Bear with me, I have a lot to cover from this weekend. First I am going to start off with the truth. I apologize if I offend anyone I know with this set of comments, but first of all I am writing this to give a window into my life for the people back home. If you are still appalled, then in the words of Darth Vader: "Search your feelings, you know it to be true."
I love my friends, and I got to see most of them this weekend, but there were definitely a couple of instances where I thought to myself "Damn, I am glad I am out in the middle of nowhere." I am generally a non-confrontational person, but I am not scared of conflict. I have noticed all throughout my life, some places more than others, that the more people you force into a smaller environment the greater the potential for drama. Where I live, nothing really happens, which is not exciting at all, but is kind of nice because it is so peaceful. On the other hand, I got to hear about quite a few issues that were going around with the group of friends I have that are all in the same city. There was a lot of talk about who said or did what. Now as far as drama goes, they were all grown up about handling it, and they really didn't make that big of a deal about it. I have worked in places that say "oh we are one big family" and then turn around and cast anyone out who makes them feel uncomfortable. This was not the impression that I got from the group of friends I was with, but it was still enough to make me say the famous
Danny Glover line to myself, and seeing as how I will be one year away from thirty next week, I think I'm right.
Ok, that being said, let me tell you about all my friends and how friggin' awesome they are. There was Graham, who I roomed with at orientation. Me and him have very similar senses of humor, though I have to say his is much more... umm... English. He is hilarious, and me and him were getting psyched about Roni Size all month. I had seen Roni Size once before in about 2006 or so at a club called Purgatory in Dallas. He was good then, but I have to say I think this was a better show. I remember back then I had a group of friends who kept trying to call him Roni (as in macaroni) instead of Roni (as in Ronnie). That was sort of the ongoing joke me and Graham had. "Roni! You're the Mac!" I was shouting at one point during the set. Toby was with us. A Canadian who loves his hockey, and I don't really know that well, but he seems like a good guy. He is a Redditor, so that immediately makes him a point cooler in my book. Laura, a very sweet young American girl was also on the trip. I think I heard her talk more on this trip than I had every heard her talk before. I don't blame her, because I hadn't really said much to her at orientation, so it was good to finally see her feeling comfortable and coming out of her shell. Andrea, who I still haven't had much of a chance to talk to, but feel like we would get along just fine, had done all of the arranging for the hostel that we stayed at. I have to say she did an excellent job. Chrissy, or Christy (I can't remember which one she preferred to be called, but she literally just told us this weekend) is from England also, and seems like quite an extrovert. She had enough excitement for all of us at the show, and kept me close to the stage at all times. Jo-anne, the Irish lass who stayed out with me drinking that night in Gwangju, was on the trip as well. She is hilarious, and was worried that everyone who reads my blog would think shes a drunk. Well she is. Take that! Honestly though when you compare her to me, she is a fine upstanding citizen ;) The last person who was with us, and I know I am making enemies just by saying this, is my favorite. The Gooch (her last name is Gutjahar pronounced like Goocher), Clare. It was my joke this weekend that I would totally marry her because of her fantastic Canadian accent, (especially the way she says sorry as if it was sworry) although honestly if we were in a relationship it would probably be mostly fighting as she is not afraid to tell you EXACTLY how she feels, and can actually be a little aggressive about it ;) Oh, and she curses like a sailor, but that's more of a positive than a negative. Anyway, she has a fantastic sense of humor, (dark enough for me, but not quite as dark as Grahams) and is the perfect amount of open and secure. It also helps that since she's Canadian it automatically makes her super friendly. I talked to her on like the second to last day of orientation and found out that she was just starting teaching and had staffed a bunch of summer camps. I tried, being no stranger to summer camps with all my Boy Scout staffing experience and teaching special kids summer swim lessons, to put her mind at ease about the upcoming year. I dunno if it worked or not, but she looked stressed, and nobody deserves stress. So yeah, it was a great group of people that I am lucky to even have in my life as friends, and I got to spend all weekend with them at an awesome techno festival. Enough about my flock :) let's get to the travel.
