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Week 20 (July 10th to July 16th) |
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Monday July 11th, I had one of my top five weirdest Korea nights for sure tonight! Jason was babysitting Tommy (our boss' son) because Fran's (our head teacher) father died and Sue and her husband were attending the funeral. We had planned on having a jam session with Evan in preparation for our gig at Commune, so I showed up at Jason's, and as it turned out, Sue's husband wanted to
take Jason out for a couple of drinks after they picked up Tommy. This was pretty strange in itself, because it seems pretty odd to be taken out by our boss' husband. Unfortunately, I was an innocent victim! Because I was there at the wrong place and
time, I got roped into going too. And unfortunately, you just do not say no to figures of authority here. It's unheard of. So Jason and I got stuck going to a bar with Sue's husband (who was already somewhat drunk), another very very drunk businessman, and (this
is the best part) the father of two of our morning kindergarten students! It was up there with the most uncomfortable situations to be in EVER!! The funniest part was that after the bar, they wanted to go to a noraebang (singing room), so we not only got roped into going out for drinks, we got roped into singing like fools with three drunk businessmen who directly influence our job security! And to top it all off-- Sue's husband wants to take Jason and I out for a fancy steak dinner on Wednesday night--and we're not supposed to tell Sue! Definitly an only in Korea kind of night . . .
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Tuesday July 12th, We have run into a serious problem with our gig at Commune. The owner called today and said that he wants us to play this Saturday (the 16th) instead of the following Saturday. This poses a major problem because 1) Mike will not be in Thailand and 2) we already asked Evan to play. Now we've got ourselves in a real pickle because Jason and I don't want to un-ask Evan (we've already started playing with him, and he was so excited when we asked him), but Mike is decidely pissed off that we would even consider not playing the gig with him (despite the fact that he's been screwing up really badly lately, what with not learning tunes and simply falling apart during performance). So here's what we are trying to do�we want to play one set with Mike and one set with Evan.
I think it's the only fair solution, but I think that we're headed for our first "Drums Is No" meltdown!
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Thursday July 14th, I had another one of my cab adventures last night. Honestly, I don't know why I have such bad cab karma!
I was leaving funk band rehearsal really late, about 2am. I hailed a cab, and told him Chilgok Home Plus, as per usual. He started driving, and I didn't recognize where he was going, so I said "Chilgok, ne?" (Ne means yes, that's the best I could do with my
minimal Korean). He said, "Ne, ne". This exchange happened about three more times, when I started seeing signs for Manchon, which is in the opposite direction from Chilgok. He pulled over the cab to ask another cab driver a question, and I said "Anio (No). Chilgok
Home Plus" The cab driver said "Ohhhhh, Chilgok Home Plus" and finally started going in the right direction. My whole cab fare was 17,000 won, which is about 10,000 won more than it should have been. At 2:30am, I was more than a little pissed off, but I
didn't know how to say in Korean that I wouldn't pay that much so I ended up paying it anyway. Most Koreans are really friendly and honest, but I hate that some of them know that they can totally take you for a ride and you won't be able to do anything about it.
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Saturday July 16th, Tonight was our gig at Commune. There weren't a lot of people there because there is a mud festival on the
west coast this weekend that a lot of our friends went to, but the people who were there loved the band, and we were very well received, by Koreans and Weguks (Westerners) alike. Mike managed to hold it together fairly well (Jason and I were babysitting him all day, making sure that he didn't have anything to drink, and that he wasn't smoking too much), and Evan's set sounded great, so all in all, a success. Afterwards to celebrate, we reaped the benefits of free pitchers of beer (our payment for the show), and then went
dancing til 7 am!
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