The heat is here. Damn, it's gonna be a loooooooong, hot summer. On the plus side, that means the roses are blooming nicely! I don't know why, but roses are a big deal in Korea. Apparently May 19th is like a coming of age day in Korea for 20 year olds, so lots of young people had flowers and roses? I dunno, just something I saw on facebook from my Korean friends...
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| it's just nice to see them all the time |
Pretty slow week at work- all of the teachers have open classes, so we don't have class in the afternoons. Which is AWESOME. But also, since it's so hot already and we aren't allowed to use the AC, I am pretty sure I'm going to melt sometime soon. Ugh.
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| Young Ah recording the 4th grade role plays |
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| Sword fighting grandma? I dunno man. |
And because I'm a creeper, here's what the office looks like around 3 o'clock. That's the sports teacher and my co teacher. haha.
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| another pretty rose I found at school |
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| Young Ah and I clearly text about important things |
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| Jean (Seungmin's friend), Seungmin, Sarah and I. Seungmin looked great and danced fantastically!! |
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| This ahjumma was taking out the trash and she had THE FATTEST LITTLE DOG LOL |
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| girl. It's like 83 degrees outside. Why do you need a jacket?!?! |
On Friday, we went out to celebrate my friend Maria's birthday in the only way we know how- dinner, drinks and noraebang!
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| 1+1 wine at the restaurant we went to. HUZZAH. Tho the waiter did look at me funny when I said I wasn't sharing...? |
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| We got bagged cocktails from a street vendor in Hongdae. Yep. Korea is a magical place. That's Maria, the birthday girl and fellow VIP (BIGBANG fan!) |
Of course we jammed out to Kpop goodies and oldies (NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, Bon Jovi, etc) at noraebang. It's always an excellent time.
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| birthday girl |
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| Priscilla |
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| Jeanie jams out to NSYNC |
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| Sarah and Jasmine rock on to Adele |
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| Priscilla, Anna and Canako playing percussion |
On Saturday, Young Ah invited me to one of her janggu performances. She asked if any of my friends wanted to come, and I passed the invite to Lauren and Sarah, who I don't think have seen a traditional performance yet. It was a bit long (it's hard to sