The Annoying Hat Sale

Ancient Vacations Part 1.5: Dave in Jeju

2007-12-21T19:48:00.005+09:00

While Dawn and Abby were off galavanting in Cambodia, staying in 5 star hotels and eating breakfast by the pool, Dave went with Abby's husband, Jason and a few others to Jeju Island, a sub-tropical area south of Korea's mainland. With them were Jason's long-time friend Chris, and his friend from work Matt. The plan was to see the ladies off, then get on a ferry for the ride to the island. Things started fine, Jason and I said goodbye to our respective wives at the train station and then headed over to his place where the other guys were waiting. We decided to get some chicken for the ferry ride, but we had timed it wrong: when Chris and I were getting back, we had lost track of time and made us a little late. A slow, long, painful cab ride to the ferry terminal saw us miss our boat by minutes. So we decided that a night spent drinking at our place wouldn't be such a bad way to start the trip. So we ate chicken, drank beer and played cards. The hot night was passed slowly, and 5:30am came WAY too early. But we made it onto the boat at last. However, we were quite a bit worse for wear: during the 3 hour ferry ride, Jason was sick in the bathroom, and the rest of us were not too well either. So we had a slow start, but once we were off the boat, we were fine. We had to get ourselves from the north of the island, Jeju City, to the south of the island, Seogwipo. The easiest way is to bus it, which took us about an hour and a half. Once we were near to our destination, we called the minbak (basically a hotel room where you sleep on the floor) that we were booked at and they said they would pick us up. Half an hour later though, sitting in the hot sun by the bus stop, we decided that they were having trouble finding us. So we hailed a taxi and had him call the minbak to find it. Probably should've done that in the first place. It was a nice place, really nice room, it even had a bed! We unpacked quickly and headed down to the beach. Swimming and tanning and drinking was done until the sun went down, and we headed back to the minbak. We then took a cab into greater Seogwipo, where we had dinner at an awesome restaurant that looked over the river. Wandered for a while, looking for a bar. We found one, but found also that nobody parties on Sunday night in Seogwipo, so we finished our keg and then went back to the minbak and slept.

Monday was spent sightseeing and traveling. We checked out the various waterfalls around the southern part of the island, including Chungbang, which is the only waterfall in Asia that flows into the ocean. We also saw Chunjeyun, which is a beautiful gorge with loads of plant life and a few waterfalls. None of them are really spectacular, but the whole place was really nice. Bought some souvenirs there, then started our journey back up to Jeju City. On the way we stopped at a gun range! Jason and Chris both fired some shots, and we all enjoyed just hanging out for a while. Quite a nice place really, with a ton of different guns to fire. They even had a large yard where you could shoot clay pigeons. After that we headed off to the city!

Jeju City is kind of a hole, it's dirty and seedy at times. We got to see this up close when we rolled in late in the evening of the Tuesday. We had a minbak booked somewhere, and we had planned to call the tourist info line to help us find it. However, the localized tourist info that is available during the day was closed by the time we called it, and the general info based in Seoul couldn't help us. So we had our taxi driver just take us to any place he knew that was in the area we wanted to be in. Eventually we found a fairly nice little love motel that had a large minbak style room. We took it, and enjoyed it for the most part. The seedy part was that it was across the street from a REAL brothel. In Korea you see a lot of little "da bang"s (literally "tea room", but just a name) which routinely send women out to wherever anybody wants them. They typically drive around in small skinny vans (which we have dubbed the 'booty bus'), or on scooters I have noticed in Gwangju. But this was a real brothel, complete with red lights! Don't see that too often anymore!

We decided to go out and see the nightlife before we had to head out in the morning, so we went first to the casino area, which was near where we were staying. The hotels that the casinos are in are REALLY ritzy, and the casinos are really well kept, and the staff all speak English. However, they aren't as enjoyable as the casinos we are used to, because it is illegal for Koreans to gamble. So these places are 'foreigner only' establishments. And since it was low season for tourism, there was NOBODY else there. Not fun at all. The other problem is that since the only people who can stay at these places are rich, the minimums on the tables were crazy. We talked them down to $5 minimum bet at a Blackjack table, though it was originally $20 I believe. We decided that casinos were boring, and that we should find a bar to check out. However, that also was a chore as there were no bars nearby, except for a nightclub. That option would have been expensive and there probably wouldn't have been anybody there, as it was Monday night. So we got some beer at a Ministop and drank in our hotel room.

The next morning it was time to get out of Jeju. Our ferry was late in the afternoon, so we were able to sleep in a bit. We had lunch at Lotteria, and while wandering after lunch we found a cultural icon in Jeju, the Mok Office. It had been an important building, and as things happen in Korea, had been burned down and rebuilt many times. Nonetheless, it was interesting, and a fun way to kill a few hours before we had to go to the ferry terminal.

Taking a ferry in Korea can be good or bad, depending on how much money you spend. We spent a bit of money getting to Jeju, and it was a really fast boat, we had seats and a table, and it would have been nice had it not been for sickness. Getting back to the mainland we spent less money, so we had a slower, bigger boat, were stuffed into a large room with a larger number of Koreans, and it would have been really bad had we not spent all of our time on deck hanging out and taking pictures. When we saw what our tickets got us on this boat, we all expected there to be Irish people drinking and dancing with Kate Winslet. It was as though we were stowaways, along with the 150 other people in our room. We just walked in, took note of the amount of space allotted to each person (none) put our bags in an inconspicuous place and left. Up on deck it was windy, but nice, and we found a bench to sit on and hung out for the long ride back to Mokpo. We took some nice sunset pictures and just enjoyed not having to do anything. There was also some entertainment to be had a little later on in the trip: a duet between a man and a woman, singing along to canned music. Actually the guy was playing some keyboards and did a decent job. This all took place down in the extremely crowded cafeteria. There was this one old guy (who took a liking to Chris because they had the same hat) who kept getting up and dancing with the girl who was trying to sing, and she kept leading him back to sit down. We got to Mokpo fairly late, so we just went our separate ways: me to our place and Jason, Chris and Matt to Jason and Abby's place. The next morning we had to pick up our wives at the train station, so it was early to bed for me. Overall, good trip. Though I wish we had had that extra day on the island...

Foundation Day

2007-10-03T13:32:00.000+09:00

While living, and especially working in Korea, you come to wonder sometimes what the days off you get are actually for. Today is a national holiday in Korea, and I found out yesterday that it is in fact Foundation Day, which means it is in celebration of the founding of Korea almost 5000 years ago. 5000 years seems like a long time, and would be impressive if you didn't read the fine print about Foundation Day. It seems that it is actually the day that "marks the start of the Dangun Era" according to the Chosun Ilbo newspaper. What is the Dangun era? Again, according to the Chosun Ilbo, "Dangun is the mythical founder of Korea".

I'll let that sink in a bit here.

MYTHICAL!!!!!!!!!

We are celebrating, in this fine country, the mythical founding of a nation. That is just nuts. There are a lot of things that I can never understand about the people in this country and the crazy things they do and say, but this really, absolutely takes the cake. People here just can't question something if it was told to them by someone of stature or authority. And it's always been that way. In however long the Korean nation has actually been around, hasn't anyone said, "ummm, I don't think that actually happened, seeing as we all know it's mythical..."? At any rate, it reminds me of fan death, and other such myths in Korean culture. I suppose certain things could probably be found in western nations also, but this just seems like people expecting Neptune to crash a boat, or Thor to send lightning down from Asgaard.

Back to Blogging

2007-10-01T21:49:00.000+09:00

Hello everybody, it's your long lost, blogging friends. I can't believe it's been so long since anything has been written here. We've gone through a lot in the last few months, so I'll catch you up on the main points. The biggest thing that happened was our move from Mokpo to Gwangju. An hour and a half northeast, Gwangju is bigger and the school Dawn is now teaching at is better. Plus the Jordan Emmans Band is now closer than ever, so recording and practicing will be easier. Added to the mix is possibly another band/recording project, also in Gwangju. We left some good friends behind, but plan to visit lots.

We've also done quite a bit of traveling. Dawn went to Cambodia during the last weekend in July, and I was in Jeju Island during the same time. Dawn was with our good friend Abby, while I was with her husband Jason, plus a few friends. Then we needed to get Dawn's new visa (you can't get a Korean work visa within the country), so we went to Thailand for 12 days. And on Sunday we finally got home for good, after 8 days in Japan with Jason, Abby and Chris. Those adventures I will be recounting soon on this blog, but I have to compile my notes first. So for now I hope it will suffice that I am going to blog much more now. I've also updated the way the page looks, it should be easier to look at and easier for me to keep up with. Stay tuned for updates coming soon!

Been Busy...

2007-06-07T16:31:00.000+09:00

Sorry about the lack of posts lately, I've been too busy to sleep, let alone blog! I had to finish a couple songs (that means recorded, mixed and mastered) for this past weekend, so that Jordan could constantly plug our new myspace page, which features the two songs that I finished by staying up late and getting up early for a week. The reason for the deadline and the forum for the plugs was our show in Seoul on Saturday. Finally, the big city! And not just any big city, one of the biggest in the world. Not the biggest stage in the world, mind you, not even the biggest in Seoul, but that will possibly come later... For now, we settled for the Big Electric Cat, in Itaewon (the foreigner district). Not a bad place, a decent sound system, but it was too loud for anyone's good. Couldn't hear much more than noise. But we diligently played our opening set (an hour, longer than I expected), which means we got our originals all out, plus 2 covers. The Dave Martin Band (the Speakeasy's house band) was the headlining band and, regretfully, I missed their show due to Dawn's illness.

So now comes the push before I head to Canada, but we still have a LOT of work to do. We've decided to make this a full length album rather than an EP as was originally planned. This means that instead of the 6 songs we had intended, it has turned into 11. Difficult to do, daunting to say the least, but we should be able to churn this thing out by (and this is NOT a promise) September. Hopefully earlier, but we have a limited amount of time per week, and we have lots to do. But it will be worth it, I can promise that. I also recently took a project from A Fistful of Nice, mastering their new album. Sounds good so far, check them out! I may also get to do some more mixing in the future, so keep your fingers crossed for me, that would be fun.

So what have we been up to besides my vain attempt at a career? Well, good question... Dawn is in negotiations with her school right now, to see how much longer we want to be here, and unfortunately we saw a bunch of friends leave Mokpo for wherever the next step is. What else...

We had our "Cabana Party" a couple weekends ago, which unfortunately was rained out. Abby and Dawn made lots of decorations for the party, including a palm tree in the kitchen, and a Towlie poster advertising the rules for the pool. All in all it was fun, with or without any actual usage of the pool. We did use the pool for about 5 minutes in the rain and wind, but it was so cold we decided to just watch a movie and play a drinking game. Not a bad time actually. We also learned that we have neighbours living in the apartments behind us. And that's about it for now, maybe I'll be able to blog a bit before we head back to Canada on the 16th. Until then, take it easy and thanks for taking the time to read this nonsense!

And visit the new band page while you're at it, in case you missed it earlier. It is:

http://myspace.com/thejordanemmansband

Always Know What You're Giving

2007-05-21T09:22:00.000+09:00

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

2007-05-17T21:24:00.000+09:00

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

2007-05-14T10:48:00.000+09:00

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

2007-05-01T11:26:00.000+09:00

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.

New Stuff

2007-04-13T16:47:00.000+09:00

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

2007-04-09T09:55:00.000+09:00

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

2007-04-05T23:16:00.000+09:00

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.

Happy Birthday, Dawn

2007-03-29T23:07:00.000+09:00

Tuesday the 27th was Dawn's birthday, and was also our friend Janice's birthday. So in case she reads this, happy birthday Janice! We decided to celebrate both birthdays last Saturday, with a dinner with friends, and with some quality time at P-Club.

We started by meeting at BigMart, and proceeded to a nice little Sarangbang (literally "love room", though I have no idea why it's called that... basically it's just a place for cheap barbecued meat) where we ate Kalbi and drank beer and Coke, and just basically had ourselves a nice little dinner. After that was through we picked up some cakes (yes, plural), and headed over to P-Club. Unfortunately by this time it was only about 9 pm, so the bar was, naturally, empty. We ate the cake, drank some more beer (well some of us did), played some foosball, lost all our "money" at the blackjack table and just had some good times. Nothing really crazy happened, in fact the birthday girl and I left by about 11:30. But it was worth it nonetheless.

I'm getting surprisingly excited about playing this weekend! It's been a while since I was on stage, so it will be good to be back. After this weekend I won't be playing with the band for a while, as Jordan will be in China with his brothers for a month. Speaking of his brothers, Nathan Emmans, front man of Soapbox Symphony will be opening for us, and we're gonna join him for a few songs. So I suppose we're gonna open for ourselves... Hopefully I'll get the whole thing recorded, and post some clips on here. And we'll continue working on the CD when Jordan gets back, so it should be done by June or July.

Also, the car wash (in case you're not sick of hearing about it) is nearing completion. This morning they put in the new car wash itself, though it's not quite ready to go yet. I am hoping this takes a long, silent while. But I doubt it will.

Update on the carwash!

2007-03-23T09:29:00.000+09:00

Well, it looks like they are indeed going to be putting in a new car wash, and it looks to be a lot bigger than its predecessor. I hope it will be a little quieter than the last one, but somehow I doubt it will be worth the distress it has caused us. They started the construction of the new car wash with a bang (literally) at 7:15 am on Wednesday. They began by destroying the concrete that was there with what looked like a front end loader with no bucket on it, but a large drill-like protrusion that they simply use to bash the concrete until it breaks. This, of course, woke us up with a start, as it shook the entire building every time they did it. It took them until the late afternoon. They then proceeded to make more cuts in the concrete with a jackhammer, and cut rebar and welded things all day yesterday, and today they are just about to pour concrete. This time they actually have a drain in the car wash, too. That should be an improvement to the lake that usually forms on warm days. Ah the life at a gas station.

You may have noticed a new gadget in the sidebar of this blog, though you probably didn't. Anyway, there's a new player for my music and other things. You can simply click on the file you want to hear, and it will play it for you. It may take a little time to buffer itself though, so be patient. I'll keep adding things as I make them. The version of Jordan Emmans' Tightrope that's there feature's me playing lead guitar. I just finished it last night, so it's not perfect, but I like it. We'll see what Jordan thinks...

Update: The new gadget isn't working, hopefully it will soon though. Sorry about that!

Update: Okay, seems to be good now, no worries!

Goodbye Carwash

2007-03-20T22:07:00.000+09:00

I was surprised by a loud clanging yesterday morning, and Dawn and I discovered that two guys were taking apart the gas station's carwash. This thing was old and derelict, and held together with duct tape I think. I thought they were just fixing it again, but by early afternoon they were cutting the cement with what looked like a gas powered table saw on wheels, and they had the entire circuit board from the inside of the carwash laying on the ground. Then finally, at about 7 pm or so, I heard a loud bang from outside. I was laying some bass tracks at the time, but even with my headphones on and music playing, the noise was loud. I quickly looked outside fearing for my life, and it turned out to be a crane with a grabber pulling the carwash off the ground and onto its side. They then proceeded to cut the carwash a bit, and finish it off by letting the crane rip it apart and load it into the back of a truck. I got a few photos and some good audio. Hopefully the carwash will stay gone, though I seriously doubt that it won't be replaced by a new, louder one. And they're still cutting cement around where it was, which is louder than the carwash could ever have been. Aah life at a gas station.

Recordings continue, though today I forgot to take the power cord for the laptop that makes up the core of my recording gear, so we didn't get much of that done today. So Jordan and I had ourselves a lengthy practice, going over vocals and such. Pretty productive actually. Though I'm still fairly mad at myself for forgetting the damn thing. Oh well.

Still Recording...

2007-03-16T10:18:00.000+09:00

So the recording of Jordan Emmans' first solo record is progressing nicely. I should have some samples to share soon enough, with Jordan's permission of course. He will be over on Saturday and I may be going to Gwangju on Sunday to continue. The only thing is, we were hoping to have the entire thing done for the end of the month, but that is definitely not going to happen now. Unless of course the vocal fairies come and lay down our vocal tracks for us. That would be great. Or even if the room fairies come and make this room a little more suitable for recording said vocals. That would also be great. As it is, I'm gonna have to find a way to make this room a little less reverberant, or a different shape, whichever seems easier. But the songs are sounding good so far, and soon we'll be ready to do vocals. Hopefully before Jordan goes to China in April.

Other than that, things are going slowly as always. I've been playing hockey once in a while with the guys. The last time we played I even got to go in goal! I hadn't played in net for 7 years or so, but I think I did okay. Let in some soft ones, but I made quite a few stops. We also celebrated Abby's birthday last weekend, and it was an interesting night. Somebody decided that it would be fun to play games with toilet paper, so people wrapped themselves in it, wrapped other people in it and wrapped cars in it. Got a little crazy. Got some good pictures though. Apparently some other people got some better ones... I'll explain that if you ask me!

Anyway, gotta go back to mixing, this whole recording thing is getting to be like a full time job!

Seoul with the Sauchuks

2007-03-04T15:45:00.000+09:00

Hello everybody! We are finally back from a visit to Seoul with our good friends, Jason and Abby. We left on Thursday morning, as it was a holiday. We didn't know what holiday until we actually got to Seoul. Our companions had bought the tickets for the 4 of us beforehand, so we met at McDonald's for a quick breakfast before heading to the station and boarding. When we arrived at Yongsan station (after teaching the Sauchuks to play Euchre) we took a short look around the electronics market. Jason and Abby's friend Chris was waiting for us at the station, and soon the 5 of us took the subway to downtown Seoul. Chris lives in Sanbon, which is just south of Seoul, but connected by the subway, so Jason and Abby stayed with him, and Dawn and I stayed in our favourite 'love motel', The Ritz. Unfortunately, since it was both the weekend and a holiday, and because the motel had recently been upgraded, it was double the price we usually paid. I'm hoping that the next time we go to Seoul, it will be back to the old prices, or we'll have to find somewhere else to stay.

I had a bit of a mission while I was in Seoul: I was to record as many subway sounds as I could. I wanted to get lines 1, 4, 5 and 8 if possible, trains arriving, trains departing and interior sounds also. Unfortunately, we hardly took the subway, and I didn't have time to hang around on the trains, so I didn't get what I wanted. But that's okay. After getting our room at The Ritz, the 5 of us walked around the Jongno area a bit and went to Subway for lunch. We talked to a man at Tapgol Park for a bit, cause he asked Dawn if she spoke French. They had some French language books about King Joseon and some other stuff, and wanted to make sure they got out to people who could read them. We also got them in English. We then proceeded to get souvenirs of every kind in Insadong. We never got into Tapgol park though, because of the proceedings for the holiday, Korean Independence Day. That night we walked along the banks of Cheonggyecheon and had supper at Burger King, before turning in. Our room at The Ritz had a 42" tv, which was kinda cool. Unfortunately there was rarely anything good on, and I ended up watching volleyball whenever we had some downtime.

Friday was the worst weather of the trip, with rain all day, and some very wet feet at the end of it. We had a leisurely morning with coffee and donuts for breakfast (I had to borrow the desk lady's umbrella, as we had forgotten ours) before meeting Jason and Abby at about noon (Chris had to work, poor sucker). We decided to take a cab to Gwanghwamun, which is one of the palaces in Seoul. Dawn and I had already seen it, and it was pouring rain, so after we saw a small part that we hadn't seen yet, we hung out in the cafe at the National Folk Museum, conveniently located on the same grounds. We also got to look around the Museum. By this time it was early evening and though Abby still had yet to get to the War Memorial, we decided that we were wet and tired. So we went shopping! Dawn had to get new shoes as her's were soaked through, and Abby ended up buying some also. We then got Jason and Abby and Chris rooms at the motel to make it easier for the next day's activities, and then met Chris at the Outback for supper. Then we headed back and went to bed early, as we had to be up at 5:30 for our tour of the DMZ the next day.

We were indeed up in time for the tour. I was unsure of where we were to meet, but we found the address with plenty of time to spare. We even had time for McDonald's breakfast (during the eating of which we decided that the coffee tasted like burnt water). We arrived at the USO building with plenty of time to spare, and soon we were on a bus bound for the DMZ. Our tour guide was a well-meaning man who was volunteering, so I don't want to complain, but his English was FAR from good. At times he would as a question and nobody really had an answer because we had no idea what he had asked. But it wasn't so bad, as many things were self-explanatory anyway. When we got to the DMZ, we were no longer allowed to take pictures, so you can't see where we went. But after we were at Camp Bonifas, we switched buses to an offical UN bus, and we had the services of two US MPs to guide us through the cool stuff. They took us first to Ballinger Hall, where they briefed us on the history of the area and what we were going to do. The guides were really funny, and pretty cool. Apparently we were a really good group, and therefore got to do cool things that other groups don't. For example, I got a couple copies of the waiver that we had to sign before we could go through the DMZ. Anyway, so then we were loaded back on the buses and drove to the Joint Security Area, which is the major part of the tour. It is an area where both North and South have buildings and soldiers, and where the Demarcation Line is (the border within the DMZ). We were split into two groups, the other group going into the Military Armistice Commision building first, which is right on the border, and the only place where you can actually go into the Communist North. So we were allowed to take pictures of the other side of the line and of the buildings and the one soldier who was on the North Korean building's steps. When we got into the MAC building, we got a special treat, as North Korean soldiers came down to the building's sides. This was unusual as they usually don't come down until later in the day. However, as we were leaving the area, we found out why they were there. A tour group from the North was waiting on the steps taking pictures of US! Abby was able to turn around and snap a few pics of them while we were herded back into the South's large building. After that we were herded back into the buses, and headed off to CP 5, which is surrounded on three sides by North Korean territory. It also has the best view of the North side of the DMZ, and the best view of Propaganda Village, which is mirrored in the south by Daesoungdong, or Freedom Village. We also got a good view of the Bridge of No Return and the area of the axe murder of 1976, when two American soldiers were killed by North Koreans while cutting down a tree on the South's side of the JSA. Very cool stuff to see.

