Recap: Part One - Salsa Dancing?

I've been REALLY Late recently with posting. I've had a lot of to do, but at the same time things I've wanted to post about.
So what have I been so busy with? Well, here's one of them:





If you want, you can go to the 2:55 mark to get a surprise. I'll get better in time for when I come back home in August.

There's more to come. I have back logs about sports day, doing a dog & pony show known here as an Open Class, and a number of crazy things. I promise the wait won't be as long.

Splish Splash

I didn’t come to Korea with a lot of clothes due to a freak accident at the airport. I also can’t buy clothing here because Koreans don’t come in my size. Being the case, it’s important for me to take care of the clothing I did bring with me. Sadly, this also means I wash my clothes a lot. I don’t have a laundry day like most people. I wash something almost every day just so I don’t get caught without clothes.

So when Monday came and my washer broke, I wasn’t a happy man.

Luckily, I had recently cleaned some clothing, but this didn’t help me much the week went by. I was digging thru the drawers for something to wear to work each day. Fortunately my school was pretty quick to get a repair man to look at it. The repairman told them that the washer was dead, so they bought me a new one. I was so thankful that I finally had a washer. . . best of all, the new one is bigger than the old one so I can wash more stuff in it.

Ok, enough domestic stuff, let’s get on to the weekend.

Pictures of the Week (April 22)

This week's pictures from the wonderful world of Korean weirdness come from my random walking around the city of Daegu. I think it's time for something a little different, so I might want to travel around to get pictures from different places.

First up on the list is this wonderful little shirt I found with a friend when we wandered into a cell phone assessory shop. The girl wearing the shirt seemed to be uneasy about me taking the picture, so I asked her friend to take it for me. We also explained why it was so funny to us silly Americans. I think it was more than fair considering that she was squeezing the chicken and making nosies with it.

There are a lot of keychains and cell phone charms here. This one caught my eye due to the fact that not only is it Spider-Man, but it's Spider-Man holding a bottle of Soju. For those of you who don't know, Soju is the local liquor of choice for many Koreans. The drink is synonoious with the country despite a movement to distance itself from the drink. But how could such a trinket exist? Well, the copyright laws are very fuzzy here. Many things aren't "offical" here so it's not usual to see such things.

Music Overview: Jan. 5, 2009

Just finished picking apart Common's "Universal Mind Control." I'm not as impressed as I would like to be. It's not a bad album. . . I just think it could be better.

Best part of my hip hop listening habits have been my rediscovery of Little Brother. If you are a Hip-Hop fan, PLEASE listen to these guys. They are throw backs, but they are so much fun to listen to.

I also went thru a few days of listening to a lot of Japanese Rock. Mostly it's stuff from Anime but I got to say I love Sambomaster. Talk about a band that's not pretty. The lead singer can belt it out, but he's SO NOT the typical front man for a Rock band. Watching the video for one of my fave songs looks like he's singing and stumbling drunk. God Bless the Japanese.



This sadly made me think about how the lack of unique music here in good ole Korea. Here, everyone listens to the same music, the same songs and it's mostly pre-packaged Pop that imatates mainstream Pop, R&B and Rap back home. Which means almost NO groups write their own music. Doesn't mean there aren't a few. Only ones I seem to find that have some merit is Epik High. For some reason, these guys impress me and from my understanding they have a lot of creative control over their stuff. But it doesn't hurt that they manage to make videos that get banned from TV:




Either way, that's all when it comes to music for now. If you got any reccomendations, please feel free to speak up.

Just Like Music. . .

Unlike most people around here, I didn't do the iPod thing and become apart of the cult of Mac. . . . I got a Zune and I say I can't complain. However, their answer to iTunes ain't bad. It doesn't quite the same amount of contient to buy from Apple's online store (who does???) but it does have a good share. Best of all I"M NOT LOCKED INTO iTUNES MUSIC FILE FORMAT!!!!

Plus, zune.net has a social networking element that I enjoy messing with. So I figured I would post my profile card. . . . . I've been listening quite a bit sense coming to Korea (my home entertainment sources are limited). Plus I love how i can put a picture of my students in the background of my profile card :)

Personal faves of late: Kanye West's new album "808 & Heartbeak", T.I.'s "Swagga Like Us", Rhianna's "Distrubia", Silverchair (just about anything by them of late), and Common's "Finding Forever". I also recently downloaded Ludacris's "Threatre of the Mind". Muse (both "Absolution" and "Blackholes and Revolations").

Recently downloaded three Fatboy Slim albums and Cornershop's "When I was born for the 7th Time" (Remember "Brimful of Ashe?") Wicked songs on the Cornershop. . .it's growning on me.