Decibel Levels and Light Rail Lines

So, I realize about two posts ago, I mentioned how I was going to write about my new apartment, and I still haven't made good on that promise, but it's coming.  Just not now.  Now i'm going to write a short(!) post about why my school deserves to win the loud, obnoxious award.  Although the atmosphere of an elementary school is naturally loud and obnoxious, lately there have been various construction projects adding to the overall decibel level of my class time.  Let's take a look at exhibit A:

They're building a new gymnasium where the old garden used to be. (Progress?) There's hammering and sawing and drilling and jackhammering going on for a large portion of the day.  Notice in the background the large crane dedicated to the construction of a new high rise apartment complex two blocks away (that is a larger discussion on the ever changing urban landscape in Korea).  That is project number 1.  Let's look at project number 2, exhibit B:

Now, the cynics in the readership may comment that this is just another part of exhibit A.  The laying of gas and water pipes is an essential part of constructing a new building.  However, you forget that this a) adds noise, as there is an entirely additional crew working on this portion of the project, and b) creates a fenced barrier, hindering my maneuverability (are we at war here?).  Instead of being able to walk directly through the door adjacent to my classroom every morning, I have to go around the building and enter from the other side.  Minor, first world problems, I know.  Just explaining why I treat it as a separate project. 

Then there is exhibit C:

It's difficult to discern with my stellar iPhone camera, but in the background, there exists a rail line resting atop cement pillars between lines of orange coney things.  This is the ongoing Daegu light rail project that was started before I came to Korea and may very well end after I leave.  When I moved here, the road pictured was just a normal four lane road with no median.  Since that time, they have widened the road so that a median space for a rail line exists.  In order to do this, they have torn down establishments, physically moved my school's historic landmark auditorium 20 ft east, and, most annoyingly, destroyed and shut down part of the subway station adjacent to my school, as they need to physically move the elevator and the stair entrance to the underground.  Luckily, I moved apartments and I don't have to deal with the closed subway station anymore. 

Not that ironically (at all, really...), my new apartment is adjacent to a different portion of the new light rail line.  This portion is objectively more finished than the portion near my school/old apartment, and I can see what will clearly be a light rail train station looming above the intersection. 

I can quickly see how this blog post is graduating from short to overly long and from the noise/aggrivation level at my school to the new Daegu light rail line, but I don't much care as this is my hot bloggy and I can do what I want.  As I mentioned, this project was begun before I came to Daegu in February 2010.  It is not scheduled to finish until summer of 2014, and, being smack dab in the middle of it, that deadline seems like wishful thinking. 

I have mentioned before the industriousness of Korean construction teams and how quickly they can produce a finished product.  This rail line seems to be the opposite of that.  Mired by ongoing money shortages and battling with rush hour traffic, this project has been going painfully slow.  I have seen progress, obviously, but the rate at which I see it is definitely lower than the Korean standard (see also: the Namdaemun reconstruction project). 

It makes me especially sad since the route this line follows would be really convenient to getting around the city.  Let's take a look at the new route:

Represented in red and green are the current subway lines, making a crude X, meeting at Daegu's downtown business district.  Notice how much of the north and southeast are not represented by subway coverage.  Now look how the new line (represented in cat puke yellow) will almost exclusively cover those areas.  To the north is Chilgok, an area I frequent that has a unique shopping/restaurant/nightlife district.  To the southeast lies Suseong, the affluent area of Daegu, boasting a really nice lake, unique nightlife, and exotic restaurants.  To me, these areas should have been represented by subway coverage a long time ago (especially since Suseong-gu surely has lobbying power).  But, Daegu's subway is a recent venture, so it's understandable that they are still expanding.  I'm just going to stop there, as I'm sure you've gotten a broad overview of what I wanted to share.

