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.

Dae-Jews do Seoul Searching

Yom Kippur fell on Friday to Saturday, the 17th and 18th. Unfortunatley, my school was not exactly accommodating and didn't let me have the Friday off, but I didn't push it too far either. Saturday morning, I headed up to Seoul en route to the Chabad House services at the US Army Base Religious Retreat Center in Itaewon. There was a good group of fellow "Dae-Jewers" (Jews of Daegu) that were there also. It was a pretty decent turnout - maybe 100 people - definitely more Jews in Korea than I had anticipated. And I could not get over the adorable half-Korean children running around speaking Hebrew at 4 years old - I kid you not, it was amazing. Other than that, it was a normal Chabad service, much like the others I've previously experienced. It did make me miss our Yom Kippur services and the reform nature and family feel, but it was nice to make the journey to the only services in Korea.

On the verge of passing out nearing the "break-fast" point, I finally made it to 7:30 and snacked on crackers, tuna, hummus, veggies, fruit and cake at the Army base. We walked into the Itaewon area and grabbed a beer with the Jews and moved on to an area called Hongdae. It was pretty fun - we got a bag drink from GoGo Vinyl (minus the "GoGo") to keep things like Daegu, got some BBQ Chicken and beers, stopped by a hookah bar/lounge and at 3am headed back to the hotel. We stayed at the Ibis Hotel which was fairly nice but really not near any of the places we were ever at. Not sure how that worked out. I'm still skeptical of all hotels, motels or whatever other type of accommodations. The cleanliness is always FAR below par, and I will never step foot into the shower without shower shoes - even at Ibis, the shower floor was dirty. Just one of those things you have to expect.

Sunday, I spent the day shopping around in the Myeongdong area. There are many Western restaurants and clothing stores, so it was nice to catch some of those once in a while. There was a huge Forever21 and H&M, Nike stores, adidas, GUESS, Outback Steakhouse, CPK, the list goes on - we opted for a meal at CPK, but I enjoyed every bite. I even found Red Mango for the first time since I've been here, despite the fact that it's a Korean chain that was recently named #4 on fastest growing food service chains in the US in 2009 - but nowhere to be found in Korea. It was a fun day regardless of the pouring rain, but I wish I was able to enjoy Seoul a bit more and not have to fast and stay so far from the attractions.

Til next time, Hi Seoul!