Incheon Pentaport Rock Festival

This weekend we went to Incheon to the Pentaport Rock Festival. It was a three-day festival with mostly Korean and Japanese bands, but a few British Bands performed. It was more about the atmosphere than the music anyway...


We left around noon on Saturday and took the bus into Seoul, then another bus into Incheon. (Stopped for Quizno's in Seoul. How long has it been since I had a proper sandwich! It was heavenly.) We finally got to the festival around 4:30 and were fitted with three orange wristbands, each allowing us a different privelige. Found a spot in the grass (very long grass...trust us to find the only spot that hadn't been mowed) and set up our tent.

It looks huge, I know. But the actual tent part is only a third of what you see. The rest is a waterproof tarp that you strap up to keep the rain off...and it provides you with a nice rest area outside the tent. Or if you're Shaun, a place to sleep where you can stretch out your long legs.

The first night there was only one band that we knew, Ocean Colour Scene. Incedentally I had seen them when I lived in Scotland, just randomly was offered a ticket and, being the music lover I am, did not decline it. So I feel like I should download some of their music and get to know them better. Two random meetings in foreign countries? Sounds like a sign to me. Anyway, here's a picture of their performance with a random British flag from the audience.

The headliner that night was a band called L'arc en Ciel from Japan. We didn't really watch them for very long, but they did have a dancing polar bear projected onto the large screens on stage. Not sure what that was about.

Since the bands that night were generally X we chose to hang out at the beach party section instead.

This bar sold soju jello!

And here's us groovin' under a palm tree.

Here's Hanna in a dance-off with a random guy. He was "very bouncy."

After the beach party we went to the Groove Station tent where they had a dj. I don't usually like that type of music, but I was really getting into it. We squeezed our way right into the middle of the crowd and at one point they played a re-mix of a Nirvana song and everyone started moshing. I felt like I was in grade 9 again.

It was about 2 when we went back to the tent, and after some antics involving ditches and raw bacon sandiwiches we all crashed. Next day was really hot and humid and we mostly layed around the tent area listening to the mainstage. It was unbearable to watch it close up. Mostly death metal. Not our cup of tea.

Sunday evening we saw Ash, a band from Northern Ireland, and Muse, who Shaun really likes. They put on an amazing show. Lots of special effects and though I wouldn't normally have loved their music, the atmosphere was contagious. I thought some of the Korean girls were going to faint they were screaming so much. Here's a picture of Shaun enjoying his favourite song.

By the time Muse was finished the busses home had stopped running so we had to get a taxi back to Suwon. Thank god it didn't take us 4 hours to get home like it did to get there in the first place.

It was a great weekend though. The food was really good and the drink was cheap, the company without flaw. My capacity for joy is still every-widening.

I'll leave you with somemore t-shirt wisdom. This time from a girl at the village last week.

"Give juicy a chance."

Mud Festival

July 21st and 22nd were spent at the Boryeoung Mud Festival. Great time was had by all. We left early in the morning and took the train to Daechon Beach, the best beach on Korea's west coast. And compared the only other west coast beach I've seen here, it was paradise. In fact, compared to many other beaches I've been on at all it was amazing. Miles and miles of gorgeous white sand.

So the point of the Mud Festival is, of course, the mud. It is rich in minerals and whatnot that are really good for your skin, so they harvest it and make cosmetics and shampoo and stuff out of it, and once a year have a festival celebrating it. We were expecting miles of mud to roll in, but were disappointed to find out that it was trucked in to the beach. Well actually, it was manufactured. They dry and grind the mud into dust and then add water to make...clean mud. It's the same dust they use to make the cosmetics. Anyway, despite the fact that we couldn't roll in the mud like we wanted to, we still had a great time.

After getting off the train and squeezing onto a bus with other mud-goers (and lots of foreigners. We felt really weird and exposed knowing people around us could understand what we were saying. Not something we're used to.) we managed to find our hotel. The Motel Coconuts. Don't you love the neon palm tree?

Here's a picture of me posing in the room. What style! And I am of course refering to the wallpaper.

After checking in and getting changed we headed for the beach. Our first stop was the "Mud Self Massage." Which really means...painting yourself with mud.

Here's Shaun in the process.

And Hannah.

And my finished product.

The first day we spent just wandering around and checking out the various mud-related activities. They had a mud bath, a huge pool of muddy water that you would go in and splash eachother and do belly-flops and stuff. It wasn't very pleasant as I kept getting gritty mud in my mouth and eyes. And when we went in it was full of macho American army guys who kept trying to wrestle the Koreans. Didn't make it very fun for anyone else. There was also mud wrestiling, which Hannah and I meant to do, but kinda ran out of time. There was a huge inflatable slide that we went down on the second day. There was a guy with an inner tube at the bottom to catch people as they came down and I just ran right over him and flew off into the sand. A large group of Koreans was gathered at the bottom and they all gasped in horror. I stood up and said "I'm OK!" but no one laughed. It was pretty smooth anyway.

Once we were tired of the mud we sat on the sand and played around and had some beers. We sculpted a mud ddong (have I explained ddong yet? Its a curly pile of poo that Koreans seem to be fond of drawing, making musicals about, putting on t-shirts...)

And we also buried Shaun in a hole in the sand. That's me standing on him.

That night we went for seafood. What else would you eat while on a sea-side adventure? We ended up getting a meal that consisted mostly of raw fish and seafood. It was really delicious. There were some bits that we didn't eat...we weren't really sure what they were, and they didn't have any taste really. Hannah described it as "eating a rubber band without the rubber taste." So we left those on the plate. And the grilled fish you see here, the only cooked sea-thing, was really yummy until I bit into this one piece that must have been intestine or something because it was the most rank thing I have ever put in my mouth. I thought I was going to die it tasted so bad. I spat it out on the floor (it was an outdoor restaraunt) and wouldn't touch the fish after that. But everything else was really amazing. Even eating is an adventure in Korea!

After supper we got some wine and sat on the beach to watch the sunset.

It was a really amazing sunset. Something about watching the sun sink beyond the waves... I think I have about 30 pictures of it.

We stayed out pretty late that night, just wandering the beaches, enjoying the fireworks and the atmosphere.

Fireworks were actually X, but there were so many people setting them off it was impossible to stop them. They had these teenaged boys patrolling the beach with lighted batons...I think you can actually see one of them in this photo...telling people to stop, but there were too many fireworks and not enough batons. We set some off and a baton came over and said "Fire No!" But we just waited until he was gone and then set off the rest of them.

We met some random Koreans as well and sat with them for a long time. The one in the middle kept telling me I am "Glamour." and making the curvy motion with his hands. I'm guessing it was meant to be a compliment. He took my phone number and said he was going to call me and drive the 4 hours to Suwon to visit me. So far no call... and I can't say I'm disappointed.

The second day was spent much like the first. We tryed to go to the tidal mud flats that were the source of all the mud, but couldn't get a straight answer from any of the help desks as to how that would be possible. And the raw fish from the night before caught up with us and we made immodium our new best friend... But there was much swimming and painting and rubbing ourself with sand. The exfoliating sand mixed with the nourishing mud made us all baby-soft by the end of the weekend! But also very sunburned, as it's hard to keep sunscreen on between the mudding and sanding. Hannah and I got mud facials and massages and I bought some of the mudpack. I can't wait to use it, my face felt so amazing afterward!

After the day on the beach we changed and went for beef galbi (barbeque). It was the best thing I have ever tasted. Maybe because it's been so long since I had good beef. But it was just incredible. And we left right after supper, leaving Dacheon on a great note. Train ride home was uneventful as trains go. Except for the sunburns that started to come out...I managed to escape anything too bad except for on my back where I couldn't reach myself. But Shaun and Hannah were both like giant lobsters.

