Monday, October 25, 2010

Last of Frisbee. I Promise.






Fall '10 Frisbee season is over. No more frisbee talk - until the Spring '11 season! And... I'm keeping it brief in this post.

The playoffs and finals commenced this past weekend in Daegu. The Busan Heat and Daejon Pandemic made their last trek to Daegu for the
season, and I think it's safe to say that everyone enjoyed themselves all weekend. Team Busan was the number 1 seed, and therefore was granted a bye in the first round. After winning our first-round game, we were up against Busan next. We started the game with a 4-1 lead, but somehow, that quickly became something like a 5-12 loss. Defending champs, Busan, went on to lose in the championship game to Daejon by one point in the last few minutes. Everyone was happy to see a different team win. There's hope for a Daegu Team win next season - maybe.

The celebrations continued with drinks and specials starting off at URBAN bar - a big sponsor of DUFL. Daejon made sure to have their golden calf trophy seen at every possible moment - we weren't jealous. Really. It was a super fun night and a nice continuation of partying in Daejon with these people last weekend. Was that just a week ago? Also, for the first time, I stayed out late enough to take the subway home from downtown - maybe never again. And no, McDonald's didn't even give me a free cup of coffee for this ad.

Tune of the week:

James Blake - Limit to Your Love (Feist Cover)
Watch the video below the pics.





Tuesday, October 19, 2010

DUFL in Daejon

Daegu is lucky enough to have some really cool people that started DUFL - Daegu Ultimate Frisbee League. When I joined this superior league, I had no idea what I was in for. A real, competitive, 150-person league, official jerseys, recorded stats... DUFL is the real deal. It's been a very fun season, and I'm sad to see it come to an end.

This past weekend, we had our final games of the regular season in Daejon. Although DUFL has Daegu in the name, there are 2 teams from other cities - 1 team from Busan and 1 team from Daejon, the other 5 are from Daegu. The games in Busan were actually played on the beach and were a blast! Playing on the sand was so liberating, and everyone was making dives and ambitious attempts.
When we arrived in Daejon, the field was not as glamorous as we had anticipated. Drew, sprawled out on a bench in his Snuggie showing his disappointment. Shortly after the games began, a group of older Korean men posted up a few feet from one of our end zones and started a warm-up routine. Some of the DUFL members joined in looking awesomely ridiculous. The weekend turned out to be full of competitive games and a fun night out with a group that doesn't typically party together.

There also happened to be a free "rock festival" happening on Saturday night, but by the time I got there, there was no sign of live music. It was only around midnight, and apparently the fest had been shut down for hours - some responsible party had not gotten noise permits, and everything had been shut down around 11:00. Still, it became a night of adventures.

After our game against Daejon (the team tied for first place with Busan), they instigated an interesting game. I have no idea what they call this game, but I refer to it as Sword Game. I didn't have a chance to grab my camera earlier, which is sad because this was way funnier when there were about 20 people playing. Still a taste, nonetheless!
















Lastly, music choice of the week!
Small Black - Photojournalist


Monday, October 11, 2010

Global Gathering

Last weekend, there was a worldwide electronic music festival in Seoul called Global Gathering. My understanding is that this show travels all over the world but hosts different bands and DJs that are from that particular country. Some bands travel to more than one location, like Armin Van Buuren and, I believe, Justice and Fatboy Slim as well.


It was a 1 hour 40 minute ride on the KTX fast train, something like 8 stops on the Seoul subway maze and a 20 minute ride on a lovely Global Gathering-sponsored shuttle bus.

We got there just in time to see The Koxx perform - an alright Korean band my friends came across at a rock fest a few weeks back. Dr. Martens and Jagermeister were sponsors of the event along with Singha Thai beer and a few other less memorable ones.

