Saturday, May 29, 2010

Sunday Seoul Shopping Day

Some of you may know, that I have been wanting an instant camera for the longest time. When I lived in New Zealand I always thought they were cool, but here in Korea they are hugely popular. I see them everywhere and I think they are just awesome.

I've looked at them in stores many times and thought - should I or shouldn't I? I've also looked at them on G-market and thought maybe I should buy one...maybe...

As most of you who follow my blog regularly will know I teach extra classes at my school which means a little bit of extra money so I decided I should finally get myself one of these camera's!

So on Sunday Rich and I went to get our regular Mexican food fix and went to an underground shopping mall near the restuarant which I knew had my camera.

I love this mall, it has so many cute stores plus lots of crafty stuff and art supplies but I was on a mission for my camera (ok I did buy a novel to read as well but that's just because I finished my other one and I live in Korea it's not like every store sells English books).

Here's some of the cute stores in the mall, including the Hello Kitty Store, there's so much cuteness in this country!



Finally, I made it to the electronics store that sells the camera's and I bought this beauty.I haven't had much of a chance to use it yet, but soon I will, but I have taken a few photo's and they look very cool.

You can also buy all kinds of cool film to go with the camera (the pictures have a boarder with the characters on it). My favourite is, of course, the Hello Kitty film. But the store I bought my camera from had sold out of it - of course - everyone loves Kitty! So I think I will buy some online.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

It's nearly time for the World Cup!

Korea - Fighting!!
For those of you not in Korea, in Konglish, fighting roughly translates to "Go Team!" or "You can do it!".

Green Plugged Music Festival

Last Friday it was Budda's Birthday and our friend Joseph suggested that we all go along to the Green Plugged music festival in Seoul, we didn't really know many of the bands but hadn't been to a music festival in a long time so figured we should go and check it out.

The music festival was held in Seoul in a big park that used to be a golf course.

When we first arrived at the festival, we came across the TV stall and Val, Rich and I all fell in love with the festival t-shirts. So we all bought one!
Here's a photo of our posse for the day (well actually Joseph and Val's friend Dana joined us later in the day so there were five of us).
Here's a few photo's from earlier in the day, the first band is called Eloise, we have seen them before in Hongdae and they remind me of a Korean version of The Strokes. The second band is called "Cheesy Stereo" (I think).

In the photo's you can see a bunny on a stick - I kept seeing the girl with the bunny on the stick all day. I think the bunny was used to ensure that a group of friends didn't lose each other, or maybe it was actually a tour group. Who knows but nobody rocks like bunny on a stick!

There was also an information area, which had all sorts of tents with interesting things. For a while we considered zorbing, but the zorbing meant being pushed around some rather flat ground rather than being pushed down a big hill like in Rotorua so we decided against it. It just seemed kind of lame.

Just for fun, here's one of the many Konglish t-shirts of the day, we actually seen this couple again later and they both had this t-shirt on - couple set!After lunch, we went to check out a band called "GoGo Star" at Joseph's suggestion. The band had the most amazing show! The lead singer came out wearing black angel wings and part way through the song he was able to make the whole crowd sit down and then jump back up again on his command. The keyboard player also had an amazing KISS inspired look going on. It was the best show I've seen in forever.


Here's one of their songs "Angry Puppet Show" - I'm hoping we will make it to one of their shows in Hongdae this weekend.


I nearly forgot to say, for lunch we had burrito's (which was kind of unexpected). Here's a view of Seoul taken near where we had lunch and a cocktail robot just for fun.

Later on Rich and I decided to have a look at some of the stalls, the festival had an environmental message so there was some art work made from recycled items. I really liked the squid coke and beer can creation. There was also a merchandise stand, I really wish I bought a GoGo Star t-shirt.



Also, here's a random couple photo taken at some point in the day! Another great show we saw was W&Whale, Joseph really loves this band (he even got Whale's autograph during the festival). The show was really great and I'd really like to see these guys again They also did covers of Beyonce's "All the single ladies" and the Ting Ting's "Shut up and let me go". It was awesome. Bunny on a stick was at their show as well, nobody rocks like bunny on a stick!





Here's one of the W&Whale song's I really like, it's called R.P.G (rock and pop generation). Whale (the female lead singer) is pretty cool, but I have no idea why she chose Whale for her stage name!

Our final band of the night was Cuba, I couldn't find any video's of them online. I'm not sure if I like the lead singer in this band much but the lead guitarist is amazing!

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Just another shopping day in Seoul

Finally a store for all of us performance feminists!

Uijeongbu Music Theatre Festival



Last Sunday was a really beautiful day and in the morning Rich and I visited the Uijeongbu Music Theatre Festival which was being held at the Uijeongbu Arts Centre which is literally down the road from us.

The festival had a lot of events but we were going to see Les Gaspard, which turned out to kind of like a puppetshow with lifesize puppets.


There were also lots of cool craft stalls there for kids, I was very tempted to paint a Hello Kitty t-shirt - but I don't really wear white. It did look like a lot of fun though!