Do Stuff: Events and Ways to be a Good Person

I got a letter from a guy named Abhishek Joshi, an expat living in Suwon; he wanted to spread word about a program expats in Suwon have organized, to volunteer at a local orphanage there. He's looking for people who will join him and the others who are already part of the crew, and volunteer in Suwon - give back to the community where we live. Here's his site. I'm also writing about this at the 2S2 Community blog.

Hermit Hideaways, steadily winning more and more "hey, buddy: sweet blog!" points, has some upcoming concerts you can attend.

This is another live show you can attend. Carsick Cars - Chinese Post-Punk.

I have a ton of listings of events and things in my facebook inbox:

Guest speaker Lee Kyung Sook, from the Joint Committee with Migrants in Korea (JCMK), will be speaking at Amnesty International's meeting on Saturday, 06 February 2010, from 16:00 - 18:00. The facebook event page is here.

KISS - Korean International Salsa Social, has regular Thursday night events now. This one includes a salsa lesson. The Facebook event page has more info. Dancing is fun.

And Ka-Brew Korea is having a Beer River Cruise on Saturday, 06 February 2010, starting at 7pm at the Yeoinaru Docks and finishing in RMT Itaewon. You can read up on it here. The theme is pirates.

I heard from the Wild Women's Performing Arts Festival (WWPAF), is a bi-annual fundraising event that uses visual and aural performances in order to address the issue of gender equality in Korea as well throughout the world.

Proceeds from the Festival are given to the KWAU (Korea Women's Association United), an organization that advocates for women's issues in Korea, including the Korean Women’s Hotline, the Dashi Hamkke Anti-Trafficking Organization and agencies for disabled women.

The Festival will be at the Mong Hwan in Sinchon (Sinchon Station, Exit 2). The event will be held on Saturday, February 27 from 8pm-5am.

(all photos on this post are from last year's WWPAF festival) Yet again, there's more information about the event on Facebook.

Weekend Notes: Moving Day, and Movie Quote of the Decade

1. Korean moving companies, seriously, rock. Girlfriendoseyo moved to a new place: the place where we'll live together after the wedding in July (did I mention there are nuptials in my near future? I did. And the post where I announced it, and said:

I got engaged this year! If I don't get at least twenty comments of congratulations on this post, I'm shutting down the blog forever.

is squatting at 12 comments, and Roboseyo remains in danger. Come on, readers. It's not like I asked you to send money or something. Is it that only twelve of you read to the end of the post? Cripes.

Eight more congratulations and you can get back to lurking.

But Korean moving companies, comments or none, still rock. A swarm of people comes into your house, loads everything into baskets boxes and things, trucks them to your next place, and unloads them. The guy who did the bookshelves even had a system whereby he returned all the books in the same order on the shelves as they were when he boxed them. All Girlfriendoseyo had to do was point and say "put it in this room" or "that room" and all I had to do was stand around looking handsome (and that takes effort for me), and be tall once or twice.

2. Girlfriendoseyo's mom, Omonim, is cute, and I like her more and more. Today, we discovered that she likes bubble wrap: I grabbed some from the dishes box, and she, Girlfriendoseyo and I had a little moment together, popping bubble wrap. It was brilliant. She even stored some away for later.

3. OK, I was thinking about this, and I'd like to open the question for comments. What was the movie quote of the decade? I mean, a really memorable movie quote has to be usable, it has to be instantly recognizable as "from that movie" - "Frankly, dear, I don't give a damn" "make him an offer he can't refuse" and stuff. (AFI's 100 best movie quotes)... it also has to immediately evoke the movie in question - Saw's "I want to play a game" doesn't evoke the movies quite clearly enough. In fact, if I have to name the movie it's from, it doesn't belong on the list.

The '90s had some good quotes:

"FREEEDOOOOMMM"

"Does that make you horny, baby?"

"I know kung-fu"

"I see dead people"

"My momma always told me life is like a box of chocolates."

"I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. FUPFUPFUPFUPFUP"

like, ALL of The Big Lebowski

and so forth... but what about the naughty oughties? This writer can't come up with anything, and when I tried to think of some good ones, I kept thinking of quotes from '90s movies. So, readers, what IS the quote of the oughties?

Here are the ones that come to mind; a few might have come from an article on this topic that I read a while ago... and I want to know what YOU think might be the movie quote of the decade.

