Always Know What You're Giving

It was Teacher's Day here in Korea last week, which is an interesting day because most teachers still have to teach on that day. However the good thing is that they usually get gifts for teaching also. Sometimes the gifts are given with good intentions but turn out to be, ummm, less than stellar. Like the half eaten ChocoPie. And sometimes it's not the kid that gives the less-than-stellar gift, but the parent behind the kid, who just made a small mistake. For example, Dawn got this gift for teacher's day: a bottle of "Cleanser". It even looks pretty normal, like anything you might get for a woman on a special occasion. However, if you read the instructions (which were safely inside the box so no one would read it unless they had already bought the product) you find that this particular cleanser is not a kind you would normally advertise yourself using. Nor would you expect it as a gift, as it implies a certain quality about you. Learn a lesson people: always know what you're giving as a gift, especially if it's someone important like a teacher!

The Importance of Listening

How often do we judge something before we have actually had a chance to experience it fully? This is something I was forced to recognize I had done yesterday.

I downloaded (yeah, yeah, I know, but there's no way I'm gonna find it over here) John Mayer's latest offering The Village Sessions EP. Now, I don't usually pretend to be a music critic, but I have to sound off on this one. It is 6 songs, all of them acoustic versions of songs from his last album, Coninuum, and the John Mayer Trio album, Try! which is, perhaps, not a good start. The first song is also the first track on Continuum, and is called "Waiting on the World to Change". It was a huge hit, won a Grammy I think, etc. This version features Ben Harper also. When it started, I thought, "Hey, they kept the same glock thingy from the album version", and then thought, "Hey, he just played the electric guitar part on an acoustic instead", followed by, "Hey, they kept the same organ part, too", and lastly, "Hey, isn't his vocal the same, too?", which of course it is. So basically they just changed one guitar part (which already may have existed from the original tracking of the song), and re-mixed it. And Ben Harper? He sings backup on the choruses. That's it. What a waste.

So while I was thinking these things, I kept hearing the song, but I stopped listening, which is, sadly, not the same. In fact, when that song had ended, I continued to not listen to the rest of the album, decided it was crap, and promptly deleted it. A day later, I realized on the way to Gwangju that I had put the songs on my mp3 player to listen to later, and then forgot they were there. I played them again, this time skipping the useless remix of "Waiting on the World to Change". I found that a few of the songs are really good versions, if a little bare. But that's the point of an "acoustic" version nowadays, I suppose. Anyway, the point is that I stopped listening, and consequently almost missed out on a nice couple songs that I already knew, but not in this way. I hope I don't make the same mistake again.

Happy Mother's Day

Well, I don't know why I'm having so much trouble keeping up with this blog thing. At any rate, here's the (now) biweekly update! Not much has really happened lately, but enough has I suppose. The weekend before last we went to a party at our friend 현중 (Hyun Joong, or Jeff as he's known to most of the waegookins)'s family house. It is in a really nice spot right on the side of a "mountain" (really just a rocky hill). There's a fairly large yard, and a gazebo on one side. The gazebo came in handy about an hour after we got there when it started to rain. Really rain. Poured, really. So we headed either inside or into the gazebo. Dawn and I spent most of our time inside the house, which was spacious enough for all of us to squeeze in. We even had room for Matt, Stu and I to break out the guitars and have a little jam session! It was nice playing with Mr. Ammond again, espcially since I've been missing the times he plays in Gwangju. The evening was also a chance to get to know some of the people who are new to Korea this month, even if most of them aren't actually new to Korea. Lots of interesting people, hopefully we'll keep getting to know them. To be sure, it was a wet, wet night. More so for some of us than others. For example, Jason, Abby and Kristen were out getting some drinks when it started to rain. So they were thouroughly soaked when they walked into the yard through the gate. Abby decided that they weren't quite dirty enough though, so she and Kristen rolled around in the mud for a bit! That's right, Mokpo's first official mud wrestle! At least as far as I remember... Most people figured Abby won, but I didn't see much of it. So I'll just call it a draw.

The Sunday after the big mess, we found ourselves on our quarterly pilgrimage to Daejeon, to shop at the infinitely great Costco! Unless you have lived in somewhere similarly isolated as Korea, you just can't imagine having to go 2.5 hours by train to the nearest block of cheese! Our good friends Abby and Jason came with us, though Abby wasn't actually with us until she woke up about half way there. Anyway, it was fairly uneventful, until Abby saw the pool. She and Dawn had been talking about having a cabana party on our roof. I don't know where we are gonna get a cabana, but we now have the pool for it. We bought this pool at Costco. It's 12 feet long, wider on the ends, and is now on our roof, full of water and bugs because we haven't found a cover for it and it rained the other day. So now we have to find a way to empty it. We have tried to syphon it, but I think we are losing a bit of pressure through a hole or two, and the hose if probably just too long for that to work. We tried using the hose through the drain on the bottom of the pool, but it wouldn't push the water down the hose. So, we're probably just gonna have to drain it onto the roof this time, and find something better for next time.