Notebook Showcase #1

So, one of my duties at school includes grading the 6th graders' homework.  This is normally done in their English notebook, which they hand in at the end of class.  Since beginning this duty, I have been absolutely enthralled with the covers on these notebooks.  Now, I admit I had a Lisa Frank trapper keeper in the 4th grade, but the covers to these notebooks make Lisa Frank look like Rambo's casualty checklist.  Note: I have blocked any names out of the pictures for privacy purposes, and because that's explicitly stated in my contract not to expose names of students.

This week's top five:

 "You see, when a mommy and a daddy really love each other, they plant gardens full of strawberry seeds and yell "Happy FRESH100%!" and make sweet time sweet time sweet time sweet time.

 I don't even know what this is supposed to be, but it looks like a propaganda poster for the first day of integration at a 1960s elementary school.  Perhaps in black people language, this day is called "Awa seru!" 

 Oh!  So, even if I don't know English, I should just yell as loud as I can what I think English sounds like at strangers.  Nobody would be offended at that.

 Somebody! Anybody!  I'm so desperate and lonely.

"Do you like Drive?"...as in the movie Drive?  And I'd love to see a street sign that just says "For Driving."  Oooh, a driving road.  Or maybe it leads to a golf course?

Now before I continue this type of entry, I should emphasize that there are some notebooks that are both tasteful and grammatically correct.  They are, admittedly, in the minority.  Why Korean stationery companies prefer to vomit incorrect English onto their notebooks is beyond me, but it's the rule as opposed to the exception.  Like their t-shirts.

200! Nowaythat'stotallyawesome!

The tears are like, totallynotfalling down my face right now because we finally did it!  We made it to 200 posts on this blog!  Holy crap, that's like probablynotthe biggest accomplishment I've ever made. Let's get another congratulatory picture up there!

Let's see.  I've been having strange dreams again as of late.  They seem to come in clusters.  Dreams tend to reflect reality, and tumultuous reality creates tumultuous dreams.  The perplexing thing is...what is so tumultuous about my life?  It's the same as it has been for two years, right?  It's certainly less tumultuous than this currency, right?  Oh see the 200?

Well, yes and no. It's true that I am now used to the ways of reality in Korea (mostly, more on that later).  Seeing old men peeing in public doesn't phase me anymore.  But, I have changed apartments (more on that later, too) and a majority of my friends have left Daegu, if not Korea, thus congealing my solitude a little.  I still have friends here, of course.  And life goes on.

Hey, 200th blog post!

In other news, lately I feel like this is a representation of my life:

In that the trend at the end will continue.  The blue line will skyrocket (or plummet, depending) when I settle down and have little tots running around and the red line will slowly wither down to zero because I have no time for my immature wants.  It's funny when you kind of reach a point where sometimes it's better forward planning to stay in on a weekend night than to go hard and crazy all over downtown.  Partially event driven, I admit, but still a reality (and still nothing compared to the "after settling down" phase, which is why the graph only goes up to 40%).

Ah, speaking of reality, I mentioned being accustomed to the reality of Korea.  That is both true and false.  As an outsider, I think one can never truly be accustomed to the reality of this culture.  There is the romantic viewpoint (the rose colored glasses, if you will) that gnaws at our perception constantly.  Korea is full of such opportunity and the people are so pleasant and innocent and it's the ideal place to live, like the United States in the 1950s.  And on the flip side, the "negative Nancy" constantly nagging at us about how everything in this country sucks.  God, Korean people are so backward and the weather is too damn cold and it's so noisy all the time.  So what you get is a reality based on two overused cliches.  As an example, people seem friendlier when the weather is sunny.  Is that because you feel more content when the weather is nice, or is it because, in general, everyone is more friendly when the sun is shining on them and they are being enriched with essential vitamins (and harmful UV rays)? 