Here are the ones that I think qualify: Immediately identifiable, evocative of important moments, and quotable - you know how to deliver the line:

"I drink your milkshake"

"This is sparta"

"My precioussss" and "YOU SHALL NOT PASS"

"I wish I knew how to quit you"

"Why so serious?"

"I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Here everything is soft and smooth."

What am I missing?

On the second tier: a lot of will ferrell

"Hey Honey! We're streaking!"

"I'm kind of a big deal" or "Stay classy, San Diego"

"He only has one face!... I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!" or "What is this? A school for ants?"

"Rock stars have kidnapped my son!"

Help me out here, readers. What are the other most memorable quotes from the '00s?

Back-blogged: last few pictures

1. why I'd rather go to Seoul's indoor skating rinks.

Look at that awful ice.


What self-respecting Canadian would choose to skate on that... except on a first-to-third date, with a legitimate shot at some smooching?



2. Girlfriendoseyo took this sweet picture of me at Morning Calm Garden: I like the question-mark shape I'm making. My fiance has a really good eye for photography.

Back-Blogged: Daegu

So I went to Daegu on December 30 and 31. That was nifty. I had two weeks off before winter sessions started, and I had to get out of town. I met up with a few pals, had the worst Guinness beer I ever tasted. I think it was some of that swill where they mix one part guinness with one part hite, but it was awful. Seriously, I just don't get the mixed drink thing. Cranberry vodka? Rum coke? Yeah, I get that. But pouring soju and coke into a pitcher of beer? What the yuck!

Had a nice long talk with a pal, and then slept in a jimjilbang for the night.

Then next morning, I met up again with my pal and Dann Gaymer, ATEK's public relations manager, and had a nice breakfast, and a little walk around the famous Korean traditional medicine market near Dongseongno, and then wandered almost all the way to Dongdaegu Station, the KTX terminal. I like the Daegu Downtown: because it's more centralized, it's a little less bewildering than Seoul, which has at least five legitimate, frantically busy downtown shopping/hangout areas, and a bunch more almost-there's - Hongdae, Jongno, Hyehwa, Kangnam, Apgujeiong, plush Shincheon, Konguk Univ., Yongsan, Itaewon and let's not forget the sweet downtown spots in some of the satellite cities.

Downtown Daegu.

Daegu's slogan is "Colorful Daegu" = which could be seen all over. I especially liked this shot, because of the colorful spill-stain on the tree-grate.


It was colorful, though.


The main road had no crosswalks, and underpasses instead. Nice for traffic. Bad for chronic knee pain.


Cars weren't allowed in the downtown area. This was another thing I really liked. I suggested to Girlfriendoseyo that Seoul should also ban cars in the downtown shopping areas. She replied "But there are too many assholes who like to show off their cars, who would stop it from happening in Seoul" ... and Girlfriendoseyo is so sweet and well-mannered, that her use of the word asshole really has meaning - I hear her say it less than once a month. But... well said.


The car-free downtown was also people-free, because it was a bloody cold day.








Shiny at night.


Daegu is up with the cheesy, stylish food crazes: don't be calling daegu-ites a bunch of rubes!


They got brand-name chains, too.


I crossed the Geumho river.




Along the way, I hit up some markets in Daegu. You can find this stuff in Seoul, too, but it was fun walking around the ones in there.




This market had some especially nifty stuff:



Coolest thing: I saw the rice poppers. You know those crunchy, rice-puffy things that you eat at a bar? Well this is how they make them.

I saw them making it. It was sweet. Then, while they were waiting for the rice to get hot enough to pop (it takes quite a while), the ajumma started doing one of those sweet bbong-chak dances that are the glory of old age in Korea. Her husband joined in, and it was one of those little moments when the world is awesome... and I got it on video. Sweet! Usually I can't get my camera out in time.


This was funny, too: this plastic surgery clinic was right in the middle of downtown Daegu - Daegu's aiming to be a medical tourism hub... or was that mecca? -- and it made me laugh that Korea's first playboy model, Lee Pani, was all over this clinic, promoting it. That a nude model was promoting a plastic surgery clinic was intriguing, and kind of funny: nude poses and lingerie promotions are one of the things "respectable" Korean female stars avoid like the plague, while vociferously denying that they had plastic surgery... so it seemed both appropriate and funny to see a nude model on a cosmetic surgery clinic.