Bus ride in and subway were uneventful. I have earned my Korean Public Transportation merit badge. I used the first night in the big city to meet up with Justin, who I stayed with last time, because the Gwangjuish folk were not yet even on a bus to Seoul. We had a couple beers at a music bar called Woodstock. Yes it was named after that Woodstock. It was interesting because there was the regular Korean counter area, and a waiter, but then a bar. No alcohol was behind this bar, instead there were vinyls. Tons of them. This long haired Korean man sat there and switched records from current alt rock, to classic rock, to stadium rock. He played a bit of Boston which I ate up, and some other stuff like the Foo Fighters and some classic Nirvana. After a few drinks at this place, talking to a random young guy from England who had lived in Japan for a couple years, we headed off to get something to eat. We decided on a Korean barbecue place and it was really really good. We had the normal meats, and the normal sides, and they were all delicious. After that we headed towards where I thought the hostel was. Apparently Google maps was not exactly clear on the location of this hostel either, because they sent me to the wrong one. The good news is that the wrong one was right near the right one. It was called the "Bebop Guest House" and had apparently been rated on Lonelyplanet.com as one of the best hostels in Seoul. I have never stayed in a hostel, but this was about what I would expect one to be like. We were in a room of eight, and it looked like there were maybe four more rooms, although they were all significantly smaller. There was a two person shower next to us, but I couldn't get the hot water heater working, so for the first day I took a cold shower. A cold shower isn't that bad in cold weather actually, because you come out of it feeling like the rest of the world is pretty warm. We had a breakfast of eggs and toast and then in the words of Graham "fancied a mooch around town" so we took off. It was just me and him, as the ladies and Toby were still getting showered and ready for the festival that evening. I had done some research on where the hostel was going to be, and realized that it was about a block away from one place that I really wanted to visit. In my experience learning Korean I used to try and watch Korean dramas. There was one that came highly recommended to me online called Coffee Prince (Kopi Purinsu 가비브린스) in which a coffee shop is run by a cast of characters and the main character is a girl, pretending to be a boy, so she can get close to the man she loves. Anyways, apparently the coffee shop is a real place, so we went there and had coffee. On the way we passed by a bunch of stores and went through a little outdoor market district. It was quite delicious, and I don't like coffee or princes. So me and Graham went back, met up with the group and headed out again. Apparently Laura really wanted to see the coffee shop so we headed back. Also it was on the way to the subway line which we needed to get to our festival. We stopped off at an Italian place and had lunch. It was actually very delicious. A Gorgonzola pizza followed by a beef ciabatta sandwich. Yeah buddy! We took a look at the coffee shop again for Laura, then headed to the fest.
I spoke before about the logistics of large groups of people, and it is extremely noticeable when you are trying to go somewhere new. I had done some preliminary research on where this fest was, and saw that it wasn't too far from our hostel, but didn't have a map or anything. If you go to google maps and type "Hangang Park" you get eight different locations. That is because Hangang Park pretty much just means "Han river park" and there are about eight of those. What I should have done was pull up the website on my phone and look at the directions, but oh well, twenty twenty hindsight. One of our other group members had a map, and we had gone to a tourist kiosk to ask where we were going, and they had circled how to get there on the map. What we didn't realize is that they probably thought we were going to the "Fireflower festival". So two subway lines later, and some epic missteps on the part of yours truly (involving thinking we were on the wrong subway line) we ended up at Hangang park. No concert venue to be seen, but wow was it pretty. The first foreigner we saw I asked, "Hey, do you know where Hangang park is? We are looking for the Global Gathering." "This is Hangang Park, and there is something going on down there." So we walked. Then we walked some more. Then we walked further. Then we got to the main stage of the fireworks festival. "Oh crap" we collectively said. We asked someone where it was, rechecked where we were going (made ridiculously hard by the fact that service was not great by the river) and then hopped in two cabs and went. We told our cab driver Nanji park, and he said he knew where that was. He didn't. He did, however, get us very close. We got to the world cup stadium (which was HUGE) and then found a very kind group of people headed to the same place. They told a cab driver where we were going, and made us get in the cab. Then they got in the other cab and followed us. Meanwhile the group of Waygooks that was not in the cab with me had gotten kicked out of two cabs and were on their way over. They apparently had to say "Nanji Park" which was across the Han river and quite a ways down. Anyway, we got there safe and sound, and I had to use my smart phone which had saved my ass for the two hundred and someteenth time when I needed my confirmation number for my ticket at the gate. They handed me a blue glow stick and sent me on my way.
