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?

Stick It In Your Ear!

Several albums have been rocking my world as of late.. Here's some of 'em:

• The Sea & Cake - Everybody (the new album)
• Neil & Crazy Horse - Live From The Fillmore East '69 (The 1st release from The Archives)
• One Step Beyond - Life Out There (a recently rediscovered gem)
• Passengers (1995 sideproject involving U2 & Brian Eno... who knew? Not me, 'til now.)
• Apostle of Hustle - National Anthem of Nowhere (the new album)
• Benevento Russo Duo - Play Pause Stop (!!!!!!!)
• Do Make Say Think - You, You're A History In Rust
• The Junior Boys - Last Exit
• The Slackers - An Afternoon In Dub
• The Slip - Eisenhower (growing on me more and more)
• Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars - Brotherhood of Brass (looked for it for years, finally got it, and it rules)
• Tom Russell - Hot Walker (a beautiful narrative album)

Mais bien sur!

Stardate 9/11/06! Five years ago today, I arrived at Heathrow in London and made my way to a grungy old hotel near Russell Square to settle in for a semester abroad. I met Stef Juhasz (sp) there and we turned on the telly in our room, just minutes after the first plane had hit. We saw the second strike happen live. It was surreal for us, as it was for everyone else. Later that day I met with my friend Adam Blanchard and we drank at the End Of The World Pub in Camden Town. I wish I could say things have improved since then in the world; all I can really say right now is thank God for Amendment XXII of the US Constitution.

On a lighter note, 4 days ago, my sister-in-law Christina gave birth to her first baby: a boy named Ryan John Patrick O'Neill! She had to be induced and it was 17 hours of labour, but he is healthy and all is well with Jack & Christina in Calgary. I'm Uncle Kev! I've seen some pictures and videos and he is super cute. Can't wait to see him at Christmas time. Here he is in my brother's arm.

So, I made a narrow escape from Seoul on August 31st! My flight was at 10am so I was set to board an airport bus at about 6:30am. I packed everything the night before and trucked everything over to Downey's pad in the Haebongchon part of town. Met with a great crew of friends at the Orange Tree for farewell drinks just around Midnight. They sang me happy birthday and the beer was flowing like wine. (It wasn't my birthday). Irish Mark bought me a delicious Jameson's on the rocks. Needless to say, it quickly became clear that I wouldn't be getting any sleep that night. We made our way to The Loft in Itaewon, and then to The Old Town to polish off the night. The Old Town is a degenrate bar reserved for forgotten expats, weirdos, and those who still haven't had enough partying when 8am rolls around. Then back to Downeys to grab my stuff and of course he made me take one last shot of soju before heading off. I don't recall the 1 hour bus ride. I was absolutely drunk at the airport; not fun. The check-in lady informed me I had overweight baggage to the tune of $550 US, then kindly knocked off $300 for me. (Must've been my drunken charm!) I'll spare the rest of the details of travel, but I'll say that the 12+ hour flight and then transfer from DeGaulle to Orly in Paris was a bit of a wreck! Orly is a terrible old airport. I missed my connecting flight but made it to Biarritz.

Biarritz is a surf town in the south-west corner of France. Spain is only a 20 minute car ride away. I've visited this tourist-oriented town many times, to visit my friends the Cazalets. I came here from Korea to attend the wedding of Martin Cazalet. I got an 8 hour sleep before getting up and heading off to his wedding -- cutting it close but I made it. The wedding reception was held at this olllld restaurant out in the Basque countryside with a view of the Pyrenees. An oyster bar, escargots, lobster, foie gras, cured and thinly sliced Basque ham, 250+ bottles of champagne, red wine, delicious and pungent cheeses, baguettes, it was amazing!! A far cry from the kimchi express, thats for sure.

Since then, for the past week, I've been doing some touristy stuff with my parents (who also flew in for the wedding). We went to St. Émilion, an ancient little village east of Bordeaux that produces a lot of wine. Visited a winery there and toured around. We also went to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. What a cool building! It was designed by Canadian architect Frank Gehry, and there isn't a straight line on it. In there we saw a Max Beckmann exhibit and an exhibit on Russian art from old to new.

As for the surf, there have only been two days of good waves so I haven't gotten out on a board yet. The past 5 days or so, the ocean has been flat. The first two days though, there were really big waves. A bit too big for me to start out on. I went for a swim and had to get out after10 minutes cuz the ocean was kicking my ass! I sort of forgot how massively powerful the ocean can be. And of course, I guess it could be that lazy KevO is still somewhat out of shape.

My parents leave today. Its been great to see them and spend some quality time with them. However, the life of a 60 year old just isn't the same as that of a 26 year old. I'm meeting my friend Sophie tonight in Toulouse. Looking ahead, I'll be spending a few days in Paris before flying out to Bangkok on September 25th. I updated my flickr site with a few more pictures, check it out! Peace out.

See My Pictures HERE.

I've went and gotten a Flickr account, so youz can now go and look at my pictures.. So far there are 40 pics up, taken over the past 6 months in Korea (and some in Japan).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevscuts/

Enjoy...

Two Weeks 'til Take Off Eh.

