Exciting adventures in Seoul

Last weekend in Seoul ended up being a very busy one, a few weeks back we heard that a Chinese band that we really liked called "Carsick Cars" were playing in Hongdae. We both really wanted to see the gig especially seen as we haven't seen any live music since we moved to Korea!
But the problem with Seoul is that the subway system stops at around midnight and doesn't start again until about 6am the following day, we knew the gig would finish much later than midnight and didn't fancy hanging around in an all hour cafe waiting for the subway to open so we decided to spent the weekend in Seoul.

We stayed at the most amazing backpackers called "Hongdae Guesthouse". If you even want to spend the night in Hongdae than this is the place - our double room was huge and had an ensuite and a computer with a big screen where we could have watched DVD's if we wanted too. It also had, amongst other things the most amazing view.

We arrived at the backpackers at about four in the afternoon and as the gig wasn't starting until ten at night we had a lot of time to kill! But that's fine because Hongdae is an amazing place, we ate some really great Mexican food for dinner (I had the best nacho's ever - they weren't greasy or heavy at all!) which was followed up by wandering around Hongdae and drinking tea in a very cute cafe - dedicated to tea. They even had pikelets which I would have been very tempted by if I hadn't just eaten dinner.

We headed back to the backpackers to get ready for a great night out and stopped to look at the amazing view from our backpackers for a while.

Before we left, Rich drew up a little map of how to make it to the club where the gig was being held and we made it there pretty easily - I'm so glad to have Rich as I have no sense of direction and if he wasn't here I'm pretty sure I'd get lost most days.

The club where the gig was being held was called "Drug" and it was just like "Happy" in Wellington or "Ward Lane Taven" in Hamilton, it seems that no matter how far you travel some things will always remain the same.

Their were two warm up bands before Carsick Cars, both Korean, the first was called "Eloise" and they sounded like a Korean version of the strokes. I forget the second bands name but they were a bit too electronic for me but the crowd seemed to love them. The finally it was time for Carsick Cars - rock on!

The following day we went to have the free breakfast (well a hot drink and some toast) that the backpackers offered and ended up spending a lot of time speaking with the owner of the backpackers who is the loveliest lady - she'd even visited New Zealand and wanted to share some of her adventures with us.

Eventually we had to leave as we had a Seoul Art Meet Up group even on and we had to make it all the way over to Yeouido to meet the group. This weekends adventure was visiting the Nam June Paik Art Centre, however, we didn't realise just how long it was going to take to get to the gallery by bus! I think it must have taken us about an hour and a half to get there but it was totally worth it. I didn't really know much about Nam June Paik before we went, although Rich was familar with him. His area of interest was very post modern media style art and his work was really incredible - if you live in Seoul or Gyeonggi you should really make the effort to visit the art centre.

After we finished at the gallery, it was time for a dinner and chatting with the art meet up group where we met even more amazing arty people.

Finally it was time for a two hour bus and subway ride back home - it was a really long ride home but totally worth it! What an amazing weekend!

First Craft Swap for 2010!

I haven't been doing as many craft swaps lately, but last week I sent off a package for the Circus Steampunk Swap. It was harder to combine the two themes than I thought but hopefully my partner will like her package - here's a "sneak peak" - I'll post pictures of what's in the package later on.

Seoul Tower

A few weeks back, Rich and I finally went to Seoul Tower, we have been wanting to go for a long time but never seemed to actually get there. It's a pretty cool place and I really want to take friends here when they visit as you get a great view of the city.

One of the cool things about the tower is that all of the windows have the distance to different cities, as you can see we are a long way home. However, someone needs to tell the person who did the screenwriting on the windows that New Zealand is two words not one.

Japan day 5 - Travelling to Kyoto

On day five of our trip it was time to finally leave the madness of Tokyo and head to Kyoto - I'd been looking forward to this part of the trip most of all. I was however, a little worried about sorting out the trains but I shouldn't have had any fear as Rich managed to get us onto the bullet train without any worries - he is like my own personal GPS.

Prior to leaving Tokyo we bought bento for lunch, I'd been excited about this for a while as I watched a Discovey Channel show all about Japanese food which gave all sorts of praise to bento and I have to say that the praise was well deserved. Bento is mighty tasty.The train trip was pretty quick, only about two hours as it was a high speed train and we even got to see Mt Fuji on the way.
When we arrived in Kyoto and checked into our hotel we did a little bit of exploring and finished off the day with a visit to Kyoto tower.

Film 11 - Don't Look Now

Film number 11 was a horror/thriller which was playing at a film festival at Seoul. The film is from 1973 and the basic story line is that a couple's young daughter drowns in a pond near their house, shortly after they move to Venice for work and to deal with the loss.

But in Venice, weird things start to happen, beginning with a chance meeting with an elderly blind psychic and her sister. It's a very dark film in a very spine tingling kind of way.

One of my favourite things in the movie was the portrayal of Venice. In art and movies Venice is always portrayed as a light, bright, romantic city, but I've always wondered what Venice is really like? I've read so much about how often the city floods and the fact it is literally "sinking" and that so much of the city is under "repair" due to all the precious historical architecture.

In "Don't Look Now" Venice is portrayed as a dark, dismal and quite frighting place - lots of dark streets and alleyways that all looks the same, shadowy figures, damp and dark and generally quite grimy. I really liked this perspective of the city and I'm really happy we made the effort to head to the Seoul during the week to see this film.

What the Book?

