Now in glorious technicolor!

Just a quick post to let you all know that I've finally gotten off my butt and started posting photos along with some of my blogging. Stay tuned for a special gallery section of ridiculous signage!!! ;)

Thanks for reading,

--Sean

Latin Fire in Frozen Seoul

Sometimes it's best to just say 'yes'. Don't think, just do. As soon as you start thinking, you'll just do what you always do, and that's boring!

So, I'm on the train to Seoul early one Sunday afternoon in January; the thick morning frost still hasn't faded from the railway ties. And as I'm still quite tired from my previous day's sojourn to Itaewon (and subsequent shennanigans with Jeremy & Co.), not thinking is remarkably easy... I'm on my way to meet up with Ronda, one of my partners-in-crazy in the English Village teacher trainer programme.

Twenty minutes late for our rendezvous, I stepped off of the train at Shinchong Station (NOT to be confused with Shinchung Station which is on the opposite side of town...), and we went to have lunch with Ronda's friend, Sung Yi, at one of Ronda's favorite Mexican restaurants in the area (of which there are several).

Yeah, Mexican food in Seoul. Go figure...

But I didn't start this entry to tell you about beef and bean enchiladas. And while there are many risks involved with eating Mexican food with new aquaintances, eating Mexican food in Asia, and eating Mexican food in general, it's hardly the kind of brazen comfort-zone-be-damned act that would warrant the opening to this blog entry.

Wow, was the opening that far back? Did you have to re-read it, too? Ok, I'll get to the point.

So on Friday, two days prior, when Ronda was asking our team if anyone would be interested in getting some salsa lessons from her friend in Seoul and then going to a club Katherine and Brian both showed interest, and since I'm looking for new experiences, I said "Sure, sounds fun!"

Fun?!?

Did I mention that I took the train to Seoul by myself? Yeah, about that: Katherine came down with a nasty (non-Mexican-food related) stomach bug, and Brian vanished sometime between Friday's "I'm in." and Sunday's actually being in...

So, it's me, Ronda and Sung Yi in a frigid, sub-terrainian dance studio. Did I also mention that Ronda is half Hispanic and started dancing the cha-cha when she was 7? And for those of you who don't know: my feet haven't stepped to music with any degree of accuracy since I was in A Chorus Line back in highschool (and even then, the accuracy was debatable!).

Song Yi was a great teacher-- encouraging and patient, but still firm with corrections. I had to say, it was a bit of a head trip to be listening to a mixed CD of great salsa music in the land of kimchi with my Korean dance instructor. Even more bewildering was the fact that I was actually picking up the moves!

And then it happened... (No, this has nothing to do with the Mexican food either)

The song changed, and as the first few bars of the new song unfolded, my mind went completely blank. For the first time since Rene Hugo first taught me how to play this song six and a half years ago, I had completely lost the rhythm of Moliendo Cafe--the first song we'd ever played together. Memories of six years of festivals, tours, studios and weekly rehearsals came careening through my mind, and all I could do was stand there dumbfounded and a little homesick.

But I soon excused myself for my mental leave of absence and pressed on with the lesson, and before I knew it, our time was up, and we were headed for a salsa club--just five minutes away on foot. In the Hongdae district of Seoul, there are about 8 salsa clubs, and apparently there are many more in the adjacent neighbourhoods!

We arrived at the club, and one thing immediately struck me: this club is all dance floor!! There were no tables, there was no food being served, no alcohol, there was no one there trying to be seen... just music, dancers, a cooler of soda and fitness drinks, and a mirrored wall to help you see how you're doing. There were dancers at all levels, from beginner to professional, and the music was fantastic!

So, with a little help from my friend Ronda, I survived my first night of salsa dancing, and learned all about Seoul's flourishing salsa community. I might have even enjoyed myself a little. (At least, I hope I did, because I've already agreed to go again next week!)

I'm looking forward to seeing what other surprises are in store here in the heart of Korea...

Itaewon--the west in the east, for better or worse.

Friday, January 15th

I’m currently sitting in a Paris (pa-ree) Baguette Cafe a few blocks from Itaewon Station, and as I type this, an elderly Korean woman is walking past the bay window wearing a pair of baggy, rather unapologetic, American-flag pants.

Itaewon is where the foreigners go to feel a little closer to home. As I sit here, I’m hearing an equal amount of English and Korean (and broken Korean) being spoken. I suppose it’s no coincidence that I am also spitting distance from the red light district (the two prominent strips affectionately known as Homo Hill and Hooker Hill). As one of my colleagues put it: You can see every gradient of society here. There are leagues of street vendors grilling foods and hocking their wares to the drunken passers-by, while well-dressed Koreans and foreigners walk out of the adjacent storefronts of chic clubs and posh western-style restaurants. There’s also a significant population of Nigerians here, which is a bit of a curiosity--no one that I’ve spoken to can offer a corroborated reason for their having established a community here, although it seems that many people are suspicious of them.

And right now, I’m half-eavesdropping on a girl talking about Commercial Drive hippies...

I think what I find most interesting about this area is how many Koreans there are walking amidst the foreigners. I mean, I can understand the homesick, lonely foreigners who come to Itaewon in search of a Guiness, a slice of apple pie or pay-sex, but I wonder why the Koreans frequent the area. Could it be that this is where they come to experience western culture? It would be a shame if that were the case--that this full service haven for foreigners is the most convenient inroad to some kind of western cultural experience.

