I think I've fallen into a bit of a pattern. Namely, spend one weekend in Icheon, and then head into Seoul for the next. It's alright, I suppose- if anything, it's cheaper than heading into Seoul EVERY weekend, or something. However, my Cousin's leaving Korea soon, so I won't have her couch to crash on, so my Seoul adventures may be slightly curtailed. That, and it's getting colder, so roaming around the streets has less of an appeal.

Anyway! The Icheon part! On the 20th or so, I hit up Icheon's 'cerapia-' basically, it's a city park/museum/mall thing, devoted to ceramics. It's sort of the town's gimmick, I guess. I went around a little bit, took some pictures. There were some big ceramic sculptures, a thing made to look like a giant kiln, and a little shopping store where one could buy said ceramic stuff- most of which was fairly pricey, as one would expect. I'm sure if I was more interested in ceramics, I'd be fascinated.

There was also a big ceramics museum thing, where, from what I gathered, they actually had people making ceramics or something- but, they were charging admission...and again, I'm not that interested in pottery. Instead, I wandered down the hill to the Icheon city museum. Nothing like the City Museum in St. Louis, of course.

The Icheon museum was small, but kind of interesting. There's some fortress ruins dating back to the three kingdoms period up in the mountains...and other than that, well, it seemed Icheon wasn't a particularly important locale since then. It's developing quickly, though, with a bunch of agriculture and other industry popping up.

Including an OB brewery. I don't think they give tours.

Aaaaanyway, let's move on to the more interesting stuff!

Namely, I spent last Saturday night bouncing from place to place in Hongdae. Again. It was actually a little warmer than I'd expected. I caught the tail end of a flea market, where I picked up a pretty neat handcrafted, leatherbound notebook. I'm almost a little afraid to write in it, as it's fairly nice. Maybe if I go charging off on some quest for the holy grail or something, I'll be able to make use of it. Heh.

Dunkel! That's thick enough it counts as dinner, right?

Also, while wandering about in search of food, I happened on the Queen's Head brewpub. Neat! This was the last of Seoul's microbreweries I hadn't dropped into (yet, at least). All I had time to try was the Dunkel, but it was the perfect beer to have on a cool night like that.

Other Hongdae highlights include seeing some Korean musicians jamming out in the park, with each taking their turn at the spotlight. For example, one woman in the group was a really good tap-dancer, and the drummer was pretty good at freestyle beatboxing. I snapped a few pictures, but it was one of those 'you had to be there' moments.

There's also the Silent Disco, which I didn't go to (I'm not a big fan of dance music to begin with), but I can't help but find it to be a cool concept. Basically, you get a pair of headphones and a balloon, and the music is broadcasted through short-band radio. If you have headphones, you know what's going on- if not, you just see...this.

Kind of a neat concept, really! Finally, I spent most of my evening in Club Spot, which is the best place to see live indie music in Korea. They had a whole mess of bands from all over Korea (and a few from Japan) for what they called an Oi! Festival, despite only having one Oi band on the bill. Even still, that was fine with me, as that left room for everything from 70's style punk (The Swindlers) to Flogging Molly-esque Celtic Rock (Nacho Pupa) to Ska (Rollings & Skasucks) and probably a bunch of other genres that I'm forgetting. It was loud and rowdy and otherwise a good time. I'll spare you my crappy, quicky-snapped pictures I took that night, except for one.

Y'see, at Club Spot, it's okay to jump up on the stage while a band's playing, so long as you fill at least one of two criteria: 1) Know the words to the song, 2) Dance really, really hard. (There might be a third option of 'being a cute girl' as well). So, during Skasucks' last song, I made it a point to do number two- whereupon I managed to snap this picture. Good times!

Icheon is quiet. Music is not.

Again, I'm overdue for an update. Oops.

Icheon! The whole place doesn't look like this, honestly, but I liked the picture.