Something irked me today, in fact.  I know I've touched on this subject before, and it's something that I hope will change in the near future, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting.  I had two classes of third grade today.  Being my third year, the 3rd graders are the only students I have that are new to me.  They are adorable little farts, unlike last year's batch of 3rd graders.  In the first class, in the front row, sits a pleasant, but mentally challenged child.  This particular child is well behaved, but rather clueless as to what is happening around him, and today had a solid trail of snot on his upper lip.  His presence has created an environment where his classmates guide him and wipe the snot from his lip, thus teaching them nurturing skills at an early age out of necessity.  That's the optimistic view.  Now, let's move on to my second class of third graders I had today.  I am not even kidding, the second class has the twin brother of the child in the first class and he is also mentally challenged.  Now, I'm not even going to touch on their parents' assumed frustrations.  The twin brother, by contrast, is disruptive.  He spent the entire class walking around with a roll of toilet paper like it was an airplane, not listening to his teachers.  In this example, the other students completely ignore him, teaching them that if you are different, you are forgotten.

Both examples are bad, in my opinion.  In neither case is either child receiving the care or specialized education that he needs.  Both also disrupt the classroom.  Even if the other students ignore the child, it's like having a TV on in the background while studying.  There seems to be this cultural idea that everyone should be the same, and if you're not, everyone tries to pretend that you are.  And life moves on without you.  I don't agree with this and it's difficult to come to terms with "that's the way it is."  To me, it's kind of messed up, but then again, their ideal must be, "what's the point?  If we either fill them with a false sense of hope or teach them by ignoring them as society will mostly do later, they'll always be the same."  To some extent, that's true, but it's awfully defeatist.  Ah, there's negative Nancy assuming what she doesn't know.  I can no more easily enter the mind of a child than enter the mind of a child with autism.  I'm just an observing third party, and an observing third party from a very different culture.

Ah, optimism!  Uh...my new apartment!  I'll cover that...








...in the next post.

It Makes The World Go Round

Looming over us all. Right outside my new apart-uh. I think it's gonna be a good year...

Four Score and Seven Years Ago...

...Benito Mussolini announced he was taking dictatorial powers over Italy.  F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby.  The Scopes Trial took place, in which John Scopes was arrested for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution to high school children (gasp!).  The Chrysler Corporation was founded.  Mt. Rushmore was dedicated.  New York City became the largest city in the world, beating London.  Perhaps most importantly, my dear grandmother was born. 

But we're not talking about any of that today.  The title of this post is, of course, the opening lines of The Gettysburg Address and Abraham Lincoln was referring to the year 1776, but still it's kind of fun to look at the Wikipedia page for any given year and see what interesting events took place.  No, in that event, Lincoln was facing a civil war that had just escalated further with the Battle of Gettysburg. 

When I was back there in America for 3 weeks, Mom and I took a day trip to Gettysburg because I had not been in recent memory.  Since my mother last went, they had built a spiffy new visitor center and museum of the battle and the rest of the Civil War. 

The new visitor center, built in 2008, is pretty informative about both the battle and the war.  Beginning with a 20 minute long film (narrated by who other than Morgan Freeman), the museum portion peaks with the viewing of the cyclorama.  "What's a cyclorama, Steve?" You say in a perplexed, yet intrigued tone.  Well, I'm not sure of the Oxford English Dictionary definition of a cyclorama, but I believe it is a depiction of a scene or battle, often painted, using a 360 degree presentation.  In this case, it was the 1883 painting by Paul Philippoteaux depicting Pickett's Charge, the peak of the Battle of Gettysburg.  This was an impressive piece, not only in scope, but in composition.  The amount of detail is mind boggling.  Standing at 27 feet tall and 359 feet in circumference, this massive painting used literally tons of paint and completely encompasses the viewer.  Upon its debut in 1883 in Chicago, it was said that some veterans of the battle wept from its realism.  Here's a taste of it.
The visitor center is so impressive, one can actually catch ol' Honest Abe outside resting his legs on a bench. 

I feel like he's got something on his mind, while I look like I've been drinking. 

Here are a few more pictures from an interesting, education, and (most importantly) fun day with my mom, shortly before I had to leave to return to Korea. 

Mom and the same cannon as above

The same tree from above.  This tree has seen death

The same Major General Oliver Otis Howard from above.  Just kidding, he wasn't above.  But he is looking like he don' give one solid shit 'bout no Rebs.