At all times in the DMZ, we weren't allowed to point or gesture at the North side in any way, as we were under surveillance the entire time we were there. Apparently they can somehow turn that into propaganda against the south. So it was hard to ask questions. The last stop with our Army tour guide was Dora Observatory, which is usually a great place to look into the Northern side. However, it was really foggy, so we couldn't see a whole lot. After that we returned to Camp Boniface, said goodbye to our guides, and got back on the USO bus for our last stop, the Third Tunnel. Apparently the North wasn't ready to quit trying back in the 70's and they spent at least 5 years trying to tunnel their way into South Korea. The first tunnel was discovered 42 km from Seoul, but wasn't a very big tunnel. The third tunnel was discovered 56 km from Seoul, but was large enough that 10000 North Korean troops could have popped up that close to Seoul within an hour. They didn't have any technology for tunneling, so they simply used explosives. Makes you wonder how many lives were lost making that tunnel. It was cool to see, but kinda hot and wet, and sort of a let down when you get to the dead end. But there's a window in the door, so you can see a little further into the tunnel, and the end of the tunnel is just 200m from North Korea, so that's cool. Unfortunately, you aren't allowed to take pictures. Why, I have no idea. Oh, and the North still claims that the tunnel was made from the south, even though the blast patterns suggest a southerly route, and the North painted the walls to make it look like a mining operation (in granite, where there is no chance of coal). Smart people.

Overall, the tour just reaffirms that North Korea is a big joke, full of propaganda and misguided people. It must be hard for the soldiers who serve in the JSA on the North side to keep from running across the line everyday. There isn't enough food to keep them fit, so they are smaller and much weaker than their Southern counterparts. The south has been sending aid for years, but it only goes to the military and government. One thing, though, about the tour: at Dora, they showed us a video about the DMZ which, while educational, was a little too much like propaganda for me. They painted a picture in which the most dangerous border in the world was "no longer a symbol of oppression, but a symbol of unification" because, due to the fact that no one's walked freely there for 50-odd years, there are lots of rare and (according to the video) extinct animals there (not sure how there could be extinct animals there...). I have a problem with the fact that it seems that these people are so willing to embrace their "brothers" to the north, that they overlook the fact that, given the chance, the North Korean soldiers would kill them without a thought.

After the tour on Saturday, Jason and Abby decided to tour the War Memorial, but again we'd already seen it. So we went across town to Central City mall to shop for Dawn's makeup. We were going to shop for other stuff, but we were so tired, we just went to the hotel and rested. That night we met up with Jason and Abby again for supper, this time at Popeye's. It was pretty good, Dawn and I got free fries and a couple free pieces of chicken, as I apparently confused them by ordering mild chicken (as opposed to spicy). That night we slept really well...

Finally today we got up early enough to get to Yongsan station and look around a while before getting on the train at about noon. Dawn decided that it would be a good idea to buy a new camera, the 10 megapixel version of the one we already have, which is ONLY 6.3. If I could roll my eyes I would. Anyway, now we are at home after an uneventful train ride home. Though it is raining pretty hard. Okay, time to get some supper. I will update this with pictures tonight or tomorrow.

I Said I'm Sick!

2007-02-23T19:35:00.000+09:00

Still sick. And I have to tell you, it doesn't happen too often that Dawn and I get the same bug from one another. We have been sick at the same time before (in fact I think this time last year if I recall correctly) but it is very rarely the same bug. How do I know it is the same bug? Because it followed the exact same path of destruction through our respective bodies. Dawn felt sick on Thursday, and by Friday night she was feverish and just feeling crappy. I started this path on Monday, and by Tuesday I was so sick that if I had a job, I'd call in sick. And it started for Dawn with just a headache and runny nose, and turned into a real headcold after that, with sinus pain and a hacking, from-the-depths-of-the-ends-of-the-bottom-of-your-lungs cough, which continues until you can somehow eject from yourself the evil-demon phlegm that inhabits your chest. And I have gotten to the apex of this "flu". I think. I don't want to stay up anymore. I've been trying to spend time with Dawn because she feels crappy and we see less and less of each other lately, but now I just want to go to bed the minute she gets home and has supper. Abby and Jason want us to come over tomorrow night: I don't know if I'll make it that far. And on Sunday we have a date with the Rebke Wedding party via webcam, and after that Jordan will be over to continue our sickness-riddled recording venture. We've missed at least 3 sessions due to illness, two last week. Swiss time is running out...

I also found out this week that John Mayer will be touring Canada starting in April. And he's gonna be in Edmonton. And I will not be there. That sucks. So I emailed him and told him to get his butt over to Seoul. I also should've told him to update his stupid blog...

's been almost a month...

"Oh but I'm on tour..." yeah whatever...

Sick

2007-02-21T13:48:00.001+09:00

Dawn has been sick since Thursday, and I now am in the midst of the same sickness. Woe is us...

Of Sore Teeth and Street Hockey

2007-02-14T13:24:00.000+09:00

Happy Valentine's Day everybody!

I hate this day, but that's another story. I would like to tell you about playing street hockey in Mokpo. This is not an easy task. A long time ago Neal, Kevin and I (the Alberta boys) bought hockey sticks in Seoul. These are not new sticks, they are good old, made-in-Canada, Bauer, wooden sticks. How do I know they are old? My stick has a signature curve from Adam Graves. At the time we bought them, we didn't have any ideas of where to play or what we would do with just the three of us. Good thing there are so many Canadians in Mokpo. Neal went to Canada last month and came back with goalie pads and a goalie stick. And Rich has volunteered to have things shot at him. And we found a place that's flat enough and wide enough for a small game of hockey. And we found a net. And the Koreans broke it. And we fixed it, but it's not very good. And we use it anyway. Now we are going to try to build a new net, but for the time being we will have to make do with what we have.

On Monday I broke a tooth. I noticed that one of my molars had a crack in it, and when I tried to figure out how bad it was, I ended up breaking a piece of my tooth right off. So I've decided that I need to drink more milk here. Probably not enough calcium in my diet. Anyway, it didn't hurt at all, which was kind of nice. Dawn has a student who's father is a dentist, and it turns out his office is pretty near our place, so I went on down for a look. Turns out a lot of that tooth was decayed, so he took out lots of it and filled it back up. When all was said and done, it cost 50 bucks and took about an hour. I started to regain feeling about 2 hours later, and by the time I went to bed I was in a considerable amount of pain. Thankfully, it went away by the middle of the night and I woke up pain-free. Unfortunately it still hurts quite a bit when I bite. So I think if it still hurts tomorrow I will go back. The dentist said if there is spontaneous pain or hypersensitivity to hot or cold, I should go back for a root canal. Yee-haw! I'm hoping this pain goes away.

