St. Patty's Day

I had a rather eventful St. Patty's Day this year.. Started out at 10am with my first gayageum lesson. The gayageum is a traditional Korean 12-stringed zither instrument. It sounds cool and looks even cooler and I was stoked to stumble upon this beginners' gayageum class thats every Saturday for the next 2 months, culminating in a big peformance at the Korean Traditional Performing Arts Centre. The first class went over well but I have zero skills in reading music --- if the dot is on this line or that line I don't know off hand what note/string to hit. Anyways I'm glad I'm checking this out and actually accomplishing something during the day on the weekends!

Next I headed to a St. Patty's Day party in a park in Hyewha put on by some Irish society. My friend & roomie Mark's band, St. John the Gambler, were playing and also there was some free Baileys going around and it was a solid event. Next I booted it down to the CoEx area to catch Japanese band Mono. I managed to arrange a free ticket for myself in exchange for a Jambands.Ca review which I am yet to write. The venue was a sterile and boring auditorium with amazing sound. Mono blew me away once again -- very atmospheric, all instrumental, peaks and valleys and extremely intense. All 300 of us (approx.) walked out of there with our jaws hanging down and minds fucked.

I forgot about this effect that a Mono show has on the brain and it wasn't exactly conducive to my next segment of the night, which was heading off to Hongdae to see DJ Vadim at Cargo. A Mono show is quite dark and introspective and doesn't exactly make one want to go out and bust a move right after. I made a pit stop at home and did manage to come around. The Vadim show at Cargo was packed and he delivered the goods. It was great to see a DJ in Seoul who knows how to manipulate turntables. I was bummed to see that Blu Rum 13 (the MC in Bullfrog) didn't show up. MC Yarah Bravo did a good job though. She was all hoochied up compared to the 2 times I saw her & Vadim in Peterborough, Ontario. Good show though and an action packed St. Patty's Day!

PS - The last picture features Mark and I eating a delicious homemade tomato soup created by the lovely Elinza. That's in the kitchen in our new pad, with the living room in the background. Nice eh?