Sunday, August 02, 2009

With Bated Breath You Wait...

My K-blog friends and readers are waiting for me to continue my "let's not all crap our pants now" series on ugly English teachers and racist journalists, and my fambly and personal friends are all anxiously waiting for me to write up my trip to Canada... but first, here are two videos I took yesterday.

Gawrsh, I love thunderstorms. I really wanted to catch some lightning on video, but that didn't work out; however, some thunder showed up, as did some poor, bedraggled souls who didn't even find TWO umbrellas enough coverage.

There was a thunderclap while I walked from the first to the second place in the thunderstorm video, and it was so loud I was, for half a second, a scared rabbit looking for a place to cover: it was so loud I reverted right back to sheer instinct, and ducked at the loud noise. Amazing. Didn't catch it on video, though; probably wouldn't have sounded the same anyway.


And, yesterday, they opened Gwanghwamun plaza for the first time, and I went down there and took some pictures and video of people playing in the fountains at night. Plus, Admiral Lee Sunshin looks even more badass than he did before, if you can even believe that.



And one from a while ago:
why, oh why, do they take Korea's cherished, ancient instruments, and use them to adapt classic rock songs like "Stairway to Heaven" -- this one actually isn't that bad (the solo's especially good), but there's a certain traditional ddeok restaurant in Insadong that plays all classic western rock on traditional instruments, and it's awful. Why the lack of pride in the music composed specifically FOR those instruments? Why the choice of classic western rock? It smacks to me of a bit of an inferiority complex, choosing only to do western music on Korean instruments. But that's just my two bits, and I don't really care to go into it.

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