I don't have any picture yet of the second day because we bought a disposable camera so we wouldn't have to worry about wrecking out digitals. But once we get those developed, I'll post some if they are any good. If you want to see the rest of the pics from the first day, go to my facebook album at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=37237&l=aff4d&id=890700076

Rock festival this weekend! I can't imagine what stories will come from that!

From the Mouths of Babes

Each week we make our teams write journals to find out what they thought of the school, what they liked, who were their favourite teachers, etc. And also to fill up a homeroom class. Sometimes if they finish before the class is over I get them to draw pictures of their favourite teachers.

I've had some pretty interesting comments about and pictures of me since I started, and thought I would share some of them with you. And a few of the funnier comments about me and about the school.

"My favourite teacher is Shanda because Shanda is cute and funny I love Shanda teacher. and another teacher some love."

"I was feeling so fun when I come to Suwon English Village. and now, I feeling interesting."

"Some pepol says 'would you like to come back to SWEV?' my ancer is....mmm...sure!"

"My favourite teacher is Shanda. She has many patient we provoke she~bet she not admonish."

"My favourite teacher is Shanda teacher because Shanda teacher is kind and funny and not angry. I like every class because English village classes is all cool. I like cool."

"I'm favourite teachers Shanda because we teach study excellence! and laugh beautiful ha ha ha!!"

"My favourite teacher is Shanda because she old time with us also very kind and pretty and so so funny."

This is one of my favourites. Exorcist Shanda.

Questions I Find Myself Asking

Since beginning my life here in Korea, I've noticed that there things, mysteries if you will, that keep popping up but are never really solved. Or...themes...that keep recurring. So, in order to give you a glimpse into my day to day life, I present a list of questions I find myself asking on a regular basis:

1. Why would you want a heated toilet seat when it is 35 degrees outside?

2. What did I just say!? (to students who are continuing to do things I have told them not to do.)

3. What is that smell?

4. What exactly am I eating?

5. What's for lunch? (followed a disappointed groan when I read the day's menu for the caffeteria. Does the phrase very many oil suffice to describe it? Almost.)

6. What is that smell?

7. Whose file is this? (to a group of students who are rushing to get out of the classroom to make it to the snack machine first but who will inevitably come knocking on the staff room door demanding to have their file returned to them.)

8. Who does have the right of way? Aren't cars supposed to give way for pedestrians? (which is evidently not the case. I have to get rid of this belief if I'm to survive the year here.)

9. What can I buy at homeplus today? (like a little chunk of normalcy, Homeplus is the department store down the street where you can buy pretty much anything you need with minimum amounts of stress. Sometimes we go there just for fun. And I find myself thinking of when my Grandpa used to say "If you can't get it at the Bankend Co-op, you don't need it. " Same goes for Homeplus.)

10. Seriously, WHAT IS THAT SMELL!!!!!????

11. Why did I drink so much soju? WHY!?

12. WHAT are you staring at!? (usually while walking down the street or doing something completely normal)

13. Could this be any more random?

and finally,

14. Come on now, will someone PLEASE tell me what smell is?



While I have just realized this paints maybe a very pessimistic picture of life here, please don't take it that way. With a few grains of my unfailling sense of humour, all these things just become part of the charm of life in Korea.

Peace out.

Another weekend...but this one had chocolate in it

Hello all. Another weekend has passed. Not too much to report from it, however, as I was working all day Saturday and spent Sunday in bed with a cold/sore throat/exhaustion. Went out for Chinese food and soju on Friday night, which did not help me to survive my six day work week. Or help me fend off my cold, I'm sure.

Watched the lasest episode of Canadian Idol and almost cried when we found out that the three best people on the show did not make in to the top 10. We might not even keep watching it, as there is no one interesting left to look for.