And when I got back to Seoul Station (yay, KTX!) this was happening.

Back-Blogged: Christmas trip to Suncheon Bay and Boseong Lights Festival

So... my nemesis Dan Gray of Seoul Eats and I got together and planned a nemesis-themed Christmas party. It was great.

We got turkey from the army base near Itaewon.

There was way too much food for the size of the group (as Christmas dinners should be), so I got to take home a pumpkin pie. The world is a wonderful, wonderful place.

Joy was there with a hat she got from one of those places (Baskin Robbins, Paris Baguette, and I forget which others) that always have a dumb awesome hat contest.

Chris in SK was there, with his hilarious girlfriend, as were a bunch of Dan Grey's friends from the Seoul Eats meetups, and Kelly NameChangedForPrivacy made an appearance as well, as did an old coworker whom it was great to see.

Then, Girlfriendoseyo and I hopped in a car and started driving: we were heading down to Boseong, for the Tea Fields there, where every Christmas they string the tree plants up and put on a light show. We drove all day, stopping for an early dinner in Jeonju, home of the world's best bibimbap, where they threw more food at us than we could comprehend, and had the best yukhoe (raw, minced beef - traditionally not a favorite of mine, but I'll make exceptions) I've eaten in a long, long time.

The lights were nice. Strangely, the closer we got to the lights, the nicer they looked, and the were definitely the prettiest when we were right out there, walking around in the middle of the field.

Thanks to a botched reservation, courtesy of Roboseyo the dumb, whose Korean (lack of) skill still leads to the occasional snafu, and sometimes makes him feel like a noob, we got stuck out in Boseong with, literally (she checked) not a single room for hire within a forty kilometer drive. We drove to Suncheon, where there was one hotel room open in the entire town, and that thanks only to a cancellation (this is what happens when you travel inside Korea on holidays... especially on years when all the red letter days fall on Saturdays and Sundays)

(Here's a video of the lovely lights of Boseong, and Suncheon bay. Keep reading for more on Suncheon.)

But we found a place to crash. And you know how food tastes way better when you're starving, and there's a chance you won't eat the next day? Well dear readers, when you're worried that you'll have to spend the night in a skeezy 24 hour jimjilbang near Suncheon Bus Terminal, or crammed into reclined bucket seats in the car, waking up once an hour to run the engine and warm up the car... then even a simple room in a business hotel seems like a luxury suite. Oh, yes it does. And yeah. The irony was not lost on me, that we were driving around Jeollanamdo, and there was no room at the inns, on CHRISTMAS night. I'm also sad to report that we didn't see any shepherds, and no angels appeared.

On Saturday morning (the 26th), we woke up early enough to check the weather reports: it called for snow on Sunday, so we decided to drive as far as we could on Saturday, rather than do the lion's share of the driving in bad weather. Thanks to some sweet sleuthing, some good luck, and another cancellation, Girlfriendoseyo once again found us a place, one town over from Boryeong, and this one was pretty sweet. It was a beach condo, and it was an amazing, gorgeous place to say... except that whole below freezing thing. (it was cold and windy. Pretty, but bad beach weather).

However, before we headed out, we got a chance to meet up in Suncheon with Brian in Jeollanam-do, in Jeollanam-do. We had a nice hanjeongshik meal with Brian and his fiance, who's just wonderful, and I'm happy to report that Brian's a wonderful guy, and the in-Jeollanamdo's, as a couple, are adorable. Girlfriendoseyo liked them the first time she met them, last Christmas, and this year again, we had a grand old time. We'll look forward to the next opportunity to hang out with them.

After lunch, Girlfriendoseyo and I headed out to Suncheon Bay, which Girlfriendoseyo told me is spectacularly beautiful.

I concur.

It was crowded, crowded crowded (cf: famous places in Korea, Korean holidays)

And this poor girl was there. She'd dressed appropriately... give or take twenty degrees celsius.

I nearly froze my camera and my fingers taking pictures at first (it was beautiful bobbing in the breeze... but cold), and then, climbing the hill to the Suncheon Bay observatory, I was sweating in my winter gear....

but the photos were worth it. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, worth it.

from the observatory

The water reflected the amazing blue sky.