It was a very long day as we left Daegu at 8am, arrived at the festival at 2pm after some lunching and didn't leave the venue until 3am. Good thing one of our friends had arranged for her place to stay already because we just crashed there at 4am. The other option was to push it through the night and stay up until 5:30am when the first KTX left for Daegu - we couldn't make it.
Justice and Fatboy Slim put on very entertaining and dance-worthy shows, and some of the other bands weren't too bad - Idiotape, Telepathy and of course, the Koxx. It was a really fun time, and it's nice to keep doing different things on the weekends. I'm not sure how many people were at this festival, but it could not even begin to compare to Coachella - I can hardly say the two in the same sentence. It's great for Korea - I find myself saying that quite often. Things are measured on a different level of greatness at home as they are here in Korea. You have to cut "everything" some slack, and I do mean everything........ sometimes you just gotta say, "It's good... for Korea."

I included some video clips from Justice, but for some reason the sound stops halfway through, check them out on my YouTube channel. The Fatboy Slim video wouldn't load, but you can check it out here. The sound is a little fuzzy - I guess that dance music is too loud for my little camera.

























Sunday, October 10, 2010

Strange Times in Korea

Sometimes, I have a hard time understanding the logic of the Koreans, or lack thereof. After living in Daegu for about 10 weeks now, I've encountered some frustrating experiences. It's hard to remember specific instances, but I'm trying to document these cultural differences before I forget because they continue to amaze me day after day. Let me just start by saying that I really do love Korea and love being here, and I am not saying that these behaviors are an accurate portrayal of everyone, but it's a large majority of the people that I have encountered.

One phenomenon that has consistently occurred since my first week here is just when walking around. The Koreans will not move over in the slightest if they are in the path of a head-on collision with you. It could be a wide open space with no obstructions in sight, and I could be walking inches from a wall with nowhere to move over, and still they will crash right into me, body-check. There really is no consideration for others, no sense of appropriateness. It happens on a daily basis, multiple times a day, no matter where I am, where I'm walking, what I'm doing - Koreans will collide. And it doesn't stop there.

I do a 40-minute bike ride down to my Hapkido (martial arts) class, and I've never seen anything like this. Again, the sidewalks are fairly wide on this journey, many with a specially marked bike lane - yes, on the sidewalk, not on the street. If you attempt biking on the street, you will probably get run over. It's a complete miracle how a 4'10 and 90 pound, old, Korean lady can swerve all over, taking up the full 8 foot sidewalk and will not move no matter how loud and how long my bike bell is ringing. I basically have to wobble around avoiding crashing into the "Ajema" (polite word for old lady) that will never move over. It's not just the ajema's that do this either - it's everyone, all ages, male and female, from toddlers to senile people - no one will move over when I'm biking. One morning, an Ajema was sitting down on the sidewalk and had a dog on a leash that took up the rest of it. I'm sure you can guess what happened. This is a major frustration.

Another thing that blew my mind is that the Koreans never cover their mouths when sneezing or coughing. It's completely unbelievable. I cannot make any sense of this. In my classes, my students do it all the time as well. It has been 10 weeks now of me constantly scolding them and instructing them never to cough or sneeze without covering their mouths - so they are getting better. I'm glad they are just about trained as the "cold" season is just around the corner. But it's amazing how anywhere you are, close quarters or not, beware of being coughed and sneezed on.

There are dozens of little things that happen where I just cant understand if this is real or if someone is seriously playing a joke on me. The most basic, common sense and common knowledge is just not there - it has to be a joke. I must be on Punk'd some of these times. Last week, I walked into Pizza Hut with a friend and looked through the English menu at the entrance/host stand. The Pizza Hut's here are like restaurants, like back in the old days, at least in Kansas, where Pizza Hut had a salad bar and seating, etc. They had a lunch menu on the stand that's from 12 noon until 5pm - it was 2pm. The hostess finally came up and grabbed two regular menus and I inquired about the lunch menu, and she said yes it's lunch menu time but didn't take those menus. I started pointing at them asking if we can have those menus. She nodded but still seated us and didn't bring them. Then again, I asked for the lunch menus, and she returned to the host stand and brought them. Why she didn't bring them with us when I asked for them by the stand, I may never know.

