Birthday! Well... we celebrated my birthday one day ahead.. on Friday and we went to TGIF! (those who dunno what TGIF is... you're not old enough) We started at around 7pm... Mele had a headache so he joined us slightly later.... The bread they served was good haha and we asked them for so many refills that the waitress that attended to us gave us each one bread and butter in a paper bag! Now that's service! Totally good! We ordered chicken nachos, buffalo wings and a full rack of small back. The food took a while to come, but it was sort of worth the wait.. quite nice :) Oh and the others treated me to the dinner while i treated them to the drinks.. I had Long Island Tea haha and the others had all sorts of drinks like Frozen Margarita and Mudslide or something along those lines... Then we sat there and ate and ate till 10! cos our Ms. Kim took forever to join us... Then we went to this pub to drink and have some snacks.. Oh the others also gave me a birthday cake... and TGIF has this Korean bday song for such purposes... They had a guitar, tambourine and bongos and vocals of course ahah. I was given a hat to wear as well! And they took pictures of us and gave us one each! Cool service! Singapore should learn... Oh ok the cake was from Paris Croissant, Blueberry something... nice! And at the pub Ms. Kim started taking out the left over cake which we couldn't finish, and started poking at it with her fork and eating! Goodness! haha i thought she was going to finish the entire 4-5 slices! (its ok i still had some left)

Then after that she went home and we went to this small club to dance... that's me mele tham and ernest.. bernard can't stand clubs... Anyway the club had like 15 people???!?! and only about half of them are dancing! If you call bobbing on the spot dancing... We got down and really showed them what was dancing! haha (ok laugh... i don't dance well i admit) Mele got hit on by this really drunk girl... so drunk that she mistook me for Mele for all of 10 seconds.. haha

All in all a nice birthday.. Wish Grace was here though.... Still you can't have everything... Oh and the others gave me a nice card too! Signed by various ambassadors of certain SEA countries *grin* and Korea.

Today is my Dad's birthday! Happy birthday Father!

Now since I'm updating my blog lets put some random incidents that happened... Today (2oth Dec) at one of the train stations, me and Bernard witnessed this really hilarious (to me) incident. There was this man walking towards a woman, looking to the right, and the woman walking towads the man, also looking right... Well what do you know... the next moment, they collided! That's of course not funny... what's funny is that the man's spectacles broke! This happened like right in front of us and I was trying hard not to smile (Ok i felt sorry for the man too... but he really should look where he is going.)

Today we also had Changgu lessons.... and as usual developed an ache in the left upper arm. The Changgu teacher showed us his shoulders... the left was bigger than the right! ok.... and not enough.. he also plays this small gong thing, which uses the right hand to hit with a mallet.. and that forearm was larger than the other. So he has a big left shoulder and a big right forearm. The sacrifices artists make.....

Brought doughnuts up to Arko. Predictably, Jinju was the one who was the happiest to see us... cos we were carrying a large box of Krispy Kreme. Otherwise.... *ahem* Too bad Mr. Jang's away on holiday...... I'm sure the dozen doughnuts won't survive today... not with HER around :P (don't look at me.. she admitted it too)

Oh ok and we got dinner in the hostel! Well some of us anyway... we paid 87400 Wons for a month's worth of dinner.. really worth it :) So now lunch is at the National Institute for Traditional Korean Music at 3500 Wons per lunch and 2300 Wons per dinner at the hostel. Barring accidental expenses... I should be able to save a tidy sum to get presents for all those who deserve them! OrI'll get myself a really nice Moeck treble recorder. Hmmm decisions decisions....

The weekend (weekends always include Monday by the way) passed quite peacefully, except last night.... There was a X'mas party hosted by Hongik University's KIMCHI, which is an acronym for something which I forgot.. but it deals with international students... It was held at this small club and it was fine.. cept that quite a lot of people didn't really dance much.. I mean... its a club people!! Well some of them were quite ok so thats fine...

Quick change! the price for the dinner just dropped to 69000 Wons.. Some confusion at the moment.

Next update is about my birthday! (Who said that blogs have to be in chronological order anyway?)

