Lotus Lantern Festival

Hey all,

I'll start this blog post by letting everyone know that the photos I'm using in the post weren't actually taken by me.  In my haste, while packing for the weekend trip up to Seoul, I forgot to pack my camera.  But, since I know how much people have been enjoying the photos in the more recent posts, I decided I would do some borrowing and don't worry, I will cite my sources.  This first picture is of many lanterns that were hanging outside the Bongeunsa temple in downtown Seoul, near Gyeongbukgong.  Most of that area of downtown Seoul (basically all around Insa-dong as well) has been lined with lanterns for weeks and there is a symbolic lantern that has been lit at the City Hall plaza for a few weeks as well.  This picture came courtesy of newspaperadvertisements.wordpress.com.  At and around the temple they had many different activities you could participate in, such as making your own lantern.  Unfortunately we arrived to the party late and missed out on the opporutnity.  Not that I would've made my own lantern anyways, those of you who know me well (which is most, if not all of my readers) know that I don't really have much talent or skill when it comes to arts and crafts.  The festival is held in honor of Buddha's birthday and as you can tell by the first picture and the next few to come, it is a very vibrant celebration.  The highlight of the festival is the parade, which was last Sunday night.  People and floats begin up near Dongdaemun and march down Jongno-ro through downtown Seoul.  When night fell, the parade got even better, because everything was lit up.  Again, I missed many fantastic photo opporutnities and I've made a promise to myself (and all of you) that this won't happen again.  Most of the floats had some image of Buddha or Buddhas, but other floats displayed elephants or fire-breathing dragons.  My favorite float was of Buddha sitting in a helicopter.  I'm not sure if this float was an accurate representation of a modern-day Buddha, but I thought the juxtaposition of old and new was great.  Anyways, here are some pictures from the parade for you to enjoy.

Photo courtesy of http://www.izsak02.com/                                  Photo courtesy of http://www.discoveringkorea.com/

Photo courtesy of seoulcityblog.com http://www.llf.or.kr/images/induction/festival_photo5_7b.jpg

This week has been pretty busy so far, so I'm definitely looking forward to the long weekend.  We're taking the KTX (the fast train) both ways, which should be nice.  Unfortunately the weather doesn't look the best, but we'll make do.  Otherwise not much else is new here.  I can guarantee there will be much more to write about in the next post.  That's all from here, hope all is well wherever you are.

What I'm listening to: "Over the Stairs" by Guillemots

Link of the week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuZo7pLnL7c

World DJ Fest

Hey all,

The pictures above (and there are plenty more to come in this post) are from the 4th Annual World DJ Fest, which I went to last Saturday.  It was held at Nanji Forest Park in Seoul, which is near the World Cup Stadium, and right next to the Han River (see the 1st picture).  The weather was great on Saturday and it made for a very enjoyable afternoon and night at the festival.  The 2nd picture is of the main stage at the festival, which, in addition to a collection of DJs spinning records, also had some bands playing as well.  The weekend was definitely a success and the park was a great venue for hosting such an event.  The downtown setting reminded me a lot of Lollapalooza in Chicago, which is held at Grant Park, right of the "Miracle Mile" and against Lake Michigan.  The park also had a collection of booths set up offering everything from African drumming (which I did) to belly dancing (which, regretably, I did not do).  One of the bands we checked out harmonized their vocals and played their guitars like Korean Beatles, which was pretty interesting to see and hear. 

Here they are on stage:

There were also some interesting sculptures on display in the booth area:

And here are the belly dancers, regretably, no pictures of me dancing with them...

In short, the DJ Festival was a lot of fun, a great auditory experience, and I'm glad I went to check it out, but I definitely felt under dressed there.  There were definitely many unique outfits being worn during the afternoon and evening.

I forgot to mention in the last post that May is more or less the month of holidays in Korea.  May 5th is Children's Day, the first Saturday in May is Parents' Day (Mother's Day + Father's Day, makes it easier for us children), the second Saturday in May is Teachers' Day (woohoo!!) and Buddha's birthday also falls in May this year, so we have a long weekend next week!  I'm already looking forward to the time off, it should be a good weekend of R & R in Busan and the weather looks like it will cooperate; it has for most of May so far, so tennis has been back on and the beach is a definite go for next weekend.  Otherwise, not much new or interesting is going on on this end.  I saw Ironman 2 last week and thought it was good, but as with many sequels, it went the Hollywood route, which is fine, sequels are made to cash in on the popularity and success of the original film.  But, Ironman 2 lost a lot of the punch that was in the original, which was a little upsetting.  At least it came out in Korea before it did in North America (I have no idea why).  Next up, Robin Hood.  I realize I'm a little late on this last part, but I'm gonna throw it in the blog anyways.

Stanley Cup Finals prediction: Hawks over Penguins in 6

NBA Finals prediction: Magic over Lakers in 7

Brett Favre return announcement date: August 1st

Ok, that's all from here, I hope everyone enjoys the pictures, they do more talking than my typing would.