But before I paint too bleak a picture (because it’s easy to sneer at manifestations of western culture in foreign lands), I should say that Itaewon is a very interesting region. True, it has a bit of a seedy underbelly, as it’s so close to the red light district, but it also has a certain unique vibe to it, too. The main strip is full of shops for foreigners, like Columbia Sportswear or Outback Steakhouse, but the side streets and back alleys are teeming with little shops and stalls where you can get everything from Turkish lamb kebobs (which are spicy and delicious!) to indian spices to Toblerone bars. There’s also a great english book store here called “What the Book?” which sells new books and also serves as a used book exchange. I am looking forward to exploring this area more thoroughly in the safety of daylight because I have a feeling that somewhere within the network of back-alleys lies a wealth of blended culture and food for thought.

A wanderer's Seoul

January 10, 2010

Once again, I have observed that the best travel experiences cannot be planned.

I had my heart set on spending the weekend in Seoul. I spent Thursday and Friday leafing through my travel guide, asking colleagues about cheap places to stay, and trying to make plans with friends of friends and other acquaintances who had generously offered to show me around.

And then happenstance intervened.

Long story short, it's 4:00pm, and I'm now riding with two of my colleagues, Jeremy and Ronda, in a car being driven by Stony--one of the admins at the school. Ronda had arranged to have me meet one of her contacts, "Mr. Lee", in Seoul so that I could get a cell phone. Jeremy has plans to meet with a friend of his at 10:00pm, so we're going to hang out for a while, then his friend will help me find a place to sleep.

Stony dropped us off, and we made our rendezvous with Mr. Lee at a coffee shop at Hoegi (way-gee) Station, at which point Ronda left us to make her own engagements. Mr. Lee and I left Jeremy at the coffee shop so that we could complete our transaction. As we stepped into the open air, I took in the scene around me--the sidewalks were pouring over with people, street stalls and delivery people on motorcycles. Although Seoul is not a particularly dirty city by any means, there's a subtle industrial grittiness about the planning and construction that I've since come to find charming... After 30 minutes, two banks, and some crazy back alley dealings between Mr. Lee and the Key Maker from the Matrix, I managed to procure my cell phone.

Jeremy and I found our way to Yongsan Station, and on exiting, found ourselves in the gaping maw of a gargantuan shopping centre. Therein, we enjoyed some lovely sushi at a "Californian-style sushi" restaurant (less than 500 km from Japan). Also available just down the hall was "Californian-style pho".

Maybe next time...

We window shopped for a few hours, then met up with Jeremy's friend Yun Hye (yoon hay). The rest of the night was a blur of eclectic clubs, street-side food vendors (my favorite!!!), and ended at about 4:30 in the morning, when Jeremy and I crashed in a room at a "love motel".

Hey, at $15 a piece for a warm, dry room and a hot shower, they can call it whatever they want! So what if they rent the rooms in 12 hour blocks?! The next day, we rose late, met up with Yun Hye for lunch (bibimbap!), got Jeremy a cell phone, and then went to go see Sherlock Holmes (with Korean subtitles).

And that concluded my first Seoul experience--Jeremy and I giggled like little girls throughout the 2 hour train ride home, as we revelled in our experiences and began to lay plans for future exploration...

Don't You Wish Your Dinner Was Hot Like Me?

That's what dakgalbi [dahk-gal-bee] would be singing if it were scantily clad and in a music video.

Maybe this is a weak metaphor. I'll start over...

On New Year's Eve, I went for dinner in 'town'--I use this term loosely--with my new curriculum development/teacher trainer team.* We took a short taxi ride to downtown (now I'm just being facetious) Yongmun.

Imagine Vancouver's Chinatown. Now squeeze everything together so that there's only room for single lane traffic and half a sidewalk. Now pretend that instead of being the inventors of gunpowder, they were the inventors of neon signage. Et, voila: you have downtown Yongmun.

Walking down the main strip, we located a hole-in-the-wall restaurant (I think it had five tables) that had come highly recommended and wandered in. There was a family (the owners) sitting at the farthest table cooking dinner, and as they saw us, most of them got up to prepare our table.

We sat cross-legged on a raised (heated!!) floor, around a table that was dominated by a large circular cast-iron pan. A woman came out with large pieces of chicken that were generously coated in some kind of chilli paste, and cut them up with scissors as they began to sizzle on the hot metal. The sheer novelty and authenticity of the smells and the ambience were giving me a hugh rush of excitement--I was having an Anthony Bourdain moment. When our cook came back a few minutes later to add cabbage, sweet potatoes, radish, garlic and rice cakes to the mix, I could barely contain myself.

The food grilled for a while, and soon we were pecking away at the pan, while enjoying the array of Korean condiments that come with--a briny, ice-cold radish soup; red leaf lettuce leaves; pickles and more chopped fresh garlic.

As we ate and drank chamomile tea, the food continued grilling. The food and sauces continued to caramelize and the rice cakes started to get crispy. When there was only a serving of chicken and vegetables left, our cook came back to the table wielding two large bowls of rice, which she dumped into the pan, mixing in the remaining food and scraping the caramelized bits up into the fray.

It was the second coming of dakgalbi!! Impossibly better than the first! Our tea was gone, but this was soon remedied as our cook appeared with one more miracle: two glass bottles of Coke and a bottle opener. Old school all the way, baby!

So, we worked our way through the rice and Coke (Coke gets capitalized when it needs a bottle opener), and eventually the frenzy died down and the conversation picked up as we were approaching satiation.

We wandered off to grab a few groceries and things, and capped off the night reminiscing over New Year's past at one of our flats. I brought my guitar. :)

So there we have it--New Year's in South Korea. Not a bad start to a year, I'd say...

*(For information as to why I am on such a team please refer to my previous... actually forget it--there's no good reason)