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Week 27 - Y2 (Sept 3rd to Sept 9th) |
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Sunday Sept 3rd,
Today we went to the private Posco beach that can only
be used by Posco employees (since Jason works for one
of their schools, that includes him) It's
conveniently tucked away from the unsightly steel
mills that plague the shores of the downtown core--
Posco employees don't deserve the pollution, but
apparently everyone else in Pohang does . . . Anyway
the beach was disgusting. There was garbage all over
the place, and there was some kind of black sludge
that had either been dumped on the shore, or was
seeping up from the water, none of us were sure. In
any case, it obviously wasn't supposed to be there.
However, it was a really nice day again, not too hot,
pretty clear skies, so we lounged around on the beach
for awhile and played some Frisbee. I forgot my
sunscreen, so I'm a little seared around the edges now
. . .
Then Jason came back with me on the bus to Seoul, so
that he could pick up Stephanie from the airport on
Monday. Again, more "Lost" was watched on the bus
ride-- amazing how quickly 5 hours can go by . . .
I'm going to have to get myself some of that
downloaded onto my computer ASAP . . .
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Tuesday Sept 5th,
Tonight Kenji had a gig at All That Jazz in Itaewon
with an American guy and his Korean wife who both
graduated from Berklee and Manhattan School, and now
run a jazz college in Seoul. So I went to check it
out, curious to meet more musicians, and ended up
sitting in for a few songs. It was fun-- good
players, nice people. Kenji has been really good
about introducing me to lots of other players and
always inviting me to sit in on gigs and stuff.
Also good-- up until now I've been sleeping on a
mattress on the floor in my apartment, mostly because
I'm too cheap to buy a real bed. But now that Kenji
and his fiance have moved into a new apartment, they
have an extra bed that Kenji is going to give me!
This hopefully means the end to my chronic backpains .
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Wednesday Sept 6th,
My jazz choir in Seoul is so good! Not only are they
good readers, but they have already adapted to my
requests from last week re: sound and vowel placement.
I wish every single one of my students were like this
. . .
Saoh (the drum teacher who I meet once a week to
practise English with) offered me a gig for Friday
night, out in the Sillim neighbourhood (about 15
minutes from my neighbourhood). I gladly accepted.
But Saoh for some reason felt that it should be a
secret from Jae, although I know that Jae would have
no problem with it, since he's always encouraged me to
get gigs. Ironically, about 10 minutes after I agreed
to do Saoh's gig, Jae knocked on my studio door and
asked me if I was free on Friday night for a gig! I
probably would have rather done Jae's gig (better
musicians, higher status club), but since I had
already agreed to Saoh's gig, I had to turn it down!
It's pretty unusual for other musicians to be booking
singers for gigs. Usually the singer has to go around
and hand out demos to club owners, get the gigs
themselves, and then they call other musicians and
book a band. But since I hate dealing with the
business end of stuff, having other people call me for
work instead suits me just fine!
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Friday Sept 8th,
Tonight was my gig with Saoh in Sillim-dong. Turns
out that Sillim is kind of the Korean ghetto, but as
far as ghettos go, it's pretty tame . . .
Anyway, the club was nice enough, terrible sound
system, but decent atmosphere. Saoh had had trouble
booking a bass player, so he had ended up having to
book a student from PaekChe. While he was good for a
student, he did have some trouble reading the charts
down accurately. The pianist was good though. Sitting
right in front of the stage was this table of
incredibly drunk middle-aged people, who were a source
of amusement and annoyance. They were loud and kind
of distracting, and at one point, I thought that one
of them was going to throw up on the stage!
Fortunately she made it to the bathroom. But hey, all
this aside, a gig is a gig, and at the end of the day
I still got paid! |
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Saturday Sept 9th,
I had been planning to go to Ulsan to visit Mark and
Miranda, and to have a campout beach party. However,
when I woke up, it was pouring rain and it was
actually pretty cold. It took about two minutes for
me to decide that there was no way that I was going to
travel for five hours on a bus to go freeze my ass off
on some muddy beach. And since I had been away last
weekend, I wasn't really in the mood for a big night
out anyway. So I spent the day lounging around my
apartment, and in the evening I went to a Thai
restaurant in Itaewon to meet up with Jenny and
Annabelle, and Annabelle's friend Sean. I was pretty
nervous about going to a Thai restaurant, what with
the peanut thing, but I figure if I'm planning on
going to Thailand in December, I'm going to have to
deal with it then. The restaurant was really nice,
and is owned by a foreigner, who was great about
making sure that the food I had ordered was
peanut-safe. After dinner, Jenny took us to this bar
called Nana, which was lovely. Lots of avant-garde
art, funky drawings on the walls, low seats with
cushions, a dj playing good house music . . . why
didn't I know about this place until tonight? There
was also going to be a live funk band playing later,
but we didn't stay late enough to see them. I did
keep the flyer though, because the name of the
keyboard player seems really familiar to me, and I
have the feeling that I may know him from Toronto . .
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We left around midnight, and I got home just before
one, which was really nice. It feels great to have a
fun night out that doesn't have to last ALL night.
While I obviously have no problem with staying out all
night once in awhile, I hate that my Sundays always
get wasted sleeping. So it's nice that I have friends
now who aren't always up for an all-night binge.
Turns out that Jenny and Annabelle are also planning
to be in Southeast Asia for their winter vacation, so
looks like I have some more travelling partners . . .
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