Jens, Söderlund and all the Swedes

It's fall, but it's sort of a bleached fall, washed out is the sky and there's an odd quiet going around. I'm comfortably happy, well not completely comfortable, but comfortable enough, slightly elated, sort of like floating in this bleached out calm and looking forward to every moment I'll spend with a certain girl.
But getting to the title of this post, I've been listening to a lot of the Swedes, especially jj, and also Tough Alliance, good old Jens, Honeydrips, Air France. It's all connected and it's all pretty, and labeled Balearic Pop, which I'm not quite sure I understand but it has something to do with the beats or the sound. But getting to Söderlund, he makes some pretty fitting videos to all this music, and let's take a look.



That was Sipping on the Sweet Nectar by Jens Lekman. As wistful as it gets, I guess.
Another -



As simple as it is, this is my favorite. The Honeydrips - I Wouldn't Know What to Do




Air France - Collapsing At Your Door Step
Sorta like a dream...



Just a couple of Swedish dudes on a scooter.



This one isn't from Soderlund, but these guys are what I've been listening to the most, lately. jj - My Swag, My Life

And here's their version of a famous TV theme song, set to an odd slow mo of a tennis player.



That's all.

Last Weekend

This past weekend was not nearly as crazy as the Chuseok weekend, but it was good nonetheless. On Friday I was just going to stay in, but my friend Harry called and we went out for drinks in Geumjeong.

Saturday I did some work in the morning for the Sunday class in Sanbon that I'm a leader of and then I met a friend to go see a movie in Yongsan. There's a movie theater with English subtitles there and we went to see a new Korean movie about a guy with Lou Gehrig's Disease. The English title is "Closer to Heaven"
It was pretty sadcore, but not bad and the actor lost a lot of weight for his role, which is really admirable. After the movie, my "friend" and me^^ went to eat and then coffee then we headed home. was it a date? yeah, maybe, yeah okay, I think it was.

On Sunday, I went to Sanbon early to do a little reading and then to the Friends study where I'm a leader. I really don't care because they are all my friends, so I don't mind helping out. We review the vocabulary for the episode of Friends and then watch it and then discuss. After that we go out for dinner and drinks. The girl I met Saturday was there too, so that was good. And well, yeah, it would have been cool to go to a film festival in Busan, but the weekend was really cool for just staying close to home.

Chuseok Part 2

Does anyone know how to upload pictures so that they fall in with the text and not at the start? I was getting annoyed with dragging the pictures down through the text every time I uploaded, so I started a new post.

On Sunday, we went to Lotte World. It's sort of the Korean answer to Disney World and while Everland is great with its zoo and its T Express, Lotte World has some really scary rides, and I rode ALL of them. HAHAHAHAHA!

I guess in these past couple weeks, I threw out all my past fears of amusement park rides. Because I rode this.I'm not sure at what angle that camera is being held, but let's just say the thing went really high, and spun in circles. I also rode a thing called Bungee Drop, and Atlantis, both of which have had people experience horrible accidents on, including death.

We had a really good time at Lotte World. There's not much else to say, but here are a couple of pics.Before riding the Waikiki WaveEveryone at the Magic Kingdom say Heyyy OHHH!
From the left, Wang Feng's husband, Wang Feng, Stephanie, Me, Ting Ting, and Chris
And this guy is just awesome

All and all it was a great weekend and I had a blast.

Chuseok Part 1

October 3, 4, and 5 was the Chuseok holiday, similar to our Thanksgiving. I didn't get to pig out on squash and meat but I did get to have a really great weekend.
It started Thursday night, actually, when I went to my friend Katie's apartment and our Chinese friends came over to cook us some delicious Chinese food. The 2nd was China Day, the new China's official birthday. I learned how to play Go Stop also. It's a traditional Korean card game. Katie and her boyfriend, Soo playing Go StopSome Go Stop CardsTing Ting and Wang Feng, at work in the kitchen
Delicious Chinese Food

On Friday I went to visit Ryan in Dongducheon along with my friend Katie. Katie, Soo and I took a bus from Suwon which took way too long, but was probably a little more comfortable than the train. We had a pretty good time, but my brother still annoys me adn there were some tense moments. Frankly, I'm a little upset that he went to a film festival this past weekend without inviting me, but that's neither here nor there. What did we do in Dongducheon? We played Go Stop, taught Ryan how to play, ate some western food and I went home in the evening and Katie went out to Uijeongbu to meet her boyfriend's family. Ryan and I both had plans to meet friends in the morning. Ryan went to Lotte World and I met my friends to go to Gyeonbok Palace in Seoul.

I had been to Gyeongbokgung before with my dad, but I didn't mind going back. It's a cool place and I did a few new things this time like go to the museum and to some cool old timey Korean village.Da Palace
All the kids looked cute in the traditional Korean dress, "Hanbok"I had to try on the Hanbok, myself and random people came over to take pictures with me^^
I wish it was my part time job. I would gladly be the foreignor in Hanbok on weekends.Some old fashioned Go Stop CardsJoining hands and singing in a circle
After the Palace, we went back to Beomgye to eat BBQ. That's Ting TIng on the Left and Stephanie in the middle.Wang Feng with her husband who came to Korea for the weekend to visit.
We went to Noraebang after BBQ and took a lot of pictures, but this one pretty much sums it up.

Thank You Everland!

It was a great weekend. Friday night I met my friends Ting Ting and Wang Fang who are Chinese teachers and we ate some BBQ. Jessie and Rebecca came too and I was the only guy for a while, which wasn't a bad thing at all. There was a big party going down in Beomgye and we watched some singers perform on a stage in the downtown area. We went to the bar after that and sat down for beer, but when the beer came I was too tired and didn't feel like drinking anymore, so I went home. Also, I had to meet my brother because he was coming to stay the night at my place BECAUSE we were going to meet my friends at Suwon Station at 8AM Saturday BECAUSSSE we were all going to go to EVERLAND!

Saturday, I dragged my self and a half hour later, my brother, out of bed and went to Suwon Station to meet my chingoos. I thought were were taking a bus, but we rode in a van to Everland, one of three popular amusement parks in Korea. This was my second time to go to Everland. We arrived at about 930. (Ko's Friend Mi Nae(??), Ko, Yeni, and Me)


Everyone wanted to ride the T Express first. It has the title of 'The steepest wooden roller coaster in the WORLD.' I was scared because I don't like roller coasters or high places, but I was too tired to care too much, so I walked my death walk to through cute animal areas where skunks and meerkats slept near each other and lions had morning 'relations'.
We got to the T Express and it wasn't running! I felt the day get better and we went to ride the 'Amazon' instead, which is like the rapids at six flags. Circular raft that goes through a river and splash splash. I'd done it before, you don't get that wet. But that's alright cuz it was morning and the fall air is a little chilly these days. We went back over to T Express and surprise surprise! It opened at 1030, so it was now running. Well, ****. Anyway, I did it. We waited in line and found a good place to take pictures. There was even a bag on the ground so we could look fashionable.
Ko and Me in line for T Express
The ladies, looking cute.And Ryan being crazy...

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that everyone but Ko go animal ears after the Amazon ride. This is us being our animals.


Man, blogger is giving me trouble. Anyway, we rode T Experess and I closed my eyes during those 77 degree drops, but overall it wasn't bad, but I did duck down for fear of losing my giraffe head.
After that we rode bumper cars and smashed then we ate some hamburgers. It was good and bad to ride T Express first. Good because it was morning and the line wait wasn't long, and there wasn't time to build up stress about it but bad because after it, nothing was quite as exciting. There's one other roller coaster in Everland, but it was down for repairs. But we did the Hurricane which is kind of a cross between a Tilt A Whirl and the rocking pirate boat. Oh and we did some lame haunted house rides that were for Halloween. Haunted house wasn't scary at all and there was a thing called a rotating house that was just silly. You barely even move. And we went through the "Global Village" which was rife with stereotypes and to my friend Katie's dismay did not mention Canada. It's like the spelunker or now yosemite sam ride at six flags where you ride a little boat through a cave. And Africans are savages and Americans are football players or they wear stars and strips forever costumes and oh joy! After that we rode the log ride, which was short but sweet. While waiting in line, I saw a girl with giraffe ears and my friends got her attention so we could take a picture together.
We rode the Safari because Ryan really wanted to see the Liger
OH yeah, and another Ryan joined our group. He got there a little later than us, but here he is not looking very happy. He told us that 90% of American say ain't. Yeah, right...