I'm Still Alive

Alright, alright.  I'm back.  And I'm in action.  There was a period of time when I sat, crying into my own hands on the edge of reality, battling a (to use a cliche) crippling apathetic depression.  Only a small part of that sentence is true (the "sat" part.  I did indeed sit since last I wrote.  You may have even spotted me sitting once or twice).  So much has happened since December 1st, 2011--the last time that you heard from the electronic signals in this keyboard, on this website, in this universe.  Let's go through our list.

Kim Jong-il died.  I know that is about the least important thing that I could discuss here, and obviously old news as it pertains to the world, but it did have an impact that I won't soon forget.  Soon after that news broke, I was sleeping when I was awoken by the loudest bang I had heard in recent memory.  I sat up and listened as a rumble lingered.  It kept lingering for a long time.  In that long time, I rationalized that North Korea had nuked Daegu because of its high U.S. military presence and the mushroom cloud was coming for me and I was surely going to die.  It turned out to just be thunder from a lightning bolt that landed nearby.

Look at that glowing face over the Kimjongilias and Mt. Baekdu where he was born under a double rainbow and brought forth on the back of a unicorn.  You will be missed, Dear Leader.

There are two linking events to Kim Jong-il's death.  First, Whitney Houston also died since last we met.  Let's get a picture of her up here so we can honor the hell out of her, too.

Sorry, I'm still really broken up about Dear Leader.  It's always the good ones that are stolen from us before we're ready.

I can't say I was surprised when I heard, but, you know, the world exploded and now we're going to hear her songs everywhere and see a new documentary and her doctor might go to jail for giving her drugs.  I've been singing "I Wanna Run To You" all week.  

The second linking event is that, on a fine winter afternoon soon before I was to depart for the motherland, I stepped into my favorite hair dresser (barber?  I don't think so) to get my ears lowered.  There was a very old woman in there getting a perm.  I sat down next to her, and to my surprise, she spoke English remarkably well.  We got to talking, and it turns out she was born in North Korea.  When the war broke out, she defected to Seoul and then was forced to move again when the early Northern invasion swept over the peninsula.  She ended up going to the University of Maryland and became a doctor, meeting her future husband (from Daegu).  Her son lives in Fairfax.  Small world.  I really wish I could have talked to her for longer about her experience because I'll probably never see her again.  It's rare to meet a Korean with such an interesting story who speaks English well enough to tell it to me.  

Let's see.  I found my new apartment.  Let me see if I can find a picture of it to show you.

Apartment specs: It's approximately the same size as the old one, slightly nicer, and above ground level (only by one floor).  This means that there hopefully will not be any mold, bugs, or intruding landlords.  It's further away from my school, which means a longer walk in the morning and actively remembering where I live when stumbling home on Saturday night.  

I visited Amurrica.  I'm going to keep the details of that trip locked away in my memory for centuries to come, except for one small part.  And I will cover that in another post to give myself something to write about and to keep you coming back.  Next time on World Class Flaneur: Gettysburg.

Thanksgiving

A few phone pics from Thanksgiving come a little late ya know. Quite a little party we had...is that soju jungle juice? Dayamn son.

Warning: This Sad Tale Is Not Safe For Children

You'd like to think, hey, it's been a couple of weeks. I bet Steve has an exciting story to tell us about his worldly travels. And, you'd be half correct. I do have a story, but it's not mine and it has nothing to do with worldly travels...or does it?

You may have noticed that there was a YouTube video (perhaps part of the video box is cut off depending on your browser/computer/OS/attitude) located directly above my free poetry. This is a song the students listened to today in my 6th grade class. Watch it first and let me tell you why this is a bad video unfit for childrens' eyes. I'll wait. It's only 1:06. You can handle it.