This weekend we had a games night at Crystal's place. First we had supper with Kevin, Neal and Crystal at Ha Ming (they have this curried rice with breaded chicken, it's awesome). Neal recently bought a motorbike, so now there's this idea going around that everybody should get their own so we can all go on long rides together into the sunset. But I digress. After that we went back to Crystals and played Scene It and Catchphrase, both of which are really fun, thought the former isn't much fun with a large group. Catchphrase is quickly becoming one of my favourite games though. Especially with a group. Dawn has even integrated it into some of her lessons at the hagwon, in a simpler form.

Yesterday I had to go to Gwangju for recording, and Dawn had a perogy night at Rich and Shannon's place. Kristen and Jeff also showed up to make perogies. Unfortunately, the fun was over by the time I made it home and over there, but I got a couple perogies for supper, and that made me happy. Speaking of recording, we're hoping to have the CD done by the middle of June, so that gives us a month. We've got 5 songs just about done, and 1 song started. We're thinking of starting 4 more to make 10 songs total, but we want to concentrate on getting the first 6 done well before we spread ourselves out more. Jordan also wants to tour a bunch this summer, so that might be cool. Hopefully I'll have some cool samples to post, or at least bring back to Canada to show people this summer.

And lastly, but not leastly, happy Mother's Day, Mom(s)!

Catching Up

Sorry for the long hiatus. I'd love to say I've been too busy, but that is not the case. I've been lazy. Oh well. Time to change all that. Sooo, what to write? Hmmmm....

Well we had am 80's party one weekend. Actually we started the day with a picnic in Peace Park, right by the water. It's a nice little spot with the Yeongsan River on one side and Ibansan on another. We played a game of frisbee in which 2 players on either side try to knock over the 2 beer bottles on the other (the name escapes me), took some pictures (everybody had their SLRs out) and just had a nice afternoon. We left that and went to Jason and Abby's place to get ready for the main event. Dawn and I weren't going to get all dressed up for this event, as it's not usually our style, but our hosts were going all out, and Abby wasn't going without us. Luckily for Dawn, Korean women's fashion is very 80's right now. Spandex, long shirts and tights under skirts are extremely popular. So she went to the corner store and bought some leggings and wore one of Abby's skirts with a sparkly top, and she was done. I borrowed one of Jason's polo shirts and wrapped a sweater around my shoulders for a pompous, preppy look. Abby had a long shirt and leggings, and leg warmers for the 'aerobic' look. But Jason had us all beat, shaving his full beard to a moustache, and adding short shorts, half unbuttoned dress shirt and aviators for an acceptable Magnum P.I. However, people ended up asking him all night what he was supposed to be, because they all had people he looked like. I agreed with the "Goose" from Top Gun one.

This past weekend we had a really nice birthday dinner for Jason. We went to the remote but beautiful Hotel Hyundai (probably sounds dumb if you don't live in Korea). This hotel is probably 4 star (tough to tell, really), set on a hill overlooking a beautiful bunch of islands and the Hyundai shipyards. We (Abby and Jason, Dawn and I, and Emanuel) got there in the early evening and had drinks on the veranda overlooking the water. Nice view, but it was a little windy. Almost thought the table was just gonna fly away with us on it. So it didn't take long for us to move inside to the restaurant/cafe area, which houses a nice white piano. Emanuel decided to take full advantage of the combo of being foreign in Korea and a white piano, and played some Elton John for us. At dinner time we sat down for the best buffet I've had in a while, including a steak bar! It was really good, though it was largely seafood, which I am not fond of. Could have used some pasta or something, but it was good nonetheless. After that we went back to Jason and Abby's place for an awesome cake that Abby made, and we watched Fist of Fury out of the Bruce Lee box set Abby bought Jason in China. The box is almost perfectly like the real ones, but you open it and get a bunch of burned DVDs in little plastic holders. Still cool.

Last night we surprised Jason for his birthday. We bought him a shirt with crazy drunken Konglish on it (always a great gift), some funky bikini girl socks (for the upcoming bachelor party), and a Thomas the Train candy dispenser (which doubles as a drinking game). We got to see where our counterparts work when we went to get Abby. They work at a hagwon called Say Say, and it's actually really nice, if a little cramped. When we got back to their place, we had Tim Horton's coffee, and Abby made scones and bacon. It was awesome. We left about 2am. When we got home, there was a security car outside our building. Never a good sign. I was afraid there was a break in. Luckily, it seems as though when they were closing for the day the door must have come off its hinges. There was no sign of anybody robbing the place, so that is the only thing that makes any sense.