Daegu Rock Concert aka Yu Festival

Daegu is commonly known throughout Korea as the "conservative town" of Korea, where people are supposedly more traditional and religious. However, after last weekend this stereotype for me was completely discredited....

First off..... on Friday night I finished off work not expecting to go out or do anything that interesting. However, it was one of my friends Chris's last days of work so celebratory drinking was in order and I could not miss out on such an occasion. I left Suesong-gu (my district of town) with my biddy Evan and we took a short taxi ride to this bar called The Hut which I think I might have wrote about earlier, where it fells like your in a treehouse but with alcohol of course. When we arrived there was maybe a 5 people there, 4 foreigners and one pretty cute korean girl named Flora who was worked at one the foreigners Hogwons. After about an hour our group had tripled in size and we began drinking a rather large amount of mekju (beer), soju and makhali. Makhali or Dong-dong-ju is a popular drink in Korea is (spelling is most likely wrong) which is a frosty rice wine that is milky in color but has the alcohol content of a beer and is served in a large bowl. Our table had about 6 people and we had at least 4 maybe more bowls of this stuff and a few pitches pf mekju and (luckily) only one bottle of soju, by the time I left the other table with Chris had about 5 empty bottles of soju. The night became quite interesting when this Korean girl Flora or who was shy began drinking a surprisingly large amount of alcohol.

Cultural Side-Note: Korea has a strong drinking culture similarly to Ukraine just not on the street and not vodka. However, it is only the men who drink a shit load normally so although it is not umcomon to see a korean guy at 2 am on the side of the street laying down drunk out of his mind, it is not common to see korean women drink alot. It os not rude to get drunk in front of a korean woman, they will continue to fill up your cup all night but they do not drink much at all in comparison to their male counterpart.

Different note but it is also common in Korea to have bells or a buzzer at your table which tells the waitress you need something, where they are arrive at your table within one minute. We need this in America badly and you don't have to tip what an amazing country

and I don't even have to mention service (if you forgot it means free shit).

Back to the story so she was keeping up drinking as much as myself and the rest of the foreigners at the table so understandable she was getting rather drunk and became more open, talkative and flirtatious. It was my first time being around a drunk Korean girl and she was hilarious and progressively went from buzzed to drunk. However the real highlight of the night was at some point in the night someone asked the waitress to put on the celebration song which is a 2 minute long english song with basically 6 words. At this point a fair number of makhali bowls, mekju pitches and soju bottles had been consumed by our group and Chris preceded to get on top of the table and start dancing to the song (for a visual reference imagine that I can barley stand up straight in this place as it is...)

Saturday Night:

-After walking up with a little hangover (luckily not anywhere to as bad as the previous weekend of soju hell hangover) I relaxed until around 9pm where I had expected another round of Rodeo St. (downtown) but instead something spectacular happened. I was thinking about meeting up with this random foreigner girl who hit me up on facebook who seemed to be cute and fun gave me a call inviting me to her friends place for a an Indian dinner which did sounds amazing but by passing on this opportunity I was able to experience something amazing. Eben (I just remembered his name is not spelled Evan...sorry man) gave me a call and told me about a concert that was happening at some university in Daegu with free admission. So, we grabbed some dinner and meet up with a couple of people and took a taxi across town. After a not so great long taxi ride we arrived at the University and we began to follow the music. We first thought the music was coming from the stadium so we went in to find no one and the music seemed to be farther away. So we went around the outside of the stadium and found and outdoor theater which is where the concert was at. It was free to get in and I did not find this out until latter but the concert had been going on since 2pm, we arrived at 11pm. The place had maybe 300-600 people in attendance with Koreans dunk everywhere, music barring and an impressive set of lights which seemed to have been stolen from a daft punk rave. However, we stayed there for 3 hours until it ended and I was more than satisfied with the bands performance, we became an intricate part of the entire event. To start with the first band was a cool ska band with the full works.... trombone, saxophone, drummer, bassist, lead guitar and lead singer who also played the trumpet. They were probably we favorite band in terms of just music but each band has its own special talent. The second band was a more pop rock band where the lead singer was wearing pants that were so tight that when he did a massive jump kick to start his band performance I was utterly in shock and impressed. As an added bonus he also did some Michael Jackson ball grabbing dance moves then preceding to hump the speakers for a respectable 10 seconds. The last people were a hard rock almost metalish band where the lead singer immediately ripped off his shirt and started pounding a soju bottle then pouring a new bottle over his body... at this point I knew this guy was not fucking around. After his first song was over he pointed at our group siting down and they pointed the spotlight on us and told us in English we needed to "To come down from the seats and go FUCKING CRAZY". We replied in the only sane matter we first chugged our pitcher sized personal mekjus. left our seats and went down to the stage area. The night starts to become a little hazy at this point but I remember soju being thrown everywhere, a fire hose being shot into the crowd and our friend Margo running around with a bottle of soju and pouring some into all out mouths to ensure we were appropriately smashed for this occasion. I also remember the lead singer calling us out again saying we needed to drink more I think and then things went a little black for me. All in all the concert was fan-fucking-tastic and I really hope that I have more opportunities to see some live music in Daegu... the conservative town my ass...