Last weekend, we were in Seoul at a strange Dutch-themed restaurant with a menu of mostly Italian food. The waitress stood hovering over us for 5 minutes as we struggled to make out the pictures since the entire menu was in Korean. Usually you find a few English words next to each menu description but not here. As I was pulling out my cellphone dictionary, the waitress asked in perfect English if we had dined there before. Clearly a logical question and puzzling that she spoke English this whole time. I asked if a picture of a normal, plain-looking spaghetti had any meat in it - she said no. The dish came out and it was beyond full of bacon - I mean FULL of bacon. Then we ask if they have Coke Zero, she says yes, of course but never came back with any drinks. She comes over and tells us to grab a cup and the beverages are self-serve. I do as I was told, grab two cups, head over to the machine which was around the corner in their working area, and she tells me to go back around to the other side of the counter. I hand her the two cups and since there were 7 fountains of Cider and 1 fountain of Pepsi (no Coke Zero in this place), I ask for Pepsis. She takes the two cups, fills up one, puts it on the counter for me and just stares at me like I should be on my way. I put two cups on the counter, she took both cups, but she only filled one. Someone please explain. I asked her for the other one and finally got it, but it was such a challenge for her.



In downtown Daegu, there are blocks and blocks of stores and pedestrians absolutely everywhere. It's a little similar to Third Street Promenade in LA where it's a brick-layed road but it's not for driving, just for pedestrians. Downtown Daegu has stores set up in a similar fashion but it's more of a grid rather than one straight street. Anyway, point is, there's hundreds of pedestrians, it's basically an outdoor mall, and one would think that these "roads" are not for cars. Only here, these cars drive all through downtown - down streets of stores and restaurants that are only the width of a small alley. Clearly, cars should not be driving down here. It takes them 10 minutes to drive down one block. It's literally mobs of people with cars inching through huge crowds and honking here and there for the pedestrians to move. There is no way I can ever come up with a logical reason why a car would ever need to drive on these "sidewalks."

Also, apparently it's been concluded that Korea as a country is one of the least efficient countries in the world. They take twice as long to complete tasks, they are overworked because they don't use their time well so it takes them 12 hours to do a job that should take 6. The lack of efficiency and logic in this country is beyond me.

I will never understand you, Korea.



Cults - Oh My God






Friday, October 8, 2010

ATV, Rafting, Pension in Daejon











The first weekend of October, Beth was awesome enough to organize a trip for 12 of us to go to a pension outside of Daejon. A handful of her coworkers from last year are just about wrapping up their contracts and heading out of Korea, and this would be a nice last hoorah for all of them.

We took a Moon Kkang school bus - nothing like a public school bus at home... it's decorated with the finest fabrics (see photo) and fully equipped with reclining seats, cup holders and of course, karaoke. And our good pal, Andrew, was ready to get Saturday started with none over than his version of "S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night!" by the Bay City Rollers. It was classic.

Upon arrival, we were greeted by some
interesting insects. Another black and yellow spider on a massive web instantly caught our eyes, only this time, the spider was enjoying its prey - a dragonfly that had been captured in the web. Shortly after, an injured praying mantis was crawling about. Also, The mosquitoes at this place really feasted on me and the rest of us throughout the weekend.

The first day, we went out on a bunch of ATVs and drove about the terrain for a bit. After, we soaked up some sun while enjoying the endless draft beer that was included with the place. For dinner, they made us beef curry with various Korean side dishes as well as a mass amount of pork, which is not part of my diet. After some time digesting, the drinks continued flowing and the karaoke machine was brought out. The pension owners set up a huge projector screen outside with surround sound and hooked up the karaoke to it. It was a fun but steady night until the Korean group showed up. They inquired about the karaoke and asked to join, which obviously excited us. They really showed us how to "noraebang" it up with dance moves and the whole nine. It turned into somewhat of a dance-off. The night took off from there and the singing, dancing, drinking games and shots continued for hours.

The next morning we were broken for what we thought was rafting. During the drive, we realized that this rafting trip was not going to consist of any "white water." Fortunately, it turned out to be an insanely hilarious experience despite the lack of the slightest ripple in the water. Let's just say, everyone ended up fully clothed in the freezing water and partook in all orders made by the guides. I had some really hard laughs that definitely contributed to my ab workout.

ALSO - I've been trying my best to stay informed on the music scene while out in Korea, and I'm going to post videos of interest with my blog entries. Enjoy!

Morning Benders - "Promises"