though some hang around for a late night DJ coming on after one last set on the 2nd stage. We notice that the Korean characters for the name of the final band on the 2nd stage, when sounded out, are "Heh-dou-eeg" and "Ahn-ga-lee-een-chueh". Sure enough:



How surreal is it to see the Korean version of a set of songs about an East German transsexual-glam-punk rocker (who wears a cape that says "Yankee Go Home... With Me")? Answer: not surreal at all. In fact, it was the realest thing we'd seen all day.

Trip Diary: Nicole and Yvon (pt. 1)

July 29th, 6:55am:
Jim and I jump in a cab, and I quickly learn the word for "train" (열차 or "yeolcha") to get us to the Ulsan train station to meet Nicole and Little Nicole. We board, Jim sleeps, and I play rock-paper-scissors with Little Nicole for most of the trip to Seoul.

Our route includes stops in Gyeongju, Daegu, Gimcheon, and Daejon. Nicole and Little Nicole leave at Suwon (about a 1/2 hour before Seoul) for their short vacation to Everland Water Park. Jim and I get off at the end of this train's line - crossing the Han River into Seoul Station at 12:45pm.

After a quick bowl of train station bebimbap, we navigate our way to Hongdae - a hip arty university area where our hosts, Yvon and Michelle, live. We rest for awhile, getting to know Michelle and their tiny dog, Kinky, while we await Yvon's return from a big grocery trip. Seoul native Michelle has seen more of Canada than most Canadians we know (and yeah, she's been to Iqaluit). She loves Shediac, in particular.

3:30pm
Yvon comes home, we drink some truly excellent coffee, then set out for a little tour of the 'hood. I buy a ring from a local art student that features a bronze bit moulded from a rippled potato chip for 12,000 won. Lots of open air arty markets going on here.

6:45pm
Michelle's made a big pot of spaghetti for tonight's potluck and guitar party. A few friends arrive, bringing either guitars or food. We're introduced to an excellent drink - red needles (tequila, cranberry, and lime... how come I never thought of that before?! It just seems so deliciously obvious to put those tastes together). We each have a couple. Or a few.

The guys break out some Canadian acoustic standards - Rogers, Cohen (who reportedly loves red needles), Cockburn, Young. But the feature of the night has to be Jim and Yvon bonding over a whole lotta Waterboys tunes.

A friend of Michelle's drops by and the ladies chat in the kitchen while the Maritime kitchen party continues in the living room.

Good friends, good food, and good drinks. Welcome to Seoul!