New Stuff

We've added new things to our blog's sidebar again. Right at the bottom are two new gadgets: our Facebook profiles and a map of people who have visited. The Facebook profiles are just kinda cool, you can add us to your Facebook friends easier now. Because it's so hard to do that on the site itself. And the map I stole from Brent's blog. His is much cooler though, because he's got people from all over the world on his. I only have Korea and Canada. BORING! Oh well, we can't all be as popular as Brent is.

I also would like to extend an invitation to play Blobby Volley with me. Click the link, download the game, email me and we can play over the internet. Cool, huh? Actually there's lots of games and I'm sometimes online, so if you want to play, email me.

Dawn says she wants to play too, so you can also email her and she will happily lose at Blobby Volley.

Even for Korea, This is NUTS

Last night we went to dinner for our friend Kristin's birthday. We had had a really good day beforehand, having spent the day wandering Mt. Yudal with Abby and Jason. The flowers are all in bloom right now on the mountain, so it was quite nice. Dawn and Abby both filled their respective camera's memory cards, and it was nice to be out in the (not so) fresh air for a while. We then bought some fruit, went back to Abby and Jason's and played cards while the chickens pooped all over the floor. Joyous times!

Then came time for dinner. We went to a restaurant called Gran Piatto, which is a place that Dawn and I have been from time to time since we've been here. Their pizza is actually rather good, but their service has always been sketchy, and their menu is retarded. It's usually a little pricy for us, but it is a nice place. Yesterday made us change our minds about ever going back to that horrid hell hole.

They have introduced a salad bar since last we were there. This could be a good thing. However, they have also introduced a ridiculous rule that defies all logic, even Korean. Here it is:

If you buy an entree, you get a salad bar plate for free.

Sounds good, doesn't it? However, if you wanted to, say share a pizza, you don't get a salad bar plate for free. Because apparently what they really meant was:

If ONE PERSON at your table doesn't order an entree, NOBODY gets free salad bar plates.
(This is, of course, not exactly what was on the menu, but it was in such broken English that I can't remember what it actually said. Suffice to say it was NOT clear.)

So last night there were about 10 of us, and Dawn and I just wanted to split a pizza. We didn't want anything to do with the salad bar, we just wanted pizza. But we figured that this should get us one plate of salad bar, because we're buying an entree. Nope. Obviously they don't want people sharing their salad bar plates, and that is understandable. But there are much better ways to do that, like, oh I don't know, interacting with your customers, instead of placing them behind a wall and ignoring them while they eat their meal, and standing in front of the counter talking to the other servers who also don't have any common sense. Jason also decided to order some wine, and for some reason they couldn't put the wine on our bill, so he had to pay cash up front. Seriously, this place is a logic vortex. It goes in but gets swirled around so badly that nobody can get a grasp on it.

The funny thing is, the only way we were able to figure out this nonsense was because we had Kristin's boyfriend Jeff there. "Jeff" is not his real name, but an adopted "English name" because sometimes it's just easier to introduce yourself as Jeff, rather than Hyeoug Jun. He was able to tell the waitress what we wanted, and then tell us that we weren't able to have it. Even funnier, he said himself "it is illogical". Sometimes I wonder if even Koreans are able to fathom the weirdness...

Speakeasy Show #3

This past weekend was a blast, it was really cool to play different music with a different leader for a change, I get so tired of Jordan ;) Dawn and I travelled the morning of the show with Jason and Abby, who recently adopted a couple of baby chickens who were apparently abandoned in their hagwon. The chicks are named (aptly I'm sure) Avian and Flu. Anyway, as we were exiting the bus at the Gwangju terminal, I noticed the girl behind us attempt to wake the slumbering male behind her. However, he was apparently intent on remaining asleep, and she figured it was no longer her problem, and left the bus. At this point, I decided that someone had to wake this poor guy up, so I began shaking his shoulders, gently at first but gradually stronger. I also bent down to his ear and talked at a low-ish volume. No response. Abby told me to check for breathing, which I did, but this was normal. I decided to shake him a little more, and ended up slapping him a little, which still did nothing. So we figured we'd let the bus driver deal with it. As we were going into the terminal, we looked back into the bus, and watched the driver whack the kid hard enough to leave a mark and scream at him. This finally jolted him back to awareness. We were sure he was in a coma. Seriously, he was OUT! Koreans do love to sleep on the bus; as soon as the bus moves you can usually hear snoring. But this was one for the books. Or at least the blog.

Now to the rest of the day! We cabbed our way to the Windmill Motel, our usual stay in Gwangju, and met up with Crystal and Neal who had spent the night before there. On the way to lunch we met up with a gaggle of waegukins including (but not limited to) Stu, Brent and Steph, Nicola and Virginia. There might have been a few more, but I'm really bad with the whole memory thing, and this was almost a week ago now! After lunch we did some shopping, Neal and Jason went to see a movie and I went to practice. We went over the songs we'd be playing with the younger Emmans brother, Nathan, and also quickly ran through a few of our own. I knew this would be a good show! The only problem was that Nathan's voice was trying to leave him, so we weren't sure how much he would want to sing.

So I met up with the gang and we hit The Outback for supper, then I had soundcheck at 9, and the show started at about 10:30. Nathan played a few songs on his own, then invited his older brother Jordan to bring his band up for a couple songs. We had a lot of fun, lots of jamming and solos, I got to 'trade fours' with Dan, that was fun. I haven't traded fours with a drummer since college! Anyway, so after that we got up there and played the first of our two sets. During I'm Glad You're Happy Jordan suddenly decided that I should play a solo, so I ripped one out. Dawn says everybody was quite impressed, so it must have been good. But it was kind of a blur for me, as I wasn't expecting it and just kinda reacted. Really well thought out, I know. The set lists were as such:

1. Ode to the Moon, Ocean Eyes, Tightrope, I'm Glad You're Happy, Mr. Card Watching Meteors, All I Want, Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, G-Jam, Tidal Wave, Ice Princess
2. Feathers, One Headlight, Two Princes, Deep, Brightest and Best, Learning to Fly, Death by Water, With or Without You, Hope

Overall everybody seemed to be very impressed with the evening. The hightlight however, came when, as promised, Abby through panties at me during our first set. Now I can truly call myself a rockstar. Thanks Abby!

Well that's all for now, more updates soon I'm sure.