Jisan Rock Festival, North America and the Blog Strikes Back

Hi all,

It's the moment I hope most of you have been waiting for: The 1st new entry of my 2nd year in Korea.  As you can tell from the title of this post, I'm covering a few weeks of activity, it just didn't feel right to write this post while I was at home, so I decided to hold out until I was back to put up another mega-blog.  For those readers who ask, "Why go back for a second year?", my answer is simple; I am enjoying teaching here and I want to get more traveling in in this part of the world.  For me, it was a relatively easy decision to make and so far the second year in Korea has started off great. 

So, let's start off with the Jisan Valley Rock Festival, which was the last weekend in July.  This seemed like the perfect way to start off summer vacation and celebrate the end of my first year teaching.  Those of you who know me know that I'm a pretty avid rock festival fan.  I went to Lollapalooza in 2007 and 2008 in Chicago and Bonaroo 2009 in Tennessee, so it only seemed right to go to Jisan.  Even more enticing was the lineup for Friday night: Belle and Sebastian, Vampire Weekend, and Massive Attack on the main stage (I hoped to see all 3 for the first time).  Unfortunately there was some mis-communication upon our arrival.  Our timing was a little off and we missed the hourly shuttle to the ski resort where the festival was held and had to pile into a few taxis to get there.  Our cabbie was very poorly informed and educated on the whereabouts of one of the most popular ski resorts in his city and struggled to drive us to our destination.  Just picture a cab driver in Park City not knowing where Deer Valley was...I'll give you a few minutes on this one.  Now that you have the general idea of how this festival experience started out I can continue.  To make a long story short, we arrived at the festival after Belle and Sebastian had finished their set, which bummed all of us out, but we didn't let it ruin the rest of the day.  Vampire Weekend were also quite determined to lift our spirits as well; their set was incredible and the Koreans dug them as well.  Check out examples A and B:

So suave, definitely too cool for school

After Vampire Weekend, we had some time to grab a bite for dinner before the final evening headliner, Massive Attack, took the stage.  Once the main stage acts had finished for the night, the night time festivities around the grounds took place, which included fire juggling and ZZ Top coverbands.

Originally we hadn't planned on camping out at the festival because it supposedly wasn't allowed, but the way it was set up, there were plenty of empty tents on Friday night, so we found one and squatted for the night and Saturday morning we found some people heading back to Suwon and caught a ride with them.

The visit home was great.  I can't believe how quickly it flew by and I'm sure everyone who I saw feels the same way.  I'm so glad I got to see all the people I did in the short amount of time, especially Robyn (that's right, lil sis, you get a personal shout out).  I know she was trying to fit all of her friends in as well before they all went away to their respective universities.  The visit north of the border to Toronto was wonderful as well, as brief as it was.  The food was excellent and it was great to see everyone.  While I was in Minneapolis I was able to see a few Twins games, which was great, Target Field is a gorgeous place to watch a ball game.  When I'm back in North America for a longer period of time, proper visits are in store for everyone.

Which brings us to today, it's great being back in Korea, it feels like I never left on vacation (which is kinda weird, but welcoming at the same time).  My first official day back on the job was last Friday and so far the kids are super energetic and most of them seem somewhat happy to be back at school.  Slowly but surely I'm getting back into the routine of things, although it was definitely nice not working for 3 weeks.  It's also been a little strange getting back because there have been a number of going away parties for friends who are leaving.  You say goodbye and I say hello, pretty much.  Otherwise not much has changed here, the food is still delicious, the weather has been pretty rainy, although as I type this the sun is still shining brightly.  What else can I tell you?  Fall league ultimate starts this coming Sunday and I'm excited to get back into a weekly routine of frisbee, but don't worry, I'm still plan on doing my fair share of traveling.  Well, that's all from this end, I hope everyone continues to enjoy the blog as much as I'm enjoying writing it and all the experiences I'm having here in Korea.

What I'm listening to: "Liberation" by Outkast (special thanks to Prof. Werner for this)

Links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S16RFatbZWI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3tOa6CXv1I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtbrY6QrgPw