I also got some recording done with Jordan on Sunday, but his electric guitar has developed a terminal buzz, and has to be replaced. So that puts a bit of a kink in our plans. However, he has resolved to get a new one post-haste, so we should be back on track soon.

Anyway, enjoy your manufactured holiday!

Missed Something...

2007-02-08T22:52:00.000+09:00

I realized today that I missed a piece of last week when I last posted! Whoopsie!! Friday was picture day for Dawn's kindergarten class. There are only 5 of them this time, as opposed to 8 last time, so things were a little quicker. The kids all got to dress up in the cap and gown to have a solo picture taken, and then after that was done the all got to have a picture in the "fancy clothes" that were on hand. It was just a big game of dress up, with pictures being taken. Then they had to have a picture with the teachers (Dawn, Deborah and, for some reason, me). And they did one of just Dawn and I, which is cool. Dawn and I were marvelling at the guy editing pictures while we were standing around. He was so fast at it! It took him about a minute and a half to do anything from turning the head of the person so that it was straight (!) to "liquifying" the eyes and using the clone stamp tool to clear skin! Pretty impressive.

But the fun was yet to come. We walked back to the van to go home, and just as we got there and were loading all the kids in, a guy came running after us with a video camera! Turns out he was getting people to do an interview about Mokpo for the government website. So of course he askedus to comment. Dawn and I stood in front of the van, and he taped us telling people about how Yudalsan is really pretty in the spring, and I recommended Mokpo to foreigners coming to Korea because it's small enough to be nice, but big enough to be convenient. I think that should be their slogan! So hopefully we make it on the website. I'll be sure to blog that if I ever see it.

Today I went to Gwangju to record some more guitars at Jordan's. His schedule allows him about 6 hours in the middle of the day, so we decided to take advantage. Unfortunately for me, it was pouring rain when I left. So I arrived at his place at about 1pm, wet from the waist down, and sweating like mad cause it was way too warm to be lugging around a guitar and backpack. We quickly realized, however, that I had forgotten some important pieces of gear (like a cable, and a way to hear ourselves play) so we went searching. We did find what we needed, but we also found that the guy who was supposed to be fixing Jordan's guitar (the buzz that wouldn't go away) apparently knows nothing about guitars. Nice to know. So they want Jordan to trade his guitar for another, since they don't know how to fix it. So we spent some time trying to figure something out with them. In the end, Jordan ended up taking the guitar home, and he'll decide whether he can get someone else to fix it, or if he'll have to trade it for one that works. We did get some work done eventually, though. We got the acoustic guitar tracks for Hope and Ocean Eyes. So I will get the bass done this weekend for both of those and hopefully others. And I'll be back in Gwangju on Sunday to play at Dong Myoung Church and record some more guitars. Things are busy!

Groundhog Day

2007-02-03T21:50:00.000+09:00

Happy Groundhog Day everybody! I think the reason that there is no Groundhog Day in Korea is because there really isn't much of a winter. It gets a little cold, but it's only tough because they don't really have walls here. We finally got snow this week. Not much, and it's already mostly gone, but for a day or two, winter was here. It was below zero, and there was snow. Oh well. On to spring!

We've had an eventful week so far. Last weekend we had Jason and Abby over for perogies and cards. Seems like an unlikely combo, I know, but it worked out really well. We made lots of food and played canasta afterwards. Dawn and I still have some perogies, though the ones we froze kinda stuck together, so we have a massive ball of perogie. Still tastes good though. On Sunday we had McDonald's breakfast. Let me emphasize the breakfast part. Why is this significant? Because McDonald's has never had breakfast before. They used to open at 11. So that was something extraordinary for us. That day we also hung out (get it?!) with Jason and Abby on Mount Yudal, and took lots of interesting photos. They will (eventually) be put up on our photo album page. When I get to it.

Then the week started. On Monday there were a few birthdays at Good News Hagwon, so the teachers all went out for food. We ate Kalbi (pork ribs barbecued) which was really good. After the meal, we went bowling! This was a bit of a surprise, mostly because of some miscommunication. You see, Dawn had invited Grace and Daniel, the other English teachers at her school (both Korean) over for supper on the Tuesday night. Daniel had asked if Dawn liked bowling, and Grace had been talking about having supper the following night, and had said that they would go bowling. So when we pulled up in front of the bowling alley, Dawn and I were a little confused. But bowling went really well, though Dawn thinks she needs to bowl more, so she doesn't make a fool of herself next time. I don't think she did that badly though.

So Tuesday we had Daniel and Grace over for supper. We made pasta and tomato sauce with cheese baked on top, a green salad and garlic toast. They both seemed to enjoy the meal, as did our unexpected guest. Daniel brought a young man with him, one of his students from sunday school. Come to think of it, we never did get a name out of him. It was nice, though, to have someone for all of us to focus on, rather than awkward silence. See, despite the fact that they are English teachers, they don't converse all that well in our language. And then all of a sudden there were two of them: a friend showed up! The good news is that they got bored and washed dishes. Eventually, the night ended and we enjoyed a nice little evening!

Today Jordan came over and we recorded the guitars for one song out of the six we have planned. In other words we might have a six song demo in a couple of years. So far things are going well, despite technical difficulties, like a buzz that wouldn't go away!!! Plus the computer was acting up. Plus we had to move in our new bed. Grace called and informed me that a new bed would be showing up soon. So we let in a couple Korean men from the hagwon and we proceeded to remove the windows from the bedroom, drag our new bed through the window, then drop our old bed through the window and put the new bed together. All in a day's work.

Weekly post

2007-01-30T10:43:00.000+09:00

Hey everybody, I haven't posted anything in a week, so I suppose it is time to do so. Not much is going on, things have been pretty tame lately. I posted a while ago that we were putting pictures on our Flickr page, however, I've since found a better way to host our pictures. Flickr lets you upload as many pictures as you want, but you can only display up to 200 of them. So we found MyPhotoAlbum, which lets you make different albums for your pictures, plus you can upload and display as many as you want. So all of our pictures will be at that site, though the ones on Flickr will stay on Flickr, and we still have lots of pictures at our Windows Live Space. Anyway, the point is if you want to see our pictures go to our photo album page.

I have also come up with a (belated) New Year's Resolution. I have decided that, in light of my previous post, I will record and post to my freesound account one sound effect for every day this year. That means that at the end of the year, my freesound account will have at least 365 samples, hopefully of useful stuff. Anyway, that's my goal. But if you ask about it, I'm sure I'll come up with a vague, uninteresting excuse about why it's not getting done. Just like any good resolution.

Dawn and I are also going to start going bowling. It's fun and pretty cheap here (2 bucks a game including shoe rental). Besides all that, Dawn and I are having the two newest teachers at her school over for dinner tonight. Oughta be interesting, and I'm sure I'll have something to post about that!