In any case, I've been keeping busy. I've gotten settled in (mostly) in my new apartment and at my new school. The kids are older, and therefore easier to manage- but at the same time, they're also a lot harder to get engaged. The kindergarteners I taught before were ridiculously enthusiastic, practically climbing over each other to answer questions. Here, I get elementary/middle schoolers who are decidedly 'whatever' about everything.

What hit me hardest was a lesson I did for some 12 year olds. They're a high level class, and pretty good kids, really. The music lesson was about music genres- rock, classical, country, reggae, etc. So naturally, I burned a CD full of examples for them to listen to. And almost universally, no matter what the song, they were like "What is this? I don't like." I'm not even talking about the obscure stuff on my itunes, either! I mean, who can hate on straight up reggae? Pretty much the only reply I could coax out of them was "I like K-pop. Only K-pop." Ah well. They're young. Perhaps they'll branch out once they get older.

Though that did lead to a pretty amusing interchange.

Me: "What's your favorite band?"

Student: "Bestuu."

Me: "Bestooh?"

Student: "No, Bestuu. B-E-A-S-T."

Me: "Beast?"

Student: "No, Bestuu!"

Ah well.

So school is different, but it's alright. Icheon itself is kind of a quiet town, though. On the first weekend in November, I didn't get up to too much- went bowling with some of the other expats, and hit up the expat bar (which is a fairly decent-ish joint, I guess). Went to E-mart on Sunday to get tortillas and imported beer- nothing warranting its own blog post. Took a few pictures, of course.

I'm pretty sure I saw this in a Resident Evil game once.

RX, the local Expat bar.

A traditional Korean gravesite.

While wandering around, however, I came to a realization. Namely, Icheon reminds me a lot of Jefferson City, MO. It's rural-ish, but still developed. Kind of hilly. And...boring. Now, there may be some awesome places to go in Jefferson City (or Icheon!) but I'm afraid I'm unaware of them.

This was thrown into stark relief LAST weekend, in which I went to Seoul! The bus ride's honestly not too long. It's a little over an hour, which is about how long it takes to take the subway from Ilsan to Itaewon. It's certainly less crowded, at least.

My reason for hitting up Seoul was to catch Club Spot's Second Saturday punk rock show- it was Whatever That Means' last show in Korea, so I figured I'd hit it up. They were one of the first bands I saw in Korea, so, y'know, bookending.

In any case, I rolled in, and soon a Korean band, The Attacking Forces, did an Oi-punk cover of "A Message to You Rudy." The evening only got better from there.

Skasucks' frontman, in his element. Not pictured: EVERYONE SKANKING.

Skasucks once again proved they didn't suck, and they really got the crowd (including myself) moving. The frontman really knows how to work a crowd, and it helps that a lot of their songs are really catchy and easy to sing (well, yell) along to.

In between sets, I would exit the club to get some fresh air and roam around Hongdae a bit to take it all in. Club Spot is right by the Park- which is a little playground that is nightly overrun and turned into a street party thing. It was particularly bustling that Saturday night- at one time, there was a breakdancing competition (there's ALWAYS breakdancing competitions in korea), a pole dancing performance, and some indie band playing, all in different corners of the park. Unfortunately, given that I'm pretty short, I wasn't able to get a very good look of any of the acts. Pity!

So yeah. Whatever That Means did a great set- their last in Korea for some time. But! If any of you readers happen to be on the west coast, they're doing a tour in the States, so you should check it out. Google is your friend, and all that. I also picked up a compilation CD of a bunch of Korean punk bands- it's really interesting, as each band on it does a cover of a more well-known song, and then one of their own. I've given it a few listens so far, and there's some really good stuff on here. If nothing else, it lifts my spirits that not EVERYTHING here is saturated in K-pop glitz. Just, uh, a lot of it.

...Whatever That Means.

In any case, I'm just hanging out for now, taking it easy. I'm sure I'll find some more stuff to post about soon! If nothing else, there's another concert I wanna see at Club Spot in two weeks or so. Bunch of Japanese bands will be playing, as well as Nacho Pupa, who I really wanna see again. Should be a good time!