The Power of Soju and Video Golf

Before I can begin to talk about my last weekend it is important to give everyone who does not already know about this remarkably evil drink known as Soju a brief introduction. first off it is a normally potato or rice based wine drink but yet it is far more similar to a hard alcohol than it is to any sort of wine. It comes in a small bottle which costs around 1,000 won (1$) and is quite literally cheaper than water. Regarding its taste, think of a smooth vodka taste with a gin sort of smell and is normally around 20% alcohol. Now we can discuss last weekend....

After getting off of work at 9 on Friday I was thinking about going downtown but decided instead to just relax which in retrospect was probably a very wise decision. Saturday I just relaxed at my apartment watching some downloaded TV until I met up with my friend Evan for a little late lunch around 4. We decided to have a little taste of home so he took me to a place called Gorilla Burger which is a surprisingly amazing burger, even though it is messy but I fell a good burger is supposed to be. I bought some sort of bacon jalapeño burger with a big thing if fries and a Hogarden beer so I was spending a good deal of money for lunch.

After lunch we met up with one of Evan's friends Chris who is about to leave Korea actually just finishing up his last bit of teaching this week. We decided that we still had a couple of hours to kill until heading downtown so we each bought 2 beers and a bottle of soju for the group and went tot he lake for a little bit of public drinking and classic Korean people watching, who are hilarious human beings if your a little buzzed and actually paying attention. So, we drank our beers and kicked it at the lake edge for awhille listening to the most unbelievable annoying music (think of an amazing horrible slow romantic jazz almost) the entire time, which was at least 2-3 hours. So, while there there was alot of people all around but notably there were too older Korean guys who had a little stand selling random stuff but were getting quite drunk on soju. After unmercifully offering one of the guys some of our soju one of the guys started to dance by himself and seeing that we had polished off our bottle he proceeded to juggle the bottle in the air while dancing, This continued for some time until both of these older gents approached Evan and I trying to do that 'steal your nose game' that you play with kids which we were not quite sure how to take. They eventually gave us a pack of cigarettes and a bag of basically puffed starch balls with food coloring and we said our goodbyes.

After this random yet amazing experience we decided it was time to eat more and facilitate our buzz some more with more mekju (beer) and soju. Before heading over to Evan's apartment I needed to grab a sweatshirt and unfortunately I had the amazingly stupid idea that I was not yet drunk enough for 8 pm so I pounded half a bottle of soju to myself before heading out to Evan's (HUGE MISTAKE). Once there Chris Evan and I ordered a pizza and began drinking more mekju and soju which I found out I was really not prepared for ( I do have an uneasy feeling that I asked Chris to buy soju before he headed over which would not surprise me, yet I hope is not true for several reasons....) Regardless, I noticed myself quickly go from buzzed loving life to..... WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED TO ME, I became instantly shitfaced barley able to speak let alone go downtown. However we left shortly thereafter and all I remember about the drive is nausea and darkness, Evan and Chris thought I was passing out. When we arrived I instantly rid my body of that amazing pizza right in front of the main strip downtown with at least 60 people around. The funny thing is I was told latter that I was trying my hardest to play it off smooth by yacking then walking away then yacking again. Luckily this horrible situation also was the only reason I survived that night, Evan bought we an energy water and we continued to the bar. We arrived at Who's Bob although I did not find this out until the next day. Once in the bar I made it a point to not drink for quite some time, at least an hour maybe more. I began to fell revived although still sluggish and I met a number of people and played some foosball. We stayed at this bar for at least 4 hours even though it seemed like maybe an hour for me. Afterwards it was quite late and we needed a little late night upper.

Walking down the street we made our way to Mickie D's but before we arrived there for some still unknown reason Evan and Christina decided to steal some Korean guys bike from him and go for a joyride for awhile. Not as drunk anymore I was somewhat shocked to see that this Korean guy was not upset in the slightest and seemed to enjoy this random happenstance, at least until they repeatedly crashed the bike so I ran to help them by giving them a push start. After who knows how long we went into Mc D's but to my massive resentment as we walkded in they just finished serving dinner and now I was forced to get breakfast (now it is important to remember I had been running on empty since we arrived there and all I had in my system was 2 mekjus and a energy water). I conceded after unsuccessful trying to convince her and ordering breakfast resentfully. After eating we got into a cab and I passed out withing 3 seconds of entering my apartment..

Sunday:

I woke up on sunday with a MONSTER HANGOVER the likes of which I had not experienced since I drank Zombies and smoked Samboku in Ukraine last summer. It was only at this moment that I truly respected the power of soju and its ability to not only get you drunk but kick you in the ass the next morning. It took me a solid 4-6 hours to fully get over my hangover and Evan gave me a call and told me we had a 7pm tees time for Video Golf which I had completely forgotten we agreed upon the previous night. To begin with it costs about 20$ to play around which includes everyone and they sell mekju, soju and will order you whatever kind of food you want to its safe to say they take care quite well. However, I was very surprised to find out just how amazing video golf was in reality. To begin with picture a fairly large room with a couch and a large coffee table, think of a small private theater room. Basically, they have all the clubs (albeit korean size which means small if I need to spell it out) you shoot your golf ball into the screen and it accurately predicts where your shot would have gone. The place is very nice with a shooting area that actual tilts to fit into where your ball drops on the golf course. I have not played a full round of gold in at least 4 years e so I defiantly got my ass throughly kicked but the experience was worth it a thousand fold and I believe this will become a normal thing on Sunday now. Chris and Evan even have a trophy which if you decided to challenge the trophy holder (Chris) they take it rather seriously and no mull again are accepted. In all it was a perfect way to end a rough yet amazing weekend round 2 in Daegu South Korea.

10 Days in.... and the Report = Rockin!

Oh Yeah.... I'm finnaly starting to get a fell for this country...

Teaching:

First thing is first, before I start ranting about my job I need to say that I work at the Junior Korean Herald which is affiliated with one of the largest magazines in the country the Korean Herald. Another important point to stress is that my boss is amazing. He is really nice and has bought me food a number of times so far as well as personally driving me to E-Mart (think of a Korean Walmart) and helped me find alot of food for my house.

I'm about to finish up my first week of teaching and it has been mostly a positive experience... with a few unanticipated hiccups. I work at a small Hogwon (private school) where there are 0 thats right no other foreigner teachers and only 5 teachers totally counting my director who teaches which quite strange in most circumstances. I have quickly learned that work at very weird school in Daegu. First off, 80% of my classes are an hour and a half long where the majority of teachers teach 45 minute classes only. Secondly, I teach all levels of english from phonics to advanced TEOFL classes which means I teach conversation, writing, and reading comprehension, and I teach all age groups. My most basic class is 4 students (my largest class by the way which is strange enough) who are between 9-13 of age which is my 45 minute class. Then I teach a more advanced conversation class but they are still young kids and thats class only has 2 students. Then I teach beginner TEOFL to a young chubby girl who hates to work and study and play with her phone all the time (Why the hell do kids need cell phones! that I will never understand that but anyways...) and reads her anime books, this is one of my HELL classes. I also teach her sister who is older and much more well behaved but a little shy, under normal circumstances this class would not be that bad but the thing is its a 3 hour one on one TOEFL class, ya you read that write 3 hours one student ( Which is HELL class number two) The funny thing is that these 2 girls are sisters which I guess only makes sense. My easier classes are my adult classes, one of which is a advanced TEOFL class with one 21 year old student but he actually wants to work so its a good class. The other is an adult conversation class with two 40+ year old women (called ajimas) and they aren't very good speakers but they want to be in my class and they like me so all is good there.

Now here is another important distinction between my school and many others... I work 1-9 monday thru friday even though I don't teach for all those hours. From what I have heard and from the people I have meet so far most of them can leave their school when they finish class but mine wont let me. On my first day I finished teaching my classes at 6 and went to leave but first said goodbye to my boss who replied where the hell do you think your going.... I replied I am done with all of my class correct? He said Yes but I signed a contract that says I work from 1-9 regardless if I have am actually teaching. It sucks but its not that bad because I just bring a book or my labtop and I just chill in my classroom for the rest of the day either working on my lesson plans fir the next day or just relaxin (which is exactly what I'm doing now as I write this, I still have about one hour and 45 minuted until I can leave...)

