Ok Tuesday… Today we had financial talk in the morning… and found out how the Arts Council Korea finance department works… Details again in my detailed report. After lunch, which was like a Korean 10+ course or maybe even 20 course meal… all small dishes of course. Pictures in my Imagestation Arts Council sponsored lunch/meal folder. It was quite cool… there was this rice that came in a stone bowl, which you scooped out into another bowl and poured water into the stone bowl to cool it. The water actually boiled before it cooled the bowl down… and all the rice that was sticking to the sides of the bowl scrapped off easily and that was supposed to be eaten too. The rice had golden needle mushrooms (lucky not shitake), chestnuts and ginko nuts. Oh ya and red dates.

After lunch we went to Insadon, which is like the place for alternative art forms in Seoul. We took the public bus, together with Jinju and Jiwon and went there to find InsaSpace, which is Arts Council Korea’s er… property there. Jinju missed the building the first time round and we made a slight detour, but during that detour we saw a music shop selling Korean traditional instruments! Haha! So Chain and me and Bernard decided to go back there after the visit to InsaSpace, after which we were free to do whatever we want. The InsaSpace (on the 3rd and 4th floor of some other building, no wonder Jinju missed it. Not blaming you if you’re reading this Jinju :P) I must admit the art that we saw there didn’t appeal much to me… It so happened that the gallery there was now featuring works of an artist who deals with weeds… interesting but I’m not really one for such arts… so I shan’t comment too much on that.

Oh yea… before we went Insadon we actually went to the Arts Council arts center which is just round the corner from the Arts Council Korea building. There the gallery had paintings and installations by an in-house artist. Now these are nice. He’s much into nature and respects it a lot so his pictures naturally are mostly about nature, and a lot of them have him in it, bowing to nature. There was also a photo gallery, which was, I think, inspired by Andy Warhol. This photographer took pictures of very normal things at every bus stop from New York to where I forgot… He is also interested in time and space, and has some pictures which are time based – 2 photos from the same location but at slightly different times.

Arugh… forgot again… before we went to the arts center, some of us went to Coffee Bean and Rudy said that it was his birthday today. So we planned something for him… and decided to meet 6.30pm at the dorm to go out celebrate.

Ok back to Insadon. So after we finished looking at InsaSpace, we broke up into small groups and walked around. Bernard me, Chain and Tham together, the two Cambodian girls with Rudy I think… Ernest came along too, but Malecio was tired and he went back first. Jinju and Jiwon had to go back to their office so they went off as well. Well… basically we walked down Insadon, and went to the music shop and the instruments are expensive! $500 for some of them… so we decided to learn the instruments first before going back there again, and maybe we’ll know which are good and which aren’t by then. So we walked around and Bernard got lost… as in we lost him. Together with Chain haha. So Rudy, me and Tham went back first and who should we see but Jinju and Jiwon! Haha! They were in a convenience store buying some stuff. They came out and we said we were going back so they also came back with us. We asked why they were still there, and they said they actually went to the busstop already, but don’t feel like going back so soon, so they came back for a while more haha! Oh it’s a good thing they did, cos they helped me and Tham get our EZ-link card (Korea version). The bus was crowded… but all right la… cos its only a few stops. We went back to our hostel and the girls went back to their office.

Rudy’s birthday!
We went to this Western restaurant which I forgot the name and I also conveniently forgot to take pictures of it… but I’ll do it next time round. We walk past it quite often. We had 3 dishes (pictures again at Imagestation), and beer and wine! Haha and it only cost us around $20 each… Quite cheap but the wine wasn’t mature enough though so it wasn’t very nice. Jinju and Malecio went out to get a cake and hid it near me cos I was at the side of the table. Then I lit the candles (strange long and narrow ones) and brought it out after dinner. Nice celebration I think… to be able to celebrate your birthday with people from so many countries. Some of them even got him presents! Nice bunch of people :)

Then… Jinju suggested Karaoke! All right! Haha and Rudy said he’d sponsor the Karaoke! ALL RIGHT! I’ve got much to live up to I think… during my birthday. Hope no one says to go skiing! :P
Karaoke was cool… the room was very big! And had 3 tambourines inside too hahaha. There were English songs luckily and Rudy has a really nice voice! So does Malecio, and Jinju has a very cute voice! We were all dancing and tapping the tambourines and everything. Really cool Karaoke session…

After that we went back and stopped at a convenience store. Chain bought a clothes rack for drying his clothes and suddenly he became everyone’s favourite friend haha! ‘Chain we good friends right? We share the rack right?’ Hahaha~ Ok then I washed up when I got back and went online on the 5th floor. Ernest came along too and I gave him the IP as well… And this morning (Wednesday) Malecio got the IP from Ernest. So now all 3 of us have the POWER! Anyone who wants the POWER can come to us to get it…

Ok this post not that long as the last one… and I think will get progressively shorter when everything ceases to be new~ but for now… read slowly!

(Word count: 1091)