Christmas concert

Hanna invited me to a Christmas concert on Sunday, December 14. I had to meet her at Sadang station in Seoul at 12:30. I left at 11:30 and I was 20 minutes early. This is the first transfer point at Geumjeong. And some random girl in a skirt. What, she's a good candid subject. Don't go accusing me of anything.

Here's the train coming by.

This is inside the church, which 364 days of the year is a sports building they used for the weightlifting championships during the Seoul Olympics.

Here's me with Nam-Soo, Hanna's brother. He wasn't interested in the religious parts of the ceremony; he ended up falling asleep sitting up. Me, I just had no idea what was going on.

There are more pictures of what happened at the Christmas concert, but they have to wait until my laptop gets defrigged.

Suwon

On Sunday morning I took a walk around Suwon. I didn't know the area that well yet, so I didn't go far, but it's pretty hard to get lost here.

This is the building across the street. All the buildings here are less than a year old.

Here's my building. I'm on the third floor facing the building to the left. The main floor is open and used only for parking.

Here's the main city street. It's probably about six lanes wide, although there usually isn't much traffic on it. Two blocks that way is Sungkyukwan University station.

It's pretty smoggy around here.

This is the train station I use to get into Seoul.

I think that's kind of an unfortunate name for a store.

To Suwon

From the love motel, I was driven by the director to Suwon, which is where I'll be working. Suwon is a suburban city of one million people just 25 kilometers south of Seoul. It's connected by subway, and it doesn't cost more than 950 \ to get back to Seocho, which is less than a Canadian dollar. These pictures are from the drive down there, which took about two hours.

Okay, apparently I didn't resize this one.

Here is the entrance to Suwon. If you look on the left side of the arch, you can make out a little sign that says "Happy Suwon."

The apartment buildings in this area tend to be about 25 storeys high and sort of look like gigantic grain silos. I hope in this picture you can tell how narrow these buildings are.

This is a pretty standard view of Suwon.

There was still snow on the ground.

Look, colour.

Ever wanted to know how to say "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear" in Korean?

Because the city is so flat, we get some pretty impressive sunsets.

This is my kitchen, what you would see when you open the front door to my apartment.

Unlike the motel, the washroom here doesn't even have a designated corner where you can bathe, just a sink, toilet, and showerhead.

I still haven't figured out my thermostat yet. The first morning I woke up, I'd turned the floor heater to 75 degrees Celsius; that's the knob in the lower left corner.

Seocho

I arrived at Inchon airport at 0400 Thursday morning, which is noon Edmonton time. I slept for a total of one hour on the plane, but every time I fell asleep sitting up, I'd wake up immediately when I was about to snore. It was quite a jolt, and I think I scared everyone around me a few times.

After I was picked up, the first thing I did was buy one of these: Pine bud drink. It tastes like pine needles, but it's actually good. I think it would be pretty popular in Canada, given the chance.

The company put me up in a love motel for a couple days, although I didn't find out what kind of motel it was until after I checked out. That would explain why they had softcore pornography on channel four. They were not showing the Simpsons at 5:00.

I was dismayed to find that the previous occupant had taken the shower stall with him, and alarmed when it sunk in that this is how people bathe here. When you shower in Korea, you wear rubber slippers and stand over the drain.

This is what I see if I step out of the motel and turn right. It's a narrow street, but it's connected with a mildly wider street on which I was standing.

This is the main street. As far as Korean streets go, it's about average, unless you look at the real traffic veins. You should see this area during rush hour.

This car, which I call a microvan, has about the area of a VW bug but it seats six, just like a regular minivan. Contrary to what I expected, Koreans are quite a bit larger than the stereotype. On a regular subway train, with 50 people standing in my immediate vicinity, I can usually see about two people of comparable height to me. I've even seen two girls who are almost as tall as me, with heels.

I remember these gimpy little pickup trucks from my first visit. These things and microvans are interspersed on the streets with scooters and really sleek Hyundai sedans.

I asked a girl what a Pocari is, and I'm proud to report it is not an animal.

These are the girls in the office who trained me, Hanna and Catherine. We were trying to get the camera to work when I accidentally took the picture, but I think it's better than the next one.

I took a brief visit on a Friday night to Sinchon, one of the main nightclub districts in Seoul. The place was alive with activity, but I was looking for Drug, the punk club.

It was closed that night, but the door was unlocked and I could hear music coming from down a set of unlit stairs. I wound my way down the pitch-black staircase and came through a door into a cruddy basement where a band was practicing. There was one girl there not in the band, and she had enough English to tell me to come back Saturday night. I tried asking her where else I could find punk music, but then she told me she doesn't like punk and was only there because her friends were in the band.

I did find one music store that specialised in electronica, but they had a small indie section and I picked up two CDs: Global Corporation and Run Carrot (the third from the top). Both of them are typical streetpunk--well played, but they don't really sing with a lot of passion. I'll wait til I see them live.

Toronto

Before I went to Korea, I had to stop off in Toronto to get my visa. Kind of the wrong direction, but at least I got to stay with my uncle and his family for a couple days. My uncle taught English in Korea in 1996.

From my first trip to Korea, I found this old memento: a picture my uncle's employers took when I visited Korea the first time with my sister and cousins. Kind of creepy.
Here's my uncle's dog, Button.

I had the good fortune of visiting Toronto when the Uptown theatre collapsed during renovation, killing one student at a college next door. I went with my cousin Elaine (left) and her friend (uh, little help?) to see the wreckage the day after.

I haven't even left the country, and already I'm seeing some pretty atrocious Engrish. Apparently this is a popular brand, but if a student walked into my class wearing that, I'd give them a hefty beating.

The best disasters are always Christmassy.

The stay there was only two nights. On Tuesday night I left for Korea, destined to arrive Thursday morning after 15 hours of travel.

I took this picture when we were about to go out the door.

The Korean man in the middle is Jekyung, the Toronto recruiter, with his wife. We took this at the airport.

Korea Punk

Pretty well everybody I see regularly knows already that I'm planning on moving to South Korea for a year to teach English. At that time, you'll probably see some activity around here. And Dustin gets my apartment.

I was curious how much punk music there is over there, so I did an Internet search. This discography gives you a good idea.

Here's a link to the Captain Bootbois page. They're a skinhead band reminiscent of Cock Sparrer and 4skins based in Seoul.

The scene in Seoul seems to be solely run out of a bar called "Drug." They have a label called Skunk that has a bunch of Korean bands. Here are some pictures of the scene. Give me a month there and I'll do it up my style.

For more about the history of punk music in Korea, this article fills in most of the blanks.

They better the hell speak more English over there than "Oi!" and "Fuck you."