Well nothing much to update lately... we finally started Changgu lessons, which is a two sided drum.. and boy was it bad... the left arm is totally gone after the first lesson which was thank goodness on Friday... I hate to think what it would become on next Friday when we have lessons from Tuesday to Friday... Hope the arm doesn't drop off...

Oh one funny incident... last thursday we were supposed to have Changgu lessons, but apparently there was a mix up and someone forgot to tell us there wasn't, so we went to look for our supervisor from the Institute of Traditional Korean music, and he got so flustered! Then he told us to follow him, and he brought us to this storeroom of sorts... and gave us each a set of 4 CDs! Whao... and he said don't be angry.. Actually that set of CD we wanted from quite a long time ago, so not sure whether he's giving it to us cos he's trying to apease us or cos he was supposed to give it us already. Both reasons I think haha.

Today (sunday) we went to eat at some BBQ place near our dorm.. quite cool.. like Bulgogi, but no sauce, and you have this rice in a box which you add things in and shake it to mix it well haha then you put everything into lettuce leaves and eat it in one gulp! Each leaf i mean not all the rice. I noticed we ate the most leaves haha... the other people in that place didn't ask for refills... we did.. 4 times! And its me, Bernard, Mele and Tham... yumyum!

Lesson learnt.

Krispy Kreme doughnuts are the best in the world! And they are available in the basement of Lotte departmental store in Myeongdong here in Seoul! Actually we passed by that Krispy Kreme twice already, but it was always packed with people... not surprising since its always Saturday or Sunday we pass it... Today me and Bernard went there, after going to this giant bookstore (Kyobo bookstore) and getting tons of books... (me not Bernard) they were cheap too! very cheap in fact. Ok Krispy Kreme! There wasn't much of a queue, only about 5 people in front of us. And the prices are as such... 1 single doughnut = 1000 Won. a dozen original glazed = 8000 Won. HUH?? Who'd get one at that rate?? A dozen assorted flavours = 10000 Won. So we got a dozen of assorted flavours... but not before they gave us each a sample doughnut!!! WOOOO.... Crispy and soft and piping hot! I love Krispy Kreme!

Ok then we walked Lotte Young, which is a sort of branch of Lotte, which caters to the younger crowd (duh)... then we went back without buying clothes haha. Well now so we have this dozen of doughnuts, so we decided to give some to the International exchange team (5 of them), and some to the others who are lucky enough to see us! haha.. so... we walked to their office, which is very near to our hostel, just next door, and before we went up I called Jinju, but she hung up on me!!! Oh well no doughnuts for them then... so we went back to our hostel.. Around 6.15 Jinju called me and asked what was up and I said we had Krispy Kreme doughnuts for them... but... And at this point she screamed into the phone "KRISPY KREME?? MY FAVOURITE!!!" God... my eardrums... I told her we still had a few left so if she really wanted she could drop by and get them.. Turns out she was coming over anyway to return Melecio something... lucky for her! But she was going to have dinner first so me and Bernard went for dinner as well.. We arrived back at the hostel before she did and waited for her to arrive... then Ernest appeared as well, so all 4 of us, Ernest Jinju Bernard and me went to my room to eat doughnuts! haha! well actually Jinju just took 2 in a bag to bring home cos she wanted to eat hot ones... Ernest took 2 and Bernard and I took one each, cos we had 2 already in the afternoon Muahaha.. Then I transferred mine and Bernard's photos of Jinju to my thumbdrive for her to bring back...

Tomorrow is Korean etiquette class! Hope it will be fun... and we're learning 2 more instruments tomorrow! the drum and zither. And so our schedule starts... 10 to 2 pm with an hour lunch... oh well... its gonna be exciting!

IT'S SNOWING!!!!!! SNOW SNOW SNOW!!!!!! I LOVE SNOW!!!!!!

All right! The mega update that I promised! This is going to be very very very long… so please do take your time and read it. Don’t even try to finish it in one reading… Well, the night before, we were packing, and deciding which luggage to bring, and auntie Bernard went around asking who was bringing what cos he didn’t want to be the only one with a real luggage haha. You know, those that have handles (I keep typing handel!) with which you pull along like an air stewardess. We tried to go shop for a sports bag but couldn’t find one… and also to find portable toiletries, and we discovered Koreans don’t believe in them… After much searching we finally managed to get them.