Life Outside of Working (aka. the good shit):

Ok now since were done with a report on teaching we can move on to some of the more interesting bits of my life in Korea up to this point. I have met only a handful of foreigners up to this point, the first 3 were missionaries so I politely said hello and was done with that. Lets go back first....

Saturday, September 12:

This was my first weekend in Korea and I had not met anyone up to this point who would head downtown with me to the bars so I made the only decision possible and decided this was a perfect opportunity for a solo mission seeing it as a 'scouting night' of Daegu nightlife. In Daegu there is one real downtown bar/foreigner area to party where everyone goes and its called Rodeo St (its not just one street though). So, I grabbed a taxi after writing down (what I believed to be) rodeo st in Hangul letters. After a 10 minute ride he drops me off and I begin to walk around aimlessly trying to find a cool bar or some foreigners. After about 20-30 minutes of walking around this area I knew something was wrong.

1st- There were no foreigners what so ever around and this was supposed to be were everyone goes, especially on a Saturday night!

2nd- I had seen only one bar so far and it had 3 people total inside at 10:30 at night...

I decided to just get a ride back to my apartment (My boss had written down my address in Hangul so I knew that it was correct) but before leaving I decided to get some food so I went in to this burger joint called Crazy Burger. Crazy Burger was what turned my night from a complete dud into an good night. I walked in and ordered a spicy burger with jalapenos which was surprisingly damn good but I noticed that there were computers with Internet in this place (still seems strange to me) so I got on one and decided to see if I really did write down the wrong address. I quickly founf out that this was the case so I found the correct address and copied it down in Hangul and decided I can't end my night like this. I flagged down a taxi and after 10 minutes I had Finlay to Rodeo st.

Once I got out of the taxi I knew I was in the right place. I saw a shit load of foreigners instantly not to mention a shit load of people period (the exact opposite of the last place I was at). I then preceded to find a cool bar but before I did this I noticed that it was literally raining bubbles. There was some sort of bubble machine at the top of one of these buildings so bubbles were flying all around the entrance to the Rodeo area. I walked around fir maybe 15-20 minutes just observing everything until I decided I needed a beer. I went to some sort of sports bar which was exclusively filled with koreans, I was literally the only foreigner in this bar and I was by myself which is odd to be drinking by yourself in Korea at a bar. I stayed there for 30 minutes or so and decided to move on, I saw a group of cute girls walk into some place called Club Frog which I latter found out was one of the biggest and most crowded clubs in all of Daegu. The place was 4 stories tall, after paying a 5,000 won (about $4) cover charge I went in to what seemed to be a staging room with lockers and couches to smoke and lounge on. I preceded to the back room where it was a super packed large dance floor with a cool DJ but way to packed. I left and went upstairs to another part of the bar and bought a Cass (one of the most popular Korean beers) and just explored all the floors which were all connected to the main room so you could look over the dance floor besides the top floor which is the roof. I stayed here for maybe 20-30 minutes and decided it was time to call it a night, I think it was about 1:40 by this time. I then just grabbed a taxi and headed home....

In short: I would say it was a good eventfully first night out in Daegu

Wednesday Spetember, 16:

-yesterday was by far the best day i have had in Korea so far. After getting off at work at 9 I started walking back to my house expecting a quiet night, eating some Korean ramen (amazing by the way) and watching a movie. But on the way home I started up a conversation with a random western guy I saw walking the same direction as me. His name is Evan and after talking for 10 minutes he invited me to join him and some of his friends for a little Sam-Gip-Sal (Korean BBQ which I had been trying to convince my boss to take me but he believes its fatting which I would have to disagree with). First off Korean BBQ you all sit around a table with a small grill in front of you, they bring in an assortment of things besides pork and bacon, mushrooms, kimchi (of course), garlic, some sort of egg soup and some other things to dip your food into. So, they bring you all the meat uncooked and you cook it yourself on your grill along with any sides. Once cooked you places your grilled amaziness in a leaf and enjoy.

Cultural Side Note:

It is important to understand that when you go out in a group of foreigners to a random resturant or bar 'Service' is quite common. Service is basically what Koreans call it when they give you free shit. This is a common occurence and practice and one of the coolest percs for being a foeigner in Korea. At the resturant we received Service pork and sodas. anyways...