The Weekend

2007-01-22T23:32:00.000+09:00

Well it was a tiring weekend, but we made it through. We were up early on Saturday morning, at least early enough to be on a bus bound for Gwangju at 9:30 am. At least we had our good friend Jason to help us out (and keep us awake). We arrived in Gwangju at 11, and that gave me lots of time to get to Jordan's by noon. So we wandered Keumho World for a bit. Keumho World is a large building with about 6 or 7 floors of all things electronic, from cameras to mp3 players to phones to guitars. Dawn needed a new iPod USB cable so she can plug her pod into her computer (which we found), and Jason was looking for a wireless headset (which somehow he didn't find). With plenty of time to get to Jordan's, I left them wandering and started walking to the subway. After 5 minutes of walking, I realized I didn't know where I was going. I knew about where Jordan lives, but not exactly. And he lives in a confusing part of town. So I walked back, found the wandering waegukins, phoned Jordan, attempted to remember his instructions, and walked five minutes back to where I was. So I should be 15 minutes late so far. Then I walked to the subway, sat on the subway, got off the subway, walked to the church and met Dan and his girl on the way to Jordan's. By this time I was really late. Probably about 40 minutes late. Why? Because I was carrying the backpack full of stuff, my bass, and dragging a small suitcase full of audio gear behind me. Took me a lot longer than I thought it would. And I was sweating profusely by the time I got there. But it was worth it. Why? Because once we got everything set up and mapped out the drums into my computer so that it will actually sound like drums (don't even get me started on that process, it would probably geek you to death) we got the drums for 6 songs laid. Which is a good start. So now Jordan and I will try to finish the songs while Dan is out of the country. Should be a fun challenge.

A quick note about the Jordan Emmans Band: unfortunately, our (too) short term guitarist Matt has decided to move on to bigger and better things in his spare time, and frankly I can't blame him. He's still playing on his own once in a while and hopefully he'll find a band of his own soon enough. I for one will miss playing with him, especially the challenge of finding two harmonies all the time! Thanks Matt!

So what was Dawn doing while I was recording and practicing for our gig that night? She was touring the town with Jason and taking lots of pictures. Of what, you ask? I have no idea but I will post them when I find out (I haven't unloaded the camera yet). From what I understand fun was had in abundance. More to come on that later.

The gig was once again at Mike and Dave's Speakeasy in downtown Gwangju, which is proving to be quite a welcoming venue. It's small and smokey, but they have expanded the stage and just got a new bass amp, so things run a little smoother than last time we played there. Also unlike last time, we were only an opening band for this gig; the headliners for the night were Seoul's Taste of Dinomite. You can listen to a couple of the songs off of their new CD on their site, and I recommend it. They're pretty good, though I only got to hear a couple songs live. Dawn was waiting for me back at the hotel, and it was getting late.

Our set was pretty good, lots of reactions from a few of the patrons at the bar, and everybody seemed fairly impressed. We were a little disorganized for my liking, though. We didn't even have time to make a set list this time. And I forgot to put out my mp3 recorder, so I don't have any clips for all my fans reading this. Sorry, mom.

Speaking of clips, I have discovered (or rather, I have rediscovered) that I really like doing Foley recordings. All that means is recording things that could be used as sound effects. For example, Dawn helped me record putting coins into the ticket dispenser in the subway. And change coming out of the dispenser. And bills going in and out of the dispenser. I also recorded the ambience on the subway, which you can listen to if you right click on the black void below and click Play/Pause. If it doesn't work, give it a few minutes to load the audio and try it again.

You can also go here and see all my samples in their huge-file-sized glory! You can play them from the window, though it may take a little time due to their huge file size.

It's just like being there! You can hear Korean chatter (probably about the waegukin with the microphone), the doors opening and closing, even the (too) friendly voice telling you what stop you're at and where the doors will be opening. Pretty cool. Anyway, that's all for now. Annyoung!

Nothing all that new...

2007-01-16T22:40:00.000+09:00

Not much is going on around here these days, mostly just the same old. A few new developments in the works, though. For one, Dawn and I are officially in the wedding party for the marraige of our good friends Ryan and Courtney. Dawn has been for a while, but I was only recently added to the official list, and it's exciting. Getting married is fun, and I don't think this wedding will be any exception to that.

Also I will (hopefully!) be starting recording of the Jordan Emmans Band very soon, with any luck this week(end). In fact I think we pretty much have to start this weekend, as Dan is leaving for holidays on the 23rd, and without a drum base to build on, things don't usually go smoothly. So that will be fun, rigging something up for recording. I haven't had the oppurtunity to do this in a while so it should be a good time. I will, of course, be posting some details in the days to come, maybe some pictures, perhaps an audio file or two. We'll see what happens I guess. In the meantime, maybe things will get exciting again soon. Dawn's been a little sick in the last couple of days, so maybe when she's feeling better. Take care everybody!

New Year's Eve and Day

2007-01-04T09:43:00.000+09:00

Unfortunately for Mokpo (and us) the majority of teachers at public schools in this place skip town right after Christmas. They get holidays for about 2 months, and generally end up in cheap, tropical areas like Thailand. Which means that by the time New Year's Eve comes around, there's not many people around to ring it in with us. But we made the most this year, with a party at our place! We had about 10 people over for a mellow party for which Dawn made about 100 pounds of food! She certainly likes to be prepared. So at midnight we went up to our rooftop and had sparklers and small fireworks (which we fired AWAY from the gas station). It was nice, much better than staying up in the apartment by ourselves. The most interesting part of the night came after a few people had left. At about 12:30 we heard some booming, and I went to the roof to investigate: it was fireworks! REAL fireworks. I don't know if their clocks were off, or if they couldn't find a match at midnight, but there were fireworks at 12:30am on New Year's Day. Weird.

That morning we hauled ourselves out of bed at 6am to go meet Jason and Abby for breakfast and the sunrise, though not in that order. We scaled the Eastern 'face' of Ibansan, a small 'mountain' in their part of town. Really would have been a nice sunrise, had we actually seen the sun. As it was it was just too cloudy/misty. But it was fun, and we decided that we will eventually try again. I couldn't believe the amount of people who are at that mountain at 7am on a Monday. There were hundreds of people, which unfortunately makes things difficult, since it's actually a little hard to climb in parts. And for people who seem to be perpetually in hurry-mode, it never ceases to amaze me how slow some of them can be.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Mosquito trouble... in December!

2006-12-30T11:17:00.000+09:00

When was the last time you had a mosquito bite in December? I can't remember ever even seeing one after September, but I got one today. And stranger yet, the bastard bit me on the LIP! In the middle of the night, I woke up because I felt something tickle my bottom lip. Instinctively, I used my top teeth to scratch at whatever was there, and my lip felt really weird, not painful, but just weird. So I woke up a little more, and still felt that kind of itchy feeling. Then I realized my lip was starting to swell, and knew exactly what had happened. Even worse than that, I turned my head and saw the mosquito on the wall, but couldn't kill it! He's still out there, waiting to get my other lip.

Stranger still, this MAY be the same bug that previously took down the light cover in our foyer, smashing it on the tile floor. Okay it was actually me that did that, but I was trying to hit a mosquito on the ceiling. Somehow the impact of my hand knocked the cover right off, missing my head by inches and spraying glass everywhere! Could have been bad!

Okay this post sucks, but it's all I've got right now. Maybe we'll have an eventful New Year's Eve?...

Merry Christmas to All!

2006-12-25T12:25:00.000+09:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!

I know it's not quite Christmas where some of you are, but that's okay, it's Christmas here. And what would Christmas be without friends, family and bacon and eggs for breakfast? It has been a very nice couple of days for us. On Friday we went to Neal's for his first annual Christmas party, which was a really happenin' shindig. There was booze, and lots of people, and somehow Neal was able to turn his TV into a fireplace, complete with firy screensaver and ceiling-high chimney! How he accomplished such a feat I will never know (though I've heard rumblings that it involved cardboard and a vacuum...?!) I had my guitar there, Chad had his, and Emmanuel had his piano - you know what that means! Billie Jean is reborn! Actually we decided to go with the name Rudolph and the Red Bean Paste instead. We played lots of Christmas songs, and some requests, but nothing that Silvi or Karen suggested. HA!

Saturday night found us at Jason and Abbigail's 12th floor apartment for some martinis and Christmas cheer. We went early so that we could help set up some food, and Dawn and Abby used her new oven to bake peanut butter cookies! They were a hit. However, the real star of the evening was the cheese! Luckily for us our hosts had recently been to Costco, and so had cheese, and bagel bites and all kinds of wonderfully not-Korean food!

Sunday we decided it was Christmas, so we opened our presents. Now I know what some of you are thinking, but we had our reasons:

1. It was Christmas eve day... that's pretty much Christmas anyway, isn't it?
2. We had a really boring day and needed SOMETHING to do.
3. We have a lot to do today, so wouldn't have had time to open our presents and enjoy them.

So anyway, thanks to everyone who sent us presents, they were greatly appreciated. I especially have to say thanks to Neal and Crystal, who gave Dawn a small blowtorch and a pair of men's underwear. They also gave me an apron and women's underwear. Now this is a little joke that we started when Dawn and I gave Neal women's underwear for his birthday. Neal's underwear is better though, since it says "Pink Ladies' Delight", which matches the pink satin decor his employers picked out for him. Anyway, thanks everybody!

That brings us to today. This morning we got up early and baked the cinnamon buns that Dawn started at 1am this morning. Then we took them to Neal's for Christmas breakfast. There were 8 of us in all, and on the menu was eggs (done however you wanted them, thanks to Crystal!), bacon, toast (burned in the middle, thanks to Neal!) and Dawn's buns. There was much gift opening and fellowship, and was a very nice Christmas morning. Maura even got a call from her family! Tonight we will be heading to Richard and Shannon's for dinner, so that should warrant another post tomorrow.

One story I'd like to relate while I have your attention. On our way home from Neal's today we got into a cab, told him where wanted to go, and proceeded to have the normal conversation you have with cabbies in this country: where are you from, why are you here, school or hagwon, etc, etc, ad nauseum. However, this was not to be a normal cab ride. About 2/3 of the way home, he dialed a number on his phone, and it proceeded to ring on speaker phone. Dawn knew something was up, and said, "I don't like where this is going!" He talks with a Korean for a few seconds, while Dawn and I try to make out what he is saying. All of a sudden, the voice shouts out, "Hello! My English name is Joshua". It is at this point that I'd like to point out that this is a female we are talking to. She proceeds to explain that her father is our cab driver today, and wants to know which hagwon Dawn is teaching at. So we explain, and then she laughs and tells us she is shy and doesn't know what to say. So we say "nice to meet you" and "bye" and she does the same, and talks to her father for a few more seconds. Then she switches back to English and tells us that she would like us to leave our names and phone number with her dad and she would like to call us. Now we are weary of people taking your phone number here, as a lot of times they are either nuts or Jehova's Witnesses, or (in most cases) both. But we agree and do so. And we left two candy canes with the driver, one for him and one for Joshua. So we'll see what happens with that. We were home in time to bake the rapidly growing buns (formed at 1am), and just in time for Jen B. to call us and say Merry Christmas! We love you Jen!

Merry Christmas everybody!

Little Bit of News

2006-12-17T11:21:00.001+09:00

Hey everybody, no news right now, it's been a pretty slow week. We did have our good friends Richard and Shannon over for supper and cards last night. The supper was pretty good, rice casserole (with chicken for Dawn and I), and our counterparts brought a Vietnamese rice wrap! Sounds weird, but is actually quite tasty! It is a clear, plastic-y feeling, round wafer which you submerge in warm water for a few seconds, drip dry a little, then fill with veggies (or whatever you want to fill it with) and wrap up. After being wet the wafers soften and almost get gooey. Thankfully they don't taste funny, in fact you can't taste the rice wafer at all. A truly unique food to be sure.

Dawn also decided to decorate the house for the holidays (and probably thereafter) with lights in our bedroom and in the room in which I currently sit. Cool LED lights that have 8 patterns, switchable right on the cord. Very cool. She also decided a while ago to blow up a few of her favourite pictures and put them on the wall. We blew them up to 11X14 and she bought some colourful paper to mount them on. Then, for some, she decided to cut them up and do sort of a mural-ly kind of thing. They look awesome, and I wish I had a picture to put up. I shall do that post-haste. We also got an oven for my baking deprived wife, and she promptly made me cookies! Score!

I also put up a couple things in our sidebar. One is a link to our Flickr page, which has lots of our pictures, and will house many more. I also put up a time counter, which is on Mokpo time, so you will know when to call us ;) And last but not least, there is a new weather widget, with current weather in Mokpo. FYI it is currently snowing the largest flakes I have ever seen. Wow. They're huge. It's like snowballs falling. Small snowballs. I'll shut up now.

2006-12-04T12:14:00.000+09:00

Ah, homecoming. You know what I love? Delayed flights. I just LOVE sitting on a plane, for an extra 2 hours after boarding, waiting for takeoff. That's right, folks, TWO extra hours... on an 11 hour flight. Good times. Someone on the plane was unfit for travel and EMS had to come and take them and their luggage off the plane before we could take off. Then we lost our place for take off and had to wait in line, then when we finally got to Incheon, we had to wait for a gate to be open before we could get off the plane. Good times. Really. So we made it to Incheon, grabbed a bus to Central City (the place in Seoul where we catch the bus to Mokpo). Got dropped off rather far away from where we buy our tickets and catch the bus, were told to go int he opposite direction than that which we needed... ended up dragging our luggage (4 50+ pound bags plus 4 carry ons) an extra 400 meters... finally made it at about 8pm, missed that bus, the 9:00 was full, we got the second last tickets on the last bus to Mokpo, made it home at about 2:30am... and here we thought we'd be home at 10pm and get a good night's rest before teaching on Monday. HAHAHAHA.
P.S. Air Canada sucks.