A'hoy! Well in 2 weeks, on September 1st, I'm leaving Korea. I'm flying Seoul > Paris > Biarritz to attend my ol' friend Martin Cazalet's wedding. Its gonna be grand. I just bought my first ever suit for the occasion. Its a fancy suit, Pierre Cardinn or something. I got it extremely cheap thanks to some great connections, yay. Anyways, the wedding is gonna be awesome, as I will also get to visit with another old friend; the lovely Sophie De Kempeneer. And Martin's family, and also my parents, who are flying in for the wedding as well. I'll be hitting the road in a rented car with my folks for a few days, touring down the Basque coast into Spain, down to Bilbao. My folks leave soon thereafter and I'll still be chillin' in Biarritz, trying hard to learn how to surf once and for all. I've been such a lazy bastard lately; I gotta get back into semi-shape. I stepped onto a scale for the first time in 11 months a few days ago and it said 79.1 kg. I got out some paper and was shocked by my calculations: I've gained 25 pounds!!!!!!!!! Two days later I realized I mis-calculated and I've actually only gained 15 pounds. But still. Lazy bastard, me.

September 26th, I'm flying Paris > Bangkok. My rough plan right now is to tour around SE Asia for almost 3 months - Thailand, Cambodia, Laos for sure... Maybe Malaysia, Vietnam, Myanmar. I'm incredibly excited about this. I've been downloading and watching documentaries lately: "The REAL Story Behind The Bridge Over The River Kwai" by The History Channel, Cambodia: The Betrayal, and a doc on Angkor Wat. One thing I'm looking forward to trying down there is scuba diving. But really I don't have a plan for my time in SE Asia; I don't need one.

My loose plan is to return to Korea in late December in order to pick up work for (only) the month of January at one of the many lucrative winter camps. Make a quick $3000 ideally. Then be home in February. Or maybe stay longer. That said, I would really fucking love to be home for Christmas this year. I already missed the last two. On top of that, my brother and sister-in-law are planning to be home this time 'round, with their new baby (who is set to drop in the next week or two) in tow. AND some of my closest friends, who aren't usually home, will be home at that time. So we'll see.

Sashimi'd in Sokcho!

On the weekend I took a trip to the east coast of Korea to see Seoraksan National Park and do some hiking. From the top, my friend Jill and I took in some amazing sites of forests and cities below, and the Sea of Japan in the distance (or the East Sea, as Koreans refer to it). On Sunday we headed to the fish market at the harbour in the city of Sokcho.

Entering into the tents seen on the left in the above picture, we encounter a series of rowdy ajummas eager to sell us some raw fish. We hand an ajumma ₩20,000 (about $20 US) and she steps inside the tanks with her trusty net and rubber wellington boots and snatches us some fine looking specimens.


The squid squirts a load of salt water onto the pavement as the ajumma tosses it and the rest of our fish into this strainer. I have no idea what kind of fish we're about to eat but they look good. A few steps away, four more ajummas are ready to end these fish and filet them for us.


We sit down on the pier and dig in. Here is Jill loving it up. We dip the fish in soy sauce with wassabi, or the red hot pepper sauce, and put it into a piece of leaf lettuce, and eat it.





Everything was delicious. I wish I knew the names of the goddamn fish! The orange-red thing in the middle was really slimey; one of them scaley; and the squid was still squirming around as we ate it. Its suction cups were latching on to my tongue as I tried to swallow it!

Kev's Cuts Vol. #21

Hey! On the weekend I attended the 2nd Jeju Island International Ultimate Frisbee Tournament. I was asked to bring some tunes down for the occasion, and so became Kev's Cuts Vol. #21. I made it in one night and then mixed it the next night. Its pretty rockin' for the most part. Click below to download it!!! Once you click the link, you have to then click on "kc21.zip" at the bottom of the page (under the ads). When you go to burn to cd, click on "Disc-At-Once" so that there are no pauses between tracks! Enjoy...

http://www.sendspace.com/file/pm8cft


Kev's Cuts Vol. #21

1. Face The Sun (Africa) - Madlib
2. Montgomery Movement - The Montgomery Express
3. Dub Along - Lee Scratch Perry & The Upsetters
4. Lazy Woman - The Slackers
5. I'm Alone In The Wilderness - Culture
6. Mama Tried - The Grateful Dead
7. Fire Eyed Boy - Broken Social Scene
8. Dissect - Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
9. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry - Hank Williams
10. Turn A Square - The Shins
11. Für Immer 16 - Stereo Total
12. Flash - The Sadies
13. You Gonna Quit Me Blues - The Silver Hearts
14. Funk On The Brain - DJ Greyboy
15. Khsidim Tants - The Klezmatics
16. Come On, Teacher - Joel Plaskett Emergency
17. Paul's Song - M. Ward
18. Every Man A Me Brethren - Studio One DJs
19. Barbarabatiri - Quantic Soul Orchestra
20. Soulful - The Apostles
21. Cyrandeiro - Cyro Baptista
22. Paradiso - Kokono Nr. 1
23. Survival Of The Freshest - The Poets of Rhythm

So far, soju...

I live an a small part of town where Korea University students go to eat cheap galbi and get wasted on soju. There's a lot of pride in what university you to go, and once wasted, they express this pride by gathering in a big circle on the street in front of my apartment and doing these chants/songs as loud as possible in the wee hours of the night.


The chants are led by a "cheerleader". There are only a few dozen of these people, all male, and these guys are apparently like the equivalent of the quarterback in terms of how cool they are. He stands in the middle of the circle and leads the chant with crazed agonizing screams. It used to keep me up at night.. Now I can tune it out quite easily, though I've near memorized a few of the tunes.