What I'm listening to: "Cool It Down" by the Velvet Underground (on the album Loaded)

Links of the week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWSrNRTS_lg&playnext_from=TL&videos=ORmhv80f0kY&feature=rec-rev-rn-1r-5-HM

The next two links come from two of my favorite bands of the last few years, the National and the Black Keys.  Both have new albums coming out next Tuesday and in honor of that here is some new music from them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxoHBK0Iq3M&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNXwicxlsvI

Gnarly 9s (Jeju Tournament) and May Days

Hey all,  I just want to begin with what a weekend!  The weather was phenomenal, pretty much perfect playing conditions, an extremely well put together tournament and a great weekend getaway as well.  The first picture is of my teamate, Jinyeong, and myself.  The second picture is of the stadium where the tournament was held.  The stadium previously served as the practice fields for Spain and Turkey during the 2002 World Cup.  As most of you can guess, the fields were very well kept, definitely some of the best fields I've ever played on.    So, Friday afternoon I got to leave school early so I could catch the airport bus from Suwon to Gimpo.  I got a little nervous when we got caught in some rush-hour Crosstown Traffic, but I arrived at the airport with a little time to spare.  The efficiency of Korean airports is incredible.  I went through check-in and security in under 10 minutes.  I landed in Jeju-do a little before 9 pm and endured the hour-long bus ride to the tournament hotel.  There was a nice mingling session for all the tournament participants at the hotel, which went on for a while before everyone headed off to their rooms to grab some shut-eye.   There were teams from Guam, Japan, Taiwan, and a few players from the Philippines.  The Madison contingency was also pretty well represented and the team from Guam included the woman who christened the women's team (Belladonna) at Wisconsin.  Our team was made up of last minute signees, so other than Dave, I didn't know anyone else beforehand, but that didn't seem to matter.  We had a South African guy who worked in Taiwan on our team, but other than him, the rest of us were based out of South Korea.  I can't remember being on a team that had never played together before and performing so well at a tournament.  Thankfully, we lucked out on Saturday and got to sleep in until 8 am, due to a bye (our first game wasn't until 10 am).  In the first game we were just trying to figure out what everyone's skill sets were and what positions people were comfortable playing.  That being said, our team came out strong and won the first game handedly, despite some miscommunications.  Our other two games on Saturday were closer, but we came out on top of our pool and set ourselves up for an early morning crossover game to play into the A bracket (the top teams at the tournament).  After the games were done on Saturday, there was a special event scheduled, which turned out to be the first Ultimate Frisbee wedding I've ever witnessed.  No joke, two of the players from Seoul exchanged vows in front of their friends and a lot of strangers.  After the ceremony, we went back to the hotel and then onto dinner and the tournament party.  The food for dinner was great!  We were served chicken filets, seafood risotto, mushroom risotto, mashed potatoes and some more goodies.  Basically everything you could want to fill that glycogen window after a hard day's work out on the field.  The party was a lot of fun as well and it was another good opportunity to meet some new people.  Eventually, everyone made their way back to the hotel to get some rest in for Sunday.

We had an early morning wake up for our crossover game and it took a few points for us to shake off the rust, but we put together another solid game and moved up to the A pool.  Unfortunately, playing on a team that hasn't really trained for a tournament meant that halfway through our second game on Sunday, most of us were losing our legs and feeling the effects of two hard days of work.  We finished the tournament 4-2, taking 8th place, which was a pretty good result given our unfamiliarity with each other at the start.  After we finished on Sunday, a few of us headed to the jjimjibang to loosen up and clean off, which was excellent, I wish I could've done this after every tournament in college.  I realized that since I had my camera with me I should probably take some pictures of Jeju, although it was a little bit overcast on Sunday.  The fields were situated in a pretty unique area.  From the top of the bleachers, you could look up the hill and see Hallasan, the famous mountain and volcano on Jeju-do.  If you looked down, you could see the World Cup Stadium and the ocean far off below.  Anyways, here are some of the photos I took.  If you look closely, you can kinda make out Hallasan in the background of the second picture.

Yes, I did stumble across a baseball game and was milliseconds late on capturing an outfield collision in left-center field.  My flight back was just fine as well and the last two days of school have been fine.  Tomorrow is Children's Day here, so no school for me or the students.  Today, the students received gifts from all their teachers, including me (I just gave them candy).  The response was incredible, I don't think I've heard so many students tell their teachers that they love them ever.  That's all from my end, I'm looking forward to the DJ Festival that I'm going to this Saturday, should be a great time and the weather looks like it'll continue to be great.

This month, I'll be giving everyone a little sample of the awesome new music that is coming out right now.  This week's choices are the new Broken Social Scene album Forgiveness Rock Record and the new Hold Steady album Heaven is Whenever. 

Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzhfeO1Gu88&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfrPQUSzVHY