Week 29- Y3(Sep 23rd to Sep 29th)
Sunday:Today Ben and Woo-ga came up from Daegu-- Ben'sparents and brother are coming for a visit, so theycame to meet them at the airport. So I met them for aMexican dinner in Itaewon, and I invited Dion along aswell. (Remember the friend of a friend of a friendthat I had shown around about a month ago? He was anice enough guy, but a little odd, so I figured if Iinvited him out with other people, I wouldn't feelresponsible for carrying all the conversation withhim). Well, Dion was even odder than last timetonight, and he made some very unintentionallyhilarious comments while not even realizing that therest of us were laughing at him/poking fun at him! Ithink that this is the last "favour" friend I'll have.This past year, I've really started to enjoy my groupof friends in Seoul, and I feel that I've made goodadditions to my groups of friends here lately, withthe jam band and their friends, so I'm not going tobother wasting time being overly nice to people Idon't really want to be nice to anymore! (Sounds alittle cruel, I know, but I don't have that much freetime these days, and I'd like to enjoy what free timeI do have!) In any case, it was great to see Ben andWoo-ga, and Ben's brother is pretty cool too, so itended up being a fun night out.No work tomorrow! Yay!
Monday:This is the first official day of my one-week Chuseokvacation! Annabelle's good friend Catherine is here for the weekvisiting from England, so we decided to have dinner atthe new Latino restaurant in Itaewon. I had beenthere once before, and it was awesome then, but thistime we shared the fish, and it was amazing! One ofmy pet peeves about Korea is that no one seems to knowhow to do fish properly (ie not covered in mounds ofprocessed cheese sauce), so I'm pretty happy to havefinally found a normal piece of fish in Korea!When we were leaving the restaurant, we ran intoGaran, the bass player from the jam band, and Marisol,his co-worker who I met on Saturday night (her Koreanname is Mi Hwa). I suppose it's relatively normal torun into people you know in Itaewon ( a lot offoreigners actually live within walking distance fromthere), but what was weird was that Garan and Marisoland another 2 friends had been planning a trip forTuesday. One of the friends had to back out at thelast minute, and they had an extra ticket lyingaround. Right before running into me, Garan andMarisol had decided that the next person they saw whothey knew, they would invite on the trip . . . and 2seconds later they ran into me! Pretty random, andvery last minute, but we figured it was "fate" and Ihad better go, and thus went to discuss the trip overa round of drinks.
Tuesday:With only a very vague sense of where we were going orwhat we were doing, I got up super early to meetGaran, Marisol and Sean in Itaewon to take a taxi tothe train station. Gangchon is the town that we wentto. It's about 2 hours east of Seoul, tucked into themountains and opening onto a river. ApparentlyGangchon (which literally means "River Town") getsreally really busy in the summers, and there's lots ofhotels/motels and what Koreans call minbaks. Minbaksare kind of like a cross between a hotel and ahomestay. They're usually very small andfamily-owned, and you tend to communicate with thefamily more. Marisol had done some research, andfound us a minbak relatively close to town. Being adamn fine bargainer, she managed to get us a big room,dinner and access to scooters, all for $112! InCanada, the room alone would have been that much forone person . . .When we got to Gangchon, the owner of the minbak cameto pick us up at the train station (yet another perk).The room ended up being really nice--big and clean! Somebody was already using the scooters, so he droveus out to the mountain. From here, there is a veryfamous waterfall that only takes 15 minutes to hiketo. Or so we thought-- we ended up climbing for about1 hour, and still no waterfall! Fortunately, thetrail was pretty well-beaten, and the walking waspretty easy (I was wearing flip-flops!), and we sawsome really nice views from the top of the mountain,but it was only when we got to the top and talked tosome other people that we realized we were on thewrong trail!!! Oops . . . apparently we were supposedto turn right at the bottom of the mountain for thewaterfall . . . at least we got some exercise today!After lunch, we spent some time just chilling out onthe deck of our minbak. It was a nice bunch-- Garanis a classically trained bass player who graduatedfrom Juillard and Indiana, both amazing schools. He'sprobably the first person I've met here whom I canindulge in utter music geekness with-- we have verysimilar mindsets and views about music and musiceducation. Right now, Garan is teaching English, butlooking for a music job, either at a college, or withan orchestra. Marisol is this incredibly strikingKorean girl (apparently there's some Mongolian in herfamily), and she's one of the coolest girls I've metout here. She's very creative and open to new ideas. We hit it off instantly. Sean is a voice actor (hedoes a lot of the English voices for commercials andtextbook learning CDs here) and the drummer forGaran's other band. He's older than us, but he'splanning on auditioning for Humber College, so I mightbe able to help him out . . . Initially I hesitatedabout taking such a last minute trip, but it was soworth it to get to know my new friends better!After chilling out for a little bit, we wanted to gointo town to pick up some booze for the night. Seandrives a bike in Seoul, but Garan wasn't anexperienced driver, and was hesitating about taking ascooter out (although, you actually don't even need adriver's license for a scooter in Korea!) . . . sobring on the 4-wheeler bikes! Totally awesome! Iusually get a little scared on bikes, but on a4-wheeler, I felt perfectly safe and secure, and Iactually really wished that we had had the bikes allday, because I could have stayed on the back of thatthing forever! (Me driving it on the other hand--yeah, no! Good thing Garan took command)Dinner was served by the minbak family, and it wasamazing! All the vegetables were really fresh, andthe sidedishes were perfect, plus the galbi (grilledbeef) was delicious. This is one of the first realhome-cooked meals I've had in Korea, and definitelythe best! Because we appreciated everything thefamily was doing for us, we gave them one of thebottles of wine we had just bought, and they were sothrilled!It was getting kind of chilly by this point, so wemoved into our room, and played cards, drank beer,watched movies and crashed out. A perfect getawayfrom Seoul; I really really have to do this moreoften!