Are you done? Ok, so, yes, the lyrics (I always considered lyrics to contain some semblence of coherent word choice)are atrocious. That's beside the point. The point is that, in the spand of 30 seconds, this song manages to weave a sad tale of love and deceit that no one should ever experience.

First, imagine, as a mother, you're with your daughter at an amusement park. For all my Virginia peeps, let's say you're at Busch Gardens. You're rocking out, maybe you're in the Germany section, waiting in line for your sixth beer. Your daughter has racked up a few toys and things that cost money you so lovingly spent. You realize the time, that the new season of Survivor starts tonight and you need to get home pretty quickly (does that show even come on anymore?).
     "Nami, (your bastard ex-husband insisted on that traditional Korean name, eventhough he's never even been to Korea and only dated a Korean girl once for a month in college) come here. It's time to go home."  
     You realize that your daughter has more of her indignant father's personality in her than yours when she snaps back, "What time is it?"
     You suppress a tear from the memories and say in a motherly tone, "Four forty. It's four forty."
     You barely finish pronouncing the final "ee" syllable when your whole universe unravels before your very eyes.
     "Not now! No way!" she screams and immediately runs off.
     You feel like you're dreaming...or too drunk to function when you find yourself slurring, "Come back!" instead of chasing after her as any decent mother would do. Your limbs don't work, and all you can do is watch awestruck.
     As you follow her with your eyes, you lose her as three fat yokels choking on a Reese's Pieces Ice-Cream Blast coupled with a strawberry syrupped Belgian waffle block your view of your only child, the reason you survived the divorce, your sun and your stars.  Your heart sinks.
     After three eternities of hopelessness, after you were pretty sure she was halfway to Cairo by now, you see her, but she's not looking where she's going.  Her attention was caught by either the Ice-Cream Blast or the waffle, you don't know, but she's headed for inevitable danger and you can't stop from blurting, "Watch out!" just as she turns to see where she's going. 
     The adrenaline and the fear turn everything to a blur, but you can make out your daughter, stopping just before her face was deep fried in a food stand fryer.  She was literally centimeters away from having a face filet for dinner and she doesn't even realize what she's done.  She's single-handedly destroyed a build up of trust that was a lifetime in the making.  You only took her off her leash three months ago.  How could she be so brash and impulsive?  Would she ever wrap her head around why you will eventually stop going outside, why the TV says only scary things, and why you associate her with the feeling of lies and deceit your cheating husband caringly cultivated from mere seedlings years ago?  Can she even grasp it?  Probably not but suddenly you haven't had enough to drink.

This is the story I was forced to teach my 6th graders today.  A story that probably would have melted my students' faces as well but, like Nami, they were too naive to realize the danger they were in.  We had opened the Ark of the Covenant together, only my students managed to close their eyes before their souls were taken (or maybe they were asleep). 

Before, I was reluctant to say that Korean English education needed reform, but now...

iPhone App Commence!

Hey errybody! I just figured out how to post from my phone! Although if I do this it will be more for pictures...like the one posted...

Whassat? Whasher A-Whay!

What's it been, like a month?  Psh, whatever.  Am I here to tell you about my Halloween excursion to Busan (wherein a friend and I went as Hall and Oates)? No.  Am I here to tell you about the Busan Fireworks Festival (still the greatest fireworks show I've ever seen)?  Nah.  What about my trip to Gyeongju, wherein I experienced a series of interesting events concerning Korean culture (like a Korean band full of traditional instruments covering Beatles songs)? Not even close.

I'm back in action to tell you that Mr. Lee struck again.  I suppose this story requires some background.  Here, listen to this while you read:



It'll make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside whilst I weave a tale.  So for the entire time I"ve been here, my washer has been broken.  I've mentioned it on this blog before.  At first, I thought I was doing something wrong.  Barely able to read Korean, I thought there must be some magic button I should push to fix everything that was going wrong whenever I did laundry.  I eventually had my co-teacher come to my apartment and explain to me how to do laundry like a special needs third grader.  I thought the problem was fixed.  That was certainly not the case.  It wouldn't spin, instead opting to make a loud grunting sound as though to say, "Hey, I'm tryin' but I just ate sixteen chalupas from Taco Bell and I ain't movin' cause I can't get up from my Lazy Boy.  Plus the game's on, how you gonna do that to a brotha?"  I knew it was time to say something.