Last Saturday Rich and I spent a decadent day in Itaewon, one of Rich's friends from his old job moved to Korea a couple of months after we did. He lives further south near Busan but was heading off on an overseas trip so he needed to catch a flight from Incheon - which meant he was spending a day or two in Seoul before he left.

We ended up hanging out for a long time, mostly drinking and eating way too much but it was fun and always it was nice to hear another New Zealand accent.

Also whilst we were in Itaewon I finally managed to go to What the Book? a bookstore my friend Joseph had told me about, he had bought me a copy of Fangoria magazine from the store before.

I didn't realise just how awesome this book shop was, I'm pretty picky with magazines, I hate your typical "girls" magazines like Cosmopolitan and don't even get me started on so-called "women's" magazines full of pictures of celebrities doing the grocery shopping with no make-up on!

So you can imagine my delight when What the Book sold not only my favourite horror filled magazine, Fangoria but also Bust and Bitch, two great feminist magazines! I spent a lot of won at that store but it was totally worth it!

Felt Class Project

A few weeks back Rich and I took a felt class with the lovely NaYoung and this is what we made - a cute little tiger, he actually has some practical uses as well on the other side he is a mirror.

Japan Day Four - Meiji Shrine, Harajuku, Asakusa Temple, River Cruise & Tokyo Tower

On day four of our trip to Japan we had a mammoth day of siteseeing in Tokyo - first of all we visited the Meiji Shrine. This is a big shrine that was very busy on the day we went, which is saying something given we visited mid-week. The park that the shrine was in was very peaceful which made a nice change given the hurried pace we had been experiencing in Tokyo.




We followed up our trip to the shrine with a visit to Harajuku, which has some of the most amazing shopping I have ever seen. I think I was fairly restrained with my purchases - it would be easy to spend a lot of money here!












Next we visited the Asakusa Temple, which is a big Buddist temple. During our visit part of it was under repair, but it didn't impact on the visit too much, the whole area surrounding the shrine is amazing and vibrant and a really great part of Tokyo to visit.




Next we decided it was time to do a river cruise, because river cruises are always good.



Finally, we finished off the day by heading to the top of Tokyo Tower, it looks just like the Effiel Tower - only it's much bigger. There is an amazing view from the top of the tower, you get a feel for just how big Tokyo really is!

Japan Day 3 - Rain!

Day three of our trip to Japan meant rain, rain, rain....it wasn't pouring down but at the same time it was enough to make the day truly miserable. To make matters worse all the art galleries and museum's were closed as Monday had been a public holiday which in Japan means public spaces are generally closed on the following day. But we tried to make the best of the situation by jumping on the subway and heading over to Ueno Park.

However, after a while the rain became a little bit too much we decided to retreat to the markets near Ueno - where I even managed to buy a pair of gumboots. Perfect for such dreary weather.

After further wandering we decided to head to Akihabara, an area which is known in Japan for it's Maid Cafe's and Anime.

We started out with a maid cafe which has to be one of the weirdest experiences of my life, Japanese girls dress up in costumes right out of an anime and serve you food and drinks. It was a little weird as the girls acted just like anime characters and kept on coming over and saying things to us in Japanese and then giggling like crazy (it wasn't just us - it was everyone in the cafe). You had to pay to take photo's of the girls but I did manage to nab a photo of the sandwhich board for the cafe and we were allowed to take photos of our cake.

After some very expensive tea and cake in the maid cafe with the giggling Japanese "maids" we decided to check out some of the sights of Akihabara - including a visit to a store that specialised in selling robots.

We also visited the Tokyo Anime Centre, there were a lot of people waiting there for something exciting to happen. But we got sick of waiting with them to find out what the very exciting thing was - instead we took some photo's of the characters in the centre and decided to leave.

We decided to finish up our day with some Japanese Karaoke which was pretty fun but I have to say the song choosing device was pretty difficult to work out (compared to the song choosing device we usually have in Norebang) so we didn't actually get to sing that many songs.

Tokyo Day Two - Bright Lights of Tokyo

After a day of Hello Kitty craziness we decided to head to Shinjuku to see the bright lights, people watch and eat ramen.

Later on in the eavening we headed up Tokyo Metropolitan Towers for a better view of the city at night.

Film 10 - Silent Venom

Film number 10 in my year of 110 films was another snake related B grade movie (my second in the same month) called "Silent Venom" but it could also be called "Snakes on a Sub".

The premise is Luke Perry is a washed up submarine commander who needs to deliver an old sub from Okinawa to Taipei - it's his last mission and it should be a simple one.

But on the way he recieves a call to tell him he needs to pick up some military scientists who are working on a "top secret" project from an island near China. Turns out the top secret project is breeding "super" snakes for biological warfare - including some of the worst CGI snakes I have ever seen. I'm pretty confindent a tech savvy 15 year old could create better CGI snakes on his home computer than these supposed "super" snakes.

So long story short the snakes get loose (both the regular type and the two super snakes) and Luke Perry does his best to try and contain them whilst getting in the way of some Chinese Navy operations. Yes rather than making the Chinese navy aware that there is a US sub there they act like it's a heated military situation - making the Chinese out to be an evil superpower that could attack the sub at anytime.

The movie is truely horrible by anyone's standard's, unfortunatly I seem to find even the worst horror films compelling as it's a little bit like watching a car accident. The special effects are horrible, the dialogue is terrible and the story is lame yet I watched the whole thing and enjoyed it - or at least enjoyed making fun of it and some parts were so bad they were laugh out loud funny.

So by no account make any effort to watch this film, but if you're flipping through TV channel's late at night and it's on TV and you can't sleep it's worth watching.