Wednesday:We got up early today to catch our train back toSeoul. Unfortunately for us, Sean snores like amother-f*&^#er and therefore, he was the only one whoslept at all last night! It actually became kind ofcomical after awhile-- Garan, Marisol and I ended upjust staying up, giggling and talking.Later on at salsa class: Helen and Joey are reallyset on improving the level of dancing at the studio,especially for the beginners. They especially want toshow off their best dancers, so Helen has paired Andy(Korean name Young Mo) and I together for some privatelessons. We'll take privates from Helen for 2 months,and then we'll put on a show at the studio. I feelkind of honoured, because that means that Helen andJoey think of me as one of the best dancers at thestudio right now, but I also feel a little awkward,because I know Andy has a crush on me! Helen isreally awesome, but tactful, she is certainly not; andshe kept on referring to us as a couple, andsuggesting that we hook up! Andy is sweet, and I havebeen slightly misleading on Saturday, but I'm notparticularly interested in starting a relationship(he's the kind of guy who would get really attachedand clingy), so I'm treading lightly, hoping he'lljust kind of give up on me and move on. (If somethingbad happens and either Andy or I quit the studio,Helen would be so upset with us!!!)
Thursday:Wow, for a week's vacation, I've been almost as busyas when I'm working! Tonight, a good rehearsal withthe band-- we've found a great keyboard player! Hisname is Min, and he's Korean-Australian (there'ssomething really trippy about hearing a Korean speakwith an Australian accent!) It looks like we'reactually going to start gigging within a month or so.
Saturday:I am on the move tonight!First I went to the intermediate salsa class at thestudio. I was going to leave after that, but Helenstrong-armed me into helping with the beginners class(which was an utter zoo tonight-- so many students!). I ended up sticking around for the practise partyafter all, and having great girl talk with Annabelleand Helen.Then it was a race to get to Hongdae to meet Nate andTrevor and friends for a Bob Marley tribute concert atClub Ta. This tribute concert ended up being sorelydisappointing-- a bunch of crappy waeguk bands playinglame rock versions of Bob Marley songs. I kind ofhate it when people cover Bob Marley anyway-- why messwith perfection, you know? I left my friends there torun over to Club Evans for awhile-- my PaekChe studentMyung Han had a gig, and because he had gone out ofhis way to invite me (not to mention the fact that Ihave students that are gigging at all!), I felt that Ishould at least make an appearance. I got there atthe set break, and talked to Myung Han and Sage forawhile-- he was very happy to see me there! I stayedfor a couple of songs, and then it was back to Club Tafor the rest of the tribute show. While this wasgoing on, Garan and Sean's band "St John the Gambler"was playing at Club Funky Funky (yes, the dreaded clubwhere I broke my foot!) We ended up missing theirshow entirely, but Nate, Trevor and Trevor'sgirlfriend Ramboni (a beautiful Indian girl) went overto Funky Funky to meet up with Garan for drinking anddancing. Funky Funky was, as always, a complete zoo,and I was actually a little scared-- this is only thesecond time I've been there since the foot-breakingincident! But it ended up being a pretty awesomehang, with lots of good tunes, and fun dancing. Wayinto the night, about 5am, we decided it was time togo home. By this time, the subway was running, soNate, Trevor and Ramboni took the subway home. Garanand I, however are lazy and wanted to talk some more,so we took a taxi to Itaewon for some bibimbap at anall night restaurant. At about 7:30am, Garan decidedthat he just wasn't going to sleep (he had to teach aprivate at 11am), so went to Starbucks and drankcoffee til about 9am. At that point, I realized thatI actually did need to sleep . . . a crazy busynight, but I actually managed to get to all the placesI had to go, and had an awesome time running all overtown!
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