We got in to the concert after a little bit of pregaming, and got to see a few DJ's perform. I thought Groove Armada was going to be awesome, but they were a little lackluster. I didn't think Digitalism would be that great, then not only was I about two or three rows back, but they blew me away! Everyone had these blue glow sticks that they were swinging around, and at one point in the night we were at a tent buying some merch for Laura (because she didn't bring a sweatshirt) and I saw the vendor had these light up rings. I said "I like your rings." So he gave them to me. I was dancing so much my sweat shirt was just that, a shirt full of sweat that I had to take off in between every set. Somehow we were able to meet up over and over again. Jaeger bombs were only like four bucks, where as in the states they would be about 8 to 10 at a concert like this, so we were drinking those, as well as Hite beer. At some point we decided we needed to eat something for dinner so we went over to the food tents that were set up. I had a delicious chicken quesadilla, and a REALLY good cheese burger. By far the best thing I had though was an ice cold Dr. Pepper. I saw friends that I had from orientation that were from all over Korea. One girl from Boeun, a few people from Seoul, of course my friends from Gwangju, and then there was my friends from Busan. They are a really friendly couple of dudes from South Africa who I went drinking with for a couple of nights and knew they would be up there. Craig, and KB are their names. Hopefully I will get to see them again at the end of the month for the fireworks festival in Busan.
The best part of the night was by far Roni Size. His set was fantastic. He has been around forever and has had many hits. He spins what can be called "Urban" techno. We were right up at the front, and had great positioning for the show. Me and Graham were about to rock out like nobodies business. One problem. Tools. I don't know if you have ever been to a techno show, but mostly its just people dancing, having a good time, and the farther back you go, the weirder the people are, the closer up you are, the more intense they are about the music. It is not a place for moshing. Well these stupid Waygooks, and there were about three of them, kept trying to start a mosh pit. In a crow that size, with people dancing and jammed in one spot, it's a pain in the ass. They kept doing it, and eventually it spread over to my area. Roni even stopped his set for a couple seconds to tell them to stop, and they did, then they started again. A chief of event security tried to get the guys to stop, and they did, then restarted. Well at one point well into the show these guys had been pushed into our friends repeatedly, and were pushed over to me enough to knock a bunch of people into me, and me into others. They were skinny boys, albeit tall, but still couldn't have weighed more than a buck fifty soaking wet. So they get pushed to the opposite side of the circle as me, which is a sure sign in a mosh pit that they will be coming in your direction, and sure enough here all three of them come. It was me, and the on the other side our whole group of girls and other concert goers, so when they came running at me, I stood my ground, reached my hand out, and grabbed the middle one. "Enough!" I yelled so they could hear me over the music. The two on the side looked at me like they were laughing at me, like it was hilarious that I would not like guys jumping into me, but the guy in the middle didn't think it was so funny. It was probably because my left hand had three fingers wound up in the neck of his hoodie making it constrict around his neck, while my index finger and thumb were tightly secured around his adams apple. He looked pretty scared, and rightly so, because I had him off balance. I don't think anyone in the crowd would have minded if I had dropped him right there. "It's not me bro! I got pushed! Relax! Enjoy the concert!" "Just stop dumbass!" I shouted back and let him go. They didn't run into me on purpose again, and whenever they got pushed my way, I had a nice elbow and a firm stance waiting for them. One dude tried to crowd surf and I saw some people pull him down so he landed on his head. The mosh pit had started though, and it couldn't be stopped. There were a couple of Korean guys who were just jumping into people and Graham grabbed one and told him to stop. Graham also had a couple words with one of the tools in the group of three. A couple of our girls that were up against the stage were turning around and shouting obscenities while kicking the dude in the knees. Jo-anne later said that I was squared up and ready to fight, and honestly I was. If that guy had pushed me or swung, he would have had a very sore morning. Other than the tools, Roni Size was awesome. He played
this song, which is the reason why I know who he is in the first place, as his encore.
After that, it was well after two and we were all very tired. We hopped a cab to head home, and the cab driver wanted twenty dollars upfront. It would have maybe cost us five, so we all said "Meter, or we get out." He was adamant, we got out. We got another cab that said twenty also, so we figured since they were picking us up from the festival it was obviously the festival cab price. We paid the twenty, about five bucks a piece, and got home. The other group paid thirty, so I guess we didn't do too bad. The rest of the night consisted of laying down, and passing out. We were all so tired we barely said a word to each other. The next morning was pretty uneventful. We checked out of the hostel, got something to eat and had "a mooch around town" then hopped on our respective subways and busses heading for home. I slept well last night also, and feel mostly recovered from the weekends festivities.
