26.5.08

where's the beef.

saturday evening after nouvelle vague - and those people who sang "still a friend of mine" - we walked through this vigil in seoul.



apparently the unrest was largely due to the korean people's disappointment/anger/disgust with their president, who has allegedly chosen economy over his citizens' health.

one of the students at the 3rd English Presentation Contest this week even adapted her speech to include this current affair, suggesting that a lot of the commotion was the result of a bad english-to-korean translation.

i don't know enough about the matter to put anything down as fact, so i'm just going to throw *allegedly* in there one more time.


i also don't feel like writing much more at the moment.
just thought i should document the far-reaching affects of a rancid meat monopoly.

sorry. allegedely rancid meat monopoly.

16.5.08

shortest long weekend of all time

one day.

that's what we get.

thankfully next week we're back to working just monday to friday, and saturday we've got plans to jazz it up with nouvelle vague at the seoul jazz festival.

but at least it's nearly lunchtime saturday, and the day's got a nice t.g.i.-feel to it under the circumstances.

this week has been trying, but i know - who wants to read about that. so as much as i feel the need to expel the gusts and storm clouds that are plaguing my insides at the moment, i'll dig for something more noteworthy...

i haven't really been keeping up with the "student of the week" idea i introduced a while ago, so a few updates are in order.

last week, the undisputed star was a boy named Duke.
that's him in blue. the first two days he wore everyday clothes, but once he was cast as david beckham in our drama "Harry Potter and Cinderella", he busted out the tracksuits daily. it was adorable. he even wore cleats as his "outdoor" shoes the day of the performance! talk about getting into character.

we saw his dad pick him up at the end of the last day, and were later pleasantly surprised to hear he was on the field with the Suwon Bluewings as one of their little pregame buddies. and i say hear and not see because, though we were at the game, i happened to be off getting a beer when the little tykes ran out.


this week, team one's English abilities might have been the most minimal i've seen. that didn't keep some of them from being the sweetest things ever though. it's a tough call, but my vote goes to jerry for student of the week May 13-17.
i'm going to go ahead and say that i don't think this picture does either of us justice, but it's the only one i've got. i look...scary, and he looks like he's on something. which is so wrong because he's eleven and so cute. any time we were in the theater he'd fold himself up in this broken chair.

he was the most helpful of the bunch (granted, team leader David's English was the best, but he got bored and ended up reading during most of our classes), and he never fought - which was a challenge for team oners this week, boys and girls.

k, this is boring. i started it saturday and it's now monday (again) so we've got a new gaggle of kids, and thus there'll be a new team one to slowly push out my memories of the last...
i could just scrap this, but i think i'll hit publish just for the sake of getting something (anything) semi-recent up.

and last but not least...
i couldn't possibly forget this face, but if ever i start to...Mong, the bruised little monkey. Not to be confused with the MC.

5.5.08

the best things in life are flea.



Sunday Collin and I went to the Hope Market in Hongdae Park.
That's the poster above.

Friday everyone was asking:
"So, Pip, you're not going camping, what will you do this weekend?"
To which I replied, numerous times:
"Oh, well there's this 'Free Market' in Hongdae by the University, I might go check that out."
No one corrected me, but it occured to me - later - that maybe this market I'd been reading about on the internet was in fact a Flea Market, and not a Free Market.

Anyway, in the end I learned it's actually called the Hope Market.


There was lots of nice stuff there.
Jewelery...

...some clothes, books and cards. From what I hear, Hongik University has a really good fine arts program, so it's not surprising Hongdae is the colourful, hip little neighbourhood it is. Art, music, fashion...all that good stuff goes hand-in-hand.

I bought this hand-bound notebook:



And had an "interactive portrait" done:


I've never seen this idea before. There were two guys working together. One was doing more traditional caricatures, while the other did more colourful, cartoonish portraits. Before he began, I filled out a quick survey of things I like and things I hate (why is it so hard to come up with these things when you need to?), and he incorporated that into the drawing. When he was finished, he asked me to draw a small picture of him. It was really fun.

The finished product:



My sister was asking what bars are like here. You can find lots of "Western" bars, that are pretty much just like home - although rather than getting pub food, you'd be served fruit plates and dried fish with your beer.
But she said she imagined "crazy karaoke" places, and yes, karaoke - or noraebang - is a favourite pass time here. The noraebang we frequent is called the Alien. Or at least that's what we call it. Here's one worth seeing in Hongdae. I guess the teachers partied here before I arrived, and I hear it's rather expensive, but they give you free ice cream.

Behold, the Luxury Noraebang


Looks just like a doll house. And it was pretty busy for a Sunday afternoon. These girls were so cute, singing and waving to us on the street.




Whoa. That was almost like an actual post.