Unfortunately for me, I mentioned my problem after the 30 day grace period stipulated on my contract.  After day 30 of living in my domicile, whatever went wrong with furniture, appliances, or infrastructure was my problem.  This was reinforced by my co-teacher who was apologetic, but basically restated the contract and said I'd have to fix my washing machine if I wanted it to work.  Well, I wasn't going to spend money on a washing machine in some weird Asian country, so for the next year and eight months I washed my clothes in a broken machine, pretending it got them clean.

The actual results varied.  All my white shirts have faded to some dull gray, sometimes the smells of my clothes was a little funny (works great when talking to women), sometimes mystery stains that weren't present when I put the article into the washing machine appeared, and it couldn't even entertain the thought of washing bedsheets.  I couldn't wait to go on vacation so that I could use a real washing machine and a dryer so my clothes would at least be clean twice a year. 

"You're an idiot, Steve," you might say (and rightfully so), "why not just go to a laundromat or dry cleaner to take care of your dirty work?"  Good question, and I like your use of puns.  Well, laundromats don't exist here as far as I know, and I...have this strange phobia of a certain style of Korean shops.  The dry cleaner by my apartment was such a shop.  You step into someone's living quarters that doubles as their shop; a one or two room shack, if you will.  You'll interrupt them eating, sleeping, watching TV, and the living conditions leave something to be desired and you're surprised that something this third world still exists in Korea and you feel guilty about simply being American.  So, besides partially doubting the ability of said dry cleaner to make my clothes clean in questionable conditions, I developed an irrational fear of the establishment itself. 

Is the song over yet?  If it is, play this one, damn you.  It's magical and I'm a moodsmith. 



Ahem, fast forward to about two weeks ago.  I casually mention to my co-teacher how my washing machine is broken in the context of a conversation (not expecting anything to come of it, more explaining why I smell like rotten vegetables every day instead of a snuggle bear).  We go through the whole shabang, "Why didn't you say something about it before?" "I did about a year and a half ago." Blah blah blah. 

This time, the reception was different.  They asked the vice principal and he said the school would pay to get it fixed.  I guess holding a bit of tenure carries some weight (oohhhhh, I get the song choice now...but what's that first one about?).  I was walking on sunshine.  The next step was to call the Daewoo Service Center and get someone to take a look see at me washer.  That involved me pulling some Catherine Zeta-Jones stunts from the movie Entrapment (co-starring Sean Connery) and getting in behind my washing machine to read the faded number off the back panel.  Flash fast forward to Monday (yesterday) when Daewoo Dude finally shows up to my apartment wherein I am patiently waiting with my coteacher.  He takes one look at my machine and says what I can only assume is the equivalent of, "Sumbitch got a brokin gear.  Gon' costya hundert n' thirty, easy."  (Why do all repairmen have this accent?  God only knows...) "Futhamore," he adds, "Ya owe me fifteen bucks fer the consultation visit."  Guess what we paid? 

ZERO.  BAM! Enter Mr. Lee who doesn't like service technicians getting all up in his property without his prior knowledge/consent (for those of you absent from previous adventures of the World Class Flaneur, Mr. Lee is my landlord.  Very kind, Christian man who possesses no English and equally as much tact).  He says a bunch of stuff, Daewoo Dude says a bunch of stuff, my coteacher says a bunch of stuff and it goes on like this for five minutes.  Then everyone leaves, myself last.

"What happened?" I ask, innocently.  "Your landlord will change your washer."  "Mr. Lee strikes again," I whisper....