Our three weeks of no chocolate is over. We had icecream at 11pm last night and I'm sad to say that it was not as good as I had hoped it would be. It might just be because of my cold I have no appetite at all and everything I ate yesterday was an effort. But I guess it would be a good thing if I didn't like chocolate anymore. Though, as I said before, a life without chocolate sounds like the saddest life imaginable. We'll have to see how I feel about it once I'm feeling better. Though I am losing weight, so maybe I shoud roll with it.

This weekend we are going to the Mud Festival. I'm really looking forward to it. I can't think of anything more fun that rolling around in mud for two days. There is also a foreigners singing contest that I might just take part in... I'm sure I'll have plenty of stories and pictures for you next Monday!

In the meantime I'm going to try to catch up on my sleep and get myself feeling better so I can enjoy it. Try to get my tonsils back to their normal size. I hope I won't have to do much yelling this week. What are the odds of that though?

Correction

So after doing some research on Boney M last night, we have discovered that the Boney M we saw is not in fact the original Boney M. The lead singer was the only one who was in the original group, the rest have been touring with her only since the 90's. So the muscley man I was raving about is not actually 60. Which makes his antics less impressive, but still pretty cool.

I didn't want to leave you with false impressions.

Shanda

Boney M!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I said Boney M. Could it be any more random?

It all started just before I arrived. One of my fellow teachers, Hannah, was suddenly accosted in the hallway of our apartment building by an over-friendly Korean lady. The lady took Hannah to her apartment and fed her yogurt and sang for her. She also gave her a photo of herself and a plant, which I inherited when I arrived (and have since killed, sadly.)

Since that night, the lady, who we have affectionately dubbed "the Crazy Lady" has been a regular in our lives. We will often sit in front of the convenience store on the ground floor of our building having a drink or playing cards. And it's pretty much a guarantee that she'll come along at some point in the evening. She's a wedding singer at a nearby hotel and is always either on her way to or from a gig. She'll always sit with us and take sips of our beer, help herself to our snacks, and usually give us presents.

Here she is with our beloved friend, the horse head. Every time she sees him she uses her favourite expression, "wow!"

Here she is with some flowers, which she seems to have an endless supply of, for she is constantly carrying some, not always in the freshest of states. Various stages of wilting and dying is more the norm.

Anyway, what does this have to do with Boney M, you ask? Well here is a picture of her latest present to us.

Yes, that is a ticket to see Boney M in concert. Now you may be saying "I didn't know Shanda was a fan of Boney M...." And I can't deny that before now I really wouldn't have called myself one. But I challenge you to find someone who would say they are against Boney M. And I'm sure everyone likes at least one of their songs. You have to enjoy their Christmas album if nothing else. They are just one of those bands that are just kinda...in the collective unconscious if you will. And I never would have thought "gee, life would be a lot better if I could just see Boney M in concert." But after last night, let me assure you, it is.

It was such a great show. They've been together for like 30 years, but you'd never guess that they were old enough to have been doing anything for 30 years. The man of the group was so buff and didn't stop dancing the entire night. He must be at least 50, but was bustin' a move like a teenager. Though his moves were slightly outdated, and not necesarilly suited to the song, it was impossible to take your eyes off of him. He was like....a disco MC Hammer or something. Here is doing one of his many acrobatic flips. Very impressive!

At onepoint he stood at the front of the stage flexing his pecs in time to the music while the singers stood around him in a Barker's Beauties manner, showcasing this little show. Hilarious.

He would run into the audience once in a while too and there would be women trying to grab him and screaming their heads off. (I have to admit here that I did my fair share of screaming...and I challenge anyone to imagine themselves in the same situation being able to contain themselves.)

They kept pulling people up from the audience to dance with them on stage. Here's a chubby middle-aged white guy with no rythym to none-the-less bravely danced on.

And some little Korean girls who seemed totally unfazed by being led in a dance routine by a half-naked gyrating man.

I could go on and on about how much fun this show was. Crazy I know. And so random. Boney M in Korea...but the crown knew all the songs and were totally going crazy.