Well, so yeah, there were a lot of fun rides and we rode them. Haha. After the Safari we had to hurry over to the Magic Cat Show, that's right. Magic. Cat. Show. I wish I could have taken home one of the posters for it. It had a black and white cat wearing a bow tie and top hat and holding a cane and dancing. Ameowzing. Well, we got to the cat show about fifteen minutes early and Ryan and me went to the bathroom. We get back and the thing is roped off. I try to tell the guy at the rope that our friends are inside, but he just kind of yells at me and won't let us back in. I get really angry and call my friends to come help us out. They come and tell the dude, but the guy is being a dick and I see my day being ruined before my eyes. It was really a ridiculous policy because there were families where a husband or wife was showing up a little late and being kept from going in. It was like the Berlin Wall all over again. Really, it was. But most Koreans were just ducking under the rope and the guy wasn't saying anything or stopping them. It was frustrating because we couldn't do anything because we're white and kind of stand out, ya know. Finally, more of my friends came out and talked to they guy. He was still being an ***hole, but my friends told me that he said we should wait and they would let us in the back. So, we got let in the back. Yesterday I went onto the Everland site to complain about this incident, but there was no contact email or anything. Bastards! I was livid, but as the magic cat show music came on, which was like the music you'd hear before a basketball game mixed with intermittent strangled meows, I couldn't help but crack up and laugh all the BS away. The cat show was short and sort of thrown together, but who am I to complain about a Magic Cat Show. It was less magic and more show and cats jumped high and went through obstacles, and a couple of the cats were like, screw this, and just ran away, so the people on stage were visibly nervous, but that made it even better. They brought out a monkey at one point and the show finished with a dog. A DOG! That was pretty ridiculous. If you're gonna call it Magic Cat Show. Stick with cats. Dogs do tricks all the time. If anything just let the kitties hang out on stage. We want to see kitties!After the cat show, we ate a lackluster dinner and ran over to the Viking Boat to ride it. I wanted to stay on it all night, but we wanted to see the fireworks, so our tired feet ran to the fireworks locale. After fireworks we dragged ourselves to the buses and went to Suwon station then home. Ryan and I got home around midnight.

Sunday, we slept in and went to get donuts. Then, I saw Ryan off because I had a date. I met my girl and we went to a movie, dinner, hang out on a bench ^.~

It was a great weekend. Now I'm back at school. No classes today and fun classes tomorrow and Wednesday because the kids need to loosen up before exams next week. We'll sing and play a game and talk. Chuseok is this weekend and I get a four day holiday, I think. Maybe five? I'm not sure yet. I'll go visit Ryan and maybe go to another theme park next weekend. I'll try to bring my camera this time, because all these pictures are mooched off my friends' facebook pages.

Importants

Radio is important. I'm not talking about clear channel corporates who shovel out the same manufactured bands every hour every day like clockwork. And I'm not going to pretend like I know everything about NPR and talk radio. But there are a select few radio programs out there that are and have been doing some important stuff. This American Life has been around for over ten years but it upholds all the originality of its first shows. Ira Glass is calming and charming and sometimes he puts me to sleep, but I can't name a TV show that is as engrossing as one story from this show. Take one I just listened to, Kindness of Strangers. One of the stories took us back to Harlem and the Renaissance that happened there and you are transplanted there, your imagination fires up and you want to be part of something like that and where is that happening today?
Then there's Radiolab. It simply makes science interesting. It's like listening to a movie and it's so aurally inventive that you can forget everything going on around you. Two days ago I listened to one of their short podcasts where we learned that what we see might not be what we think we see because our eyes have yellowed over the years and children, babies have such pure lenses that the world is a bright blue blur to them.
I don't tune in to either of these shows, I subscribe to the podcasts along with ones available from the New Yorker. I suggest you download iTunes and listen to them too.

La Bamba

Had a great weekend. Saturday was an event for ESC, the group that I'm a part of that regularly meets in Sanbon. Hung out with all my Korean buds and a couple foreigners. We dressed in sharp threads, ate cheese and drank wine and listened to strings and danced to K Pop. It was classy and fun. ESC is a group started to help Koreans learn English but it's also to bring the people together (duh). And the founders are trying to spread it all over the Earth. That's right, they got plans for a world takeover. The party ended around 9 and I headed back to Anyang with the homies. We hit up Garten Bier for a couple pitchers and then went to Noraebang until about 2.
Yesterday I met my friend for her birthday and we went to Namsan Tower together, then a cafe, then walked around Myeongdong and found dinner. Myeongdong, so many people. There was a Mexican band at Namsan Tower and they played La Bamba which was AWESOME.
Back at school, gonna teach in about thirty, it's all good.