Microscopic fast forward to when I get home at 4:45.  Things are slightly out of place and I guessed Mr. Lee had been doing some work in there.  I walk to the bathroom and, lo and behold, not only do I have a washer that is clearly an upgrade, Mr. Lee also cleaned my entire bathroom.  Now, I admit, it was getting a little nasty in there.  Mold had been creeping up and spiders had made my bathroom their nesting den of Satan.  Even still, cleaning my entire bathroom was well above and beyond a landlord's call of duty.  Especially since I was totallyplanningondoingit before I moved out. 

The...I'm going to go with...funniest part?  He used my painting rag to clean it.  My painting rag with all the dried paint on it (and some wet paint) that was being used for my painting.  Now it's all wet...

But, I certainly can't complain and completely should thank him and take him out to dinner or something.  No telling how many questionable hairs he found in there.

Bucket List: Shortened

There comes a time in everyone's life here in Korea where they reach a fork in the road.  This fork is glittery and flashy.  Sometimes it is diamond studded and you would cut your teeth if you tried to use the fork for its intended purpose.  Nonetheless, this fork has two routes by which one may continue his journey.  One is the route of the purist, the cynic.  You begin to wear your iPod more frequently when in public.  You avoid certain establishments because of their music choice.  You don't turn on your TV in fear that your ears will be tainted with the demonic tones of K-pop.  The other is to embrace the catchiness and popularity of K-pop music.  To let it envelop you, feeling your body lose control to the beat and those catchy choruses.  Eventually, you begin to recognize artists and even start to discern which ones you like more than others.  You may even know individual members' names. 

I, of course, took the more fun route--the latter.  For the past year or so, I've just accepted that K-pop will never go away (even now, Girls' Generation, the leading K-pop band, has completed an English album that will soon go on sale in the U.S.) and have learned to enjoy it for what it is: ear candy.  The bonus is that it doesn't make you fat, just stupid.

As such, I jumped at the opportunity when my employer emailed me about free tickets to the Asian Song Festival.  "What's Asian Song Festival, Steve?" I hear you ask in a voice resembling the Swedish Chef.  It's exactly what it sounds like: a festival to celebrate Asian songs.  Note how the word "music" is strategically missing from the festival name.  It is exactly how it should be.  We are celebrating songs, not music.  These are produced, polished dance routines that are lip synced exactly the same every time.  If you've ever seen the likes of New Kids On The Block, Backstreet Boys, or even Menudo, you'll know what kind of experience this was.  Where the "Asian" part comes in is where they included pop acts from Japan, China, Taiwan, Thailand, and Hong Kong.  I was hoping a North Korean pop star would show up, but I realized that he or she would have been shot already.

When the day finally came, I geared up for it by drinking.  It made the time go by faster, and when the moment was upon us (they started it 20 minutes early) I could hardly control myself.  That last statement would only be true if I were the thousands of teenage girls in the crowd. 

It's funny because all the serious fans were sitting here:

In the back.  Whilst in my section (the VIP section), there sat only foreigner English teachers and older people with babies.  What this resulted in was the back seats erupting into a wave of screaming while the closest rows didn't even clap.  Strange concert experience, Korea.  Here's some poorly composed pictures from my iPhone:

Anyway, I got to experience the musical stylings of Korean favorites such as Miss A, Beast, Lee Sung gi, Chocolat, and one strange act, my favorite of the night, that didn't really fit the bill:  LeeSA.  LeeSA actually plays multiple instruments and has a good voice.  I always warm up a little for a girl who can sing and play guitar.  Here's one of her songs:

After a Japanese pop band's performance (which, by the way, sounds like Korean pop on acid), it slowly began to rain.  Sitting in the open of the stadium field, we were unprepared for rain to be unleashed upon us unawares, so we sought shelter under the entrances to the stadium.  After a rain delay of about 15 minutes, the drizzle let up and the concert resumed.  For us, however, the magic had seemingly been washed away by the falling water and we were no longer interested in the same act performing under different monikers.  We left without seeing the headliners: Samsung's proudest musical acts Super Junior and Girls' Generation. 

I still consider it a check off the Korean bucket list.