At dinner I met some other foreigners, 2 British girls, and 2 Canadian girls who were all English teachers at a different schools around Daegu. After dinner we decided to head to a bar right down the road which from the inside looked like a treefort. We grabbed a table and we ordered some maekali which is creamy rice wine drink which tastes almost milky but its alcoholic of course. We stayed here for about an hour or so until we finished drinking about 2 big bowls of this stuff then we said goodbye to the girls we meet and decided it was to early to end are night.

Evan and I then headed downtown to Rodeo st. where we went to a bar called Bar AU. We went here because one of evans friends was this cute korean girl who just started to work at this place. We bought 2 beers a piece and 1 long island as we talked to his friend who speaks surprisingly good english , almost as good as some of my korean coworker teachers at my school. After spending about 2 hours here and around 50,000 won (around $42) we deiced to head back home and by this time it was about 3:30 am. The next morning I woke up with a slight hangover ( I think from the maekali...) but after eating breakfast and taking a couple pain killers I felt fine and left to start teaching again.

Well that entry was went on much longer than I anticipated and I only have 45 minutes left until I'm done with work!not sure If I should go home or meet up with a different group of foreigners who I am supposed to meet up with and grab some food we will have to see....I'll let everyone know soon...

Day 1: Very long...

I am now offically living in South Korea, are you excited? Because I definatly am! However, the journey over here was anything but easy. In the past 30 hours I have slept maybe 3-4 hours, I always seem to have a hard time falling asleep on planes with my tall ass. The flight in general was not that bad, only about a 13 hours to get from LAX to Incheon (Seoul) airport. Once there I had a short one hour flight to Busan and once there I met up with some random Korean guy who drove me up north for 2 hours to Deagu, without speaking a word of english which was a littloe ackward.

A Little geography lesson:

Daegu is the thrid largest city in Korea located in middle of the country. It is in a basin flanked by mountains on all sides which I heard traps in the heat in the summer and cold in the winter, making it normally one of the worst places in Korea in terms of temperature and humidity. (Koreans in general seem to be very proud that they have all four seasons, unlike the one season of 'sunny' that I have become accutomed to in Santa Barbara )However, after arriving today in Daegu I found the weather to be rather temperant and nice, my coworker assured me this was a rare occasion...

Once in Daegu I was tired and hungry but I driven straight to my school where I met my director who is a nice man and a few of my co-teachers only one of whom actually speak near fluent english. They were nice and bought me lunch at a really tasty Korean buffet and then I was taken to get a korean bank account at Hana Bank. So, now I have a korean debt card which only works in Korea but its convenient, allowing me to to walk around without carrying a lot of cash. They then took me to my new apartment which is about a 10-15 minute walk from my school (which is called Junior Hearld english by the way). The apartment is small but comfortable and cozy. I have a refridgerator, small stove, TV, Internet, and shower basically all the essentials. The only thing I really wish I had was a coffee machine but I can probably just buy one at some point (I brought 2 pounds of my favorite coffee from Auburn, Oh Yeah!).

After this, I immediately took a short nap, and I have the feeling its going to take me at least 1-2 weeks to get over my jetlag. Tomorrow I am supposed to get my medical check and I think my boss is setting up my Korean phone as well so things are looking good. It is a little lonely at this point, only talking in depth with one person so far who is older than me and speaks Korean so I need to meet some expats soon and start establishing my Korean friend base.

Well I think I am going to watch some Korean TV and try to stay up for at least another couple of hours so I can try and fall asleep at a normal time and wake up on time to go take care of some things with my boss tomorrow...

Preparation for a new life

Ok the time has come. I have been talking about this moment for awhile now and I can't believe I am on the verge of moving to South Korea for a year. I have traveled around to quite a few places but I have always had the comfort of knowing that I am only a visitor to these places, now I will become a resident. I must say talking about this now I am am realizing I am not scared or worried, but rather I only have a deep sense of anxiousness...

It is about 3pm right now and I don't fly out until 7pm so I have a feeling this is going to be a long couple of hours. I am flying out of Sacramento heading to San Fransisco, only an hour flight. Then I have a 4 hour layover until I fly out to Incheon which is the major International airport in Seoul South Korea. Then I have 2 hour layover in Incheon then I get on my final plane which takes me to Busan which is the major city in the southern part of the country. I will be picked up by some random Korean guy who does not speak English and we have a 1-2 hour drive to get into Daegu. In total it will take we about 22 hours of actually flight time, at least 6 hours of layover time and 2 hours of driving so in total about 30 hours... damn

OK its time to do some final preparations and start the beginning of a new chapter in my life... I can't fucking wait!