Next morning… we gathered on the 5th floor of our building (where we have Korean lessons) to have a brief orientation and found that tons of them were carrying those luggage! Haha so I suggested to Bernard after the orientation (5 min before we had to leave) that he could use his… cos he tried to stuff everything into his haversack but couldn’t find space for his moisturiser, and wanted to use mine. So he went and transferred the things to his luggage. He’s fast I’ll say that for him haha. Then up on the bus! The trip from Seoul to Busan takes 6.5 hours with a half hour break for lunch. Basically we lounged on the bus till lunchtime, which we had at those stops on the highway… Oh and the highway was really straight and level. They built bridges over rivers, tunnelled through mountains and everything, just to keep us going due south (we know cos we checked against the sun) on level ground. No up or down slopes. Impressive. Right lunch was ok… Mr. Jang was busy taking everyone’s orders and ordering at the counter while we collected the food from the various stalls haha. Never seen a director act less than one. Oh and he and Mr. Yuk (staff from NIIED – our place of stay) became air stewards at the beginning, walking up and down handing us things to eat, which Jinju bought. She bought 2 entire cardboard boxes of her favourite foods (which actually means everything edible) along with tons of drinks. The two of them walked up and down, giving us mandarin oranges, chocolates, snacks, bottled water and etc… haha. Ok I’m digressing. Anyway, after lunch we continued our way… most of us just sleeping (me included) and by 4pm we reached Beomeosa Temple (벙어사). Well first we had to climb steps up for about 5 min to reach our place to stay. Oh I forgot to say I was carrying 3 bags… one for clothes, one for books and other documents, and a haversack for laptop. I’m topped only by Ernest who had an extra one for moisturisers and stuff… Anyway… it was quite cold, and we’re all very glad for Arko’s jacket. Thanks again Arko! More specifically the International Exchange Team! Ok… when we reached our living quarters, they gave us our clothes to wear, which consists of thin pants and a thin vest. Luckily we could wear things under it haha so all of us actually wore long sleeve tops under the vest. A little strange looking… On top of that when we walked out we wore the jacket haha so not much of their clothes could be seen. After that a monk came in and taught us the various things to do and the many many things that we couldn’t do haha. No smoking was quite high on the list. Then he taught us how to do the half bow which was just putting your hands together and bowing from the waist. The big bow (for lack of better words) include prostration 3 times on the ground, first kneeling, then touching the forehead to the ground, and lifting the hands upwards to the ears, den recovering to standing. That’s once. After learning that we were ready for dinner! The first dinner was a normal Korean course dinner, without meat of course. Quite nice actually considering Koreans actually eat a lot of vegetables even when not in the temple, this is not very hard to get used to. Oh and we had to finish up all the rice otherwise its considered impolite. Jinju had a hard time finishing up and when she did she had some indigestion. Poor girl. Then it was time for the evening worship session, and to put our bowing skills to the test. First we had to stay outside the worship hall till all the monks have entered, while bowing to each of them when they arrive… They had this drum and gongs to tell the monks to come, and three monks performed on them on this mini tower… very cool… but I didn’t manage to get a video of it cos we had to leave all our valuables in this envelope for safekeeping, and I happily put my camera in. Right… then the worship session was cool too… they sang a really nice chant, and in unison 5ths too! Not at all like a drone. But we had to do the full bow like many times, and sit like Japanese at other times… that part was really bad. Anyway after that we went to learn to make lotus lights with paper and a paper cup! Most of them turned out quite nice… mine as usual when I’m not working with only paper, turned out ok only… oh and the person teaching me taught wrongly at first so I had to restart haha. Well after that we lighted up the candles inside, and some got burnt up! Ernest’s got burnt while we were posing for photos! That was hilarious… Jinju’s burnt up too, and Bernard burnt his up on purpose. Wait Junju burnt 2 lanterns up… Hers and Mr. Yuk’s when he gave his to her when hers burnt up. In the end she took mine too… but luckily it survived haha. And after that we had a tea ceremony with the monk, and talked a little with him. There was a very nice rice cake served with the tea, which only royalty got to eat in the past, and which is now only found in Beomeosan. Very nice… has dates and chestnuts and I’m not sure what inside.

Then we attempted to sleep (guys in one room and girls in another) cos we had to wake up at 3am next morning! Goodness. And by 3.30 we were washed up and ready for the morning worship session, which wasn’t as nice as the night before… it was exactly the same thing, but somehow the 5ths were gone… only unison. Then we went back to our quarters for an hour of meditation. My legs were like totally numb by the time we finished and my tummy growled at least 5 times which everyone heard! So embarrassing! Then we went for breakfast, which was some ritualistic meal called Balwoo Gongyang, and involves 4 bowls… first, the monk taps the bamboo rod 3 times, then we do a half bow, and start laying out the bowls, first laying a cloth on the ground, then taking the bowls out from inside each other to lay into a square, and tons of other stuff… the highlight of the meal is that you CANNOT leave anything behind. So you get a piece of radish kimchi, and clean the bowls with it, which has water in it, and then… you drink up the water and eat the kimchi! *shudder* but its ok… I managed to do that without throwing up haha but some people had food left and well of course they didn’t do that part. *shrug* Since it’s a temple stay experience we should do everything they ask us right? At least that’s what I think. Then we learnt some Buddhist martial arts… uh… yea… we tried our best I suppose, but he still said we were too stiff as artists. Or rather the translator (not Jinju, its some volunteer) said that. I was like what? So undiplomatically done… anyway we most of us felt the sting but brushed it aside (I know cos I discussed it later with some others about that remark) Then we had a walk round the temple surroundings to look look see see, and it was really quite pretty. Still the walk was quite tiring, climbing up rocks and stairs everywhere… Thank goodness for NS. After that it was time to do an evaluation and check out~ they gave us each a bracelet of beads as a souvenir. I was joking that they should give us a certificate for passing out of the temple stay haha

Break time. Read on next time, or now if you’re really so interested in me *touched*

Ok leaving the temple, the first thing everyone did was to grab some chips or small cakes from the two cartons and start eating! Haha even though we were going to lunch. All of us slept in that 1 hr ride to lunch and a lot of us didn’t really want to go down the bus for lunch which was quite nice~ Then we went around looking at historical sites, mostly temples in the Gyeongju area, which was the capital of the Silla dynasty. We had this tour guide with us (how about check it out~) who showed us all the relics of that dynasty, including tombs and an astronomy tower. All very interesting and nice, but we were all aching from the morning exercise and walk and lack of sleep… and we cut short the touring and went to our hotel to check in and the first thing I did was to bathe! Didn’t get to do it in the temple cos the water is close to freezing cold. I know now what is meant by freezing cold. Then we had dinner at some restaurant 5 min away from the hotel… its shaped like a pumpkin! And the interior looks super cool… like the inside of a pumpkin made by a giant worm. The food was nice too as usual with Arko dinners/lunches. After that we went back to the hotel and we (Bernard and Ernest only actually, and me of course) went to the hot spring / sauna. Japanese style! (read: totally naked except a small towel which doesn’t wrap round your waist even if you’re a supermodel) Ernest refused to take off his briefs haha and he wandered around in that. After about an hour inside, we all felt really good and went back to our rooms and slept. Next day (Wednesday) we had breakfast and then went to visit other sites of interest, which was some temple up on a mountain, and which featured a grotto with statues of Buddha and other deities carved from granite! These were made in the Silla dynasty which was the 8th century… imagine the work they had to do to carve granite! Really impressive. More climbing to reach that grotto though… lucky we had the hot spring to rejuvenate us the night before… Then it was time for lunch… forgot where we had it though haha… Then we moved to Andong, to this traditional village that is now open to artists to stay (for a fee of course) Its quite cool that place… very picturesque, and there were tons of stars! Haha I managed to see quite a lot. A pity I don’t have a star chart handy… We first had homemade Korean food for dinner and it was really really nice! Much nicer than those in the restaurants! No kidding. Then we learnt to make knot-craft (the teachers came all the way from Seoul!) which needless to say I didn’t succeed. I’m such a lousy craftsman except for origami haha. Then we had this Hahoi mask dance lecture cum performance by this master. He usually only does public performances and this is the only exception he made so far… seeing that we’re all artists *touched*. I have video clips of that if anyone is interested! Its too hard to describe in words his movements and everything. Suffice it to say that he had about 10 masks and each one had a different set of movement to go along with it. The masks themselves don’t look that realistic, but when he put them on and started dancing, it was really clear what each mask meant. After that we had a BBQ! Eating some barbequed pork and chicken and drinking~ and sitting around a campfire singing songs… and everyone has their own folk songs, except Singapore… well… yea… Then we played some games too and the director taught us this really funny game which is totally not describable here… I’ll demonstrate when I get back.
Then, we moved into the building and played more games! Haha the director was playing as hard as all of us! We were playing this game called the King game, where one card of a deck of cards was king, and he could order people to do things, say… no. 2 do this, and the person with the no. 2 card had to do it. Once he got ordered to drink a can of beer, and he said ‘I’m so sad! I’m so sad!’ while laughing and drinking it up haha. What a punishment. And another he had to take a piece of prawn cracker stick in his mouth and the other person bite off the other end. And it happened to be Narim! He went ‘I’m so sad!’ again haha and told Narim ‘Don’t worry… I love you’ hahahahahahaha He’s really fun! The last round of that game I got to turn round 10 times while bending over and then immediately start singing. Well… after 10 rounds I immediately fell over haha and had to drink a shot of liquor as punishment haha. (Soju… that’s the liquor) Then after that most people went to bed, while I went to stargaze… really nice. I could see the entire Orion, Leo, Canis major, minor, Taurus, Pleiades, and many more… I really want a star chart! Tham and Mr. Yuk joined me and we were there gazing. Oh I saw 2 shooting stars! Yay! Tham saw one too! We talked randomly about everything, including ancient Thailand and about the cultures of SEA. Then! We heard rustling in the grass in front of us! And it stopped, and it came progressively closer and closer! And Mr. Yuk said when he was young he used to see wolves on his way to school. What a good way to reassure us haha. Finally we decided that we should go back cos the rustling was really coming quite close, and we couldn’t see what it was. Scary! When I got back to the room and told Bernard, he said it may be a snake. Best. Haha But in the morning when I asked the village head, he said it was probably a deer. And there are no snakes there. Still we didn’t stay to find out last night haha. After a nice breakfast me and Bernard walked down to this lake caused by a dam and took pictures. I have a panorama picture of that! Whoever wants it tell me~

Ok then we packed up and left and went to a Confucian old school… and took pictures and looked around, then had a 2 min bus ride to this restaurant where we ate food meant for offerings. Like what the Chinese do in Singapore. But the food was different. Me and Melecio decimated the fish, including one that wasn’t from our table. It was so nice! Then we went to a traditional village to look around, and walk and walk and walk… Oh forgot to mention… Jinju didn’t bring her camera charger, and so she started getting everyone to take pictures for her! Half the photos in our cameras are her 写真集 haha ok I’m exaggerating, but still it was quite a number! :P

Then it was time to go back to Seoul, with a stop at another of those stops for dinner, and then we were back! Oh and it snowed in Seoul when we were in Busan! Grrrr but by the time we got back there was no trace of it anymore… So sad! But we’re due for more snow this coming winter yay!

On the whole this trip was really fun and enjoyable… I got to see many many things that I’ve never seen before, and experienced things I will never again… I know now what is meant by a chilly night, and what is freezing cold and biting cold winds. I also saw a sunrise which caused the sky to become one giant rainbow, and stars covering the entire sky. I also got to know all the wonderful people in our group and the arts management group and the organizers Arko and NIIED. The trip has also inspired in me some new works which I hope to be able to write really soon, and it has also made me want to find out what exactly is our culture. Do we have one? If we do what is it? I hope I can answer those questions soon. Ok this is sounding like some self reflection already… So anyway photos will be up soon I promise… with captions… until then…

Oh we might be watching Harry Potter tonight with any luck. The English movies here run abysmally slower than Singapore. Harry Potter just opened yesterday 1st December.