Speaking of going crazy...here's a picture of me when they sang Rasputin. That's always been one of my "feel good" songs. You know, a song you play to pump yourself up or cheer you up when you're blue. So seing it live was quite the exciting moment.

I think one of us has some video of that song. If I can get my hands on it I'll post it for all to see.

All in all this was one of the best nights I've had in ages. Since the Juno's in fact. Though nothing will ever compare to the excitement and joy of that occasion, Boney M is right up there. I don't know if it's just that I have less stimulation here, so everything seems more exciting, or if I'm just getting to be a happier person. But I can safely say that I feel my capacity for pure joy is ever-widening since I landed here. And my tendency to give in to depression is shrinking. I hope it's something that lasts after I leave here...

And on that happy note! Thank you Crazy Lady! I will never grudge you a sip of beer or handful of chips ever again!

Another weekend has passed with it's fair share of fun. Have you noticed that I only ever sit down to write a blog post on Mondays? Usually because all of the fun happens on the weekend. I'm going to try to put together a "Day in the Life" soon, but in the meantime, here's what I did this weekend.

Friday we went into Seoul to eat Mexican food. An hour by bus for Mexican. I was missing the Taco Time on Idlewild, a short walk away at home... But anyway, it was very good, well worth the drive. But sadly my stomach was protesting all the spice it's been fed lately and I was not feeling well that day, so didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. A fruit smoothy from Smootie King soon made me feel better, however. After supper we went to a very posh bar to drink 10 dollar cocktails. Needless to say we only stayed for one, then it was back on the bus. After a long and tiring week we didn't even have the gumtion to find a noraebang. My first weekend in Korea that involved no karaoke.


Saturday I had to work. I volunteered to do level testing for the summer camp that our school is putting on this month, so while all my friends went shopping in Seoul, I spent 5 hours quizzing 12 year olds as to what their favourite food is and what they think is the biggest problem in Korea. It was alright though, much easier than a day at real work. And I get to trade it for a day off in the future, which might come in handy.

That evening we gathered to watch the last 3 episodes of Canadian Idol. I was very much enjoying my new discovery, Boones Sangria, and a good time was had by all. After the shows were over the two Brits, Hannah and Shaun, and I decided it would be a good idea to go for a swim in the fountain in the park across the street. 1am.

But it was a gorgeous night and the water was super warm. We were also trying out Shaun's new electric bug zapping tennis raquet. I know I know. Electronics in the water. What will you all think of my lack of common sense... It's the coolest invention though. An electrified metal screen where the strings should be, complete with a light for attracting the bugs. All you do is wave it around and it zaps them. We didn't get a single bite!



Here is the Lotte World Castle.

Sunday we went to Lotte World. It's an amusement park in Seoul, partly indoors. It had been closed all winter for repairs after several people died on the rides. But the spent many billion won fixing it up, and re-opened it a few weeks ago under the name of Lotte World 2. And it sure did look new and spiffy, let me tell you. I rode my first rollercoaster [pictured above](something I can now check of my list of things to do before I die) and many other terrifying rides. This was my first time at an amusement park and the whole "scary is fun" thing has never really been my way of thinking, but I have to admit it was actually tons of fun. Apart from this one ride called the Gyro Swing[pictured above]. It was just a huge pendulum with seats and it swung you and rotated and it was the scariest thing I have ever done in my life. You're horizontal to the groud (or the water, depending which way you're facing at the time) peering down as it swings back down and I honestly thought I was going to die. It lasts almost 2 minutes too, and by then end I just closed my eyes and held on for dear life. (We were securly strapped in, but it feels safer to hang on as well) Some of the others wanted to try it again but I didn't think my heart could take it. So we went to the haunted house instead. Much less scary.

I came across this Mountie walking around. Not sure if he was an employee of the park or just a wacky guy, but he was very shy about taking a picture with me. Mounties in Korea. Who woulda thunk.

And I've decided that after my teaching contract is up, I'm going to get a job doing this. Playing trombone in the Lotte World band.