CANADA

2006-11-14T09:38:00.000+09:00

Hello all. Here we are in Canada... just over 72 hours in the country... And WOW IS IT EVER GOOD TO BE HOME. Might be better if we'd actually brought our traveller's checks with us... but hey, who really needs money right? So in the 72 hours that we've been here, we've managed about 15 hours of sleep... but today's our first day of crabbiness, and that was quickly surpassed - there's just too much to do and too many people to see to stay crabby for very long. Okay, I"m hungry - time to go find a multitude of wonderful Canadian snacks... mmmm crackers and sausage! More than 2 different kinds of chips and pop.... A&W rootbeer...so many good things.... mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...
See all of you "Koreans" in a couple more weeks, and as for everybody else, you'd better be visiting:)

The Jordan Emmans Band: First Official Gig

2006-11-08T23:30:00.000+09:00

Hello Everyone! I realize that this is a little dated, but it took me time to create this post. Hopefully it will be done before we're back from Canada. Maybe not. We'll see. Anyway, last Saturday I finally got back on stage for real. For something other than a jam session planned at the last minute. This was pro man. We even had a set list. Anyway, Matt Amond, who is an adept songwriter in his own right, was kind enough to help fill out our sound on the electric guitar. He also did a set of his own by himself before the rest of the band filed in, just to give the rabid fans some relief.

After his solo set, Dan, Jordan and I joined in to complete the Matt Amond Band. We played a few covers and some of Matt's gems (like Spin, which is a funky little tune, and Shine, which is a catchy pop/rock song).

Then started the main event of the evening, The Jordan Emmans Band. We played most of Jordan's songs that we had worked on, with both Jordan and Matt playing electric guitar, and jammed on more than one of the songs. More than once we had spontaneous little sessions, where Dan would kick out a groove, and I'd play something over top, and all of a sudden heads are bobbing along. So we went with a couple of them and just had ourselves a little jam. Very fun and quite musical, too.

So this will, with any luck, be a regular thing for us, jamming and gigging, after Dawn and I get back from the Land of the Morning Tim Horton's. And hopefully we can get something recorded to remember it by. Or to sell to the throngs of fans lining up to hear us.
...
...
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Oh, they're there...

At least Laurel is...

Money is tough to get around here!

2006-11-07T19:36:00.000+09:00

So apparently Canadian dollars don't exist in Mokpo, South Korea. I had a HELL of a time getting the Kookmin Bank downtown to exchange my Korean money for anything at all. I thought I had them when I pulled out my piece of paper on which I had scralled the definition for "cashier's check", and they said, "Oooooooh!". Thought I was golden. Nope. What we call a cashier's check they call a traveller's check. In American dollars. Why can they not just write a cashier's check for 2000000KRW? Who knows... At any rate, now we have American dollars to exchange. Yee haw! Guess this is what we get for living out in the sticks!

Gettin' Ready...

2006-11-04T11:35:00.000+09:00

Just getting ready to hit the road and head out to Gwangju for the weekend! What's on the schedule you ask? Shopping, and playing the official first gig of the Jordan Emmans Band. Oughta be a good time. Pics and possibly video should be forthcoming, as well as first hand analysis of the show. Wish me luck!

Homecoming

2006-10-31T21:50:00.000+09:00

Good news everybody! We are coming home!!! We finally have an itinerary and tickets will be picked up soon! We fly from Incheon to Vancouver, Vancouver to Edmonton on November 10. We will be arriving in Edmonton at approximately 4:40 pm. Interestingly enough, it takes negative seven hours to fly from Seoul to Vancouver. We will be in Canada until the second of December when we will leave sunny Edmonton and go back to dreary old Mokpo. I guess the time catches up with you on the way back: it takes 28 hours to get back to Seoul! Happy Halloween everybody, and see you in 11 days!

edit: Alright so maybe I should add our flight number and such huh? We will be arriving in Edmonton on Air Canada flight AC242. That is all.

The Jordan Emmans Band

2006-10-26T19:28:00.000+09:00

Hello Everybody!

Dave has taken over the blog today. I dont' know if you all know this, but I can't be in just one band. It always seems to be none or 3. Since it's been so long since I have been in a band, I decided that, obviously it was time for me to be in (more than) one again. First I joined up with two fellow Mokpo'ers, Chad and Emanuel, and formed Billie Jean and the Kidney Beans. That was a success, and all members reported much fun. And, not surprisingly, from that experience came a second band.

Unfortunately, Billie Jean didn't fare so well in the judging, and the third place act was a guy named Jordan Emmans. A songwriter and guitarist (and apparently drummer?), Jordan was playing with a drummer named Dan, but no other accompaniment. And since his songs were really cool, I offered my services. He called me a couple weeks later, and we decided to start playing. The only catch is he and Dan both live in Gwangju, about 1.5 hours from Mokpo.

So we practiced on a Friday, I learned the songs as we played them, and it went really good. Then around 5 or so, Dan told Jordan that there was an acoustic thing going on at Speakeasy, which is a bar owned by a couple Canadian guys. Jordan asked if we were up to playing with him. We decided it would be cool. So I phoned Dawn to come to Gwangju so she could see me play and be all proud and such. Plus the last bus back to Mokpo was at 11 or something, so we would've had to spend the night apart otherwise. So we get to the bar at 10:30 or so, and we find out there's a couple other acts. One of the owners played a set with Dan on drums, and another songwriter named Matt played some of his tunes and some covers. So finally at about 1am we got on stage. We played 6 songs that I had played a couple times at practice, but we also played 3 songs that I had never heard before. Tough, but doable. Jordan is a good leader, so there's really no problems there. Anyway, check out the pics. Gotta go!

Stupid HTML

2006-09-29T20:48:00.000+09:00

Okay, so this blog isn't quite looking like I want it to. I got Brent to put up his picture where I want mine to be, so I'd know where to put it, and now I can't find where his picture is to replace it with mine. Arg. Brent! I just don't get it! Ah well, I'll figure it out one of these days. In the meantime, this page should be constantly changing as I figure out what the heck I'm doing and learn to do some really cool stuff. So don't judge me on my blogger skills for at least 10 years yet (cuz it just might take me that long to figure everything out)!

Myeongsashimri Beach

2006-09-07T09:49:00.000+09:00

It was a dark, and stormy night... and by that I mean it was a bright sunny day, and we were on a beach. Two hours on one bus, sitting for 20 mintues, then 15 mninutes on a second bus, and we found ourselves on the beautiful beach of Myeongsashimri.

We went with about a dozen people from Mokpo, and met up with a few other 외국인s (if you can't read that word, install your Asian fonts) from sort of nearby. So we made it to the beach, went for a swim, played some frisbee and catch, got to know everybody we didn't know. Then we set up a tent on the beach, barbecued some food, ate some other food, got really full... I love pot luck barbecues! Went swimming some more. Built a big bonfire, Dave, Stu, and Chad played us some guitar, Nikola had her violin (which Chad shortly turned into a fretless mandolin) and Amy brought her bongos. More swimming, more music, s'mores and hite. When it was good and dark we got to enjoy the beautiful phosphorous in the ocean, truly a magical moment for us first-timers.

New Blog Page

2006-08-23T13:37:00.000+09:00

Hello all, we've recently discovered blogger.com where you can put pictures and movies right into your blog, so we're going to give this a try. Hopefully we'll be a little more serious about keeping our blog in this, our soon to be second year in Korea. We can't believe that in just a few short weeks we will have been here for a whole year already. How fast time flies! But, we are looking forward to seeing you all in November, even if for only a short time.