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Sunday:Another salsa workshop, this one quite difficult, butawesomely hard work! And of course, more school workfor me-- writing, writing, writing is all I do thesedays. My apartment hasn't been cleaned in 2 weeks,and I've barely slept! I wish there were more hoursin every day . . . |
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Tuesday:So I started yet another private student today. Thisone was recommended to me by one of my collegestudents. He goes by the name "Sage" (why on earthhe chose that name of all names, I have no idea!), andhe did a year of college in the US, so he speaksperfect English. Sage actually started as a jazzpianist, but there's something wrong with his eyes,and he's now had several surgeries, but nothing'shelping-- he's nearly blind now. So he gave up piano,but decided that singing was something he could pickup without his eyes. It's kind of sad, as he's apretty talented guy.Anyway, I may have to start turning down privates, asI'm starting to get a little over-extended! |
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Friday:The Jarasum Jazz Festival is this weekend! This is anannual 5 day festival that takes place on a littleisland about an hour and a half east of Seoul. Jarameans turtle in Korean, and this refers to the factthat the island is sinking, and during periods of highrain, only the top part or"shell" of the island isabove water.As for the festival, there's usually several big nameplayers that draw out a big crowd. This year, thehighlight for me was Kurt Elling, who is one of myfavourite singers, and in my opinion, the best malevocalist of this generation. I was super excited! But of course, as usual, getting myself there was noeasy task. No English bus information online, so Ienlisted the help of Kwon Hyun, who was notparticularly helpful. He didn't find any informationout for me until this morning, about half an hourbefore I had to leave! I did actually make it on thebus without any trouble after that, and it was atraffic-free ride to Jarasum. The festival usuallyhas some exhibitions, and "party" stages and extrastuff to keep people entertained, and I was very veryearly, so I spent a couple hours just looking around. Eventually I ran into my former student So Young and Ijoined her group. Around this time it started torain. And when I say rain, I mean pour. And when Isay pour, I mean it was a frickin typhoon! Seriously. . . By the time the first band actually startedplaying, everyone was completely drenched, even withumbrellas and raincoats. And the stage-- so notwaterproof! You could see the rain dumping all overit. To protect the musicians and the gear, there weretents set up over the band, but this apparently wasn'thelping much, because the monitors kept on cracklingand dying, and having to be changed (oh so safe in thepouring rain, no chance of electrocution at all [addsarcastic tone]), plus there was a crew member onstagethe whole time holding an umbrella over the pianist'sback, and the bass player had to wipe the rain off hisbass between every song. Despite all of this, therewas still a good size crowd of very wet people there,and by the time Kurt Elling got onstage, everyone wasdrenched but yelling their lungs out. So Kurt startsout, and he turns out to be this kind of geeky, cuteguy who looks like someone's dad, and is wearing abaseball cap and cargo pants. Then he opens hismouth, and it's like, damn, he's amazing! In typicalKorean fashion, he got the rock star treatment,despite the fact that by this time, we were all ankledeep in muddy water. Kurt and his band must havethought that the situation was a hilariously surrealas I did, because a) they all had look of disbeliefthat there were people in the audience at all withthese conditions and b) they were taking pictures ofus, ie the audience from onstage! I'm sure no onewill be forgetting this show anytime soon. As for me. . . my purse is still inside out being blown dry bymy fan, and if I don't get sick, it'll be a minormiracle. And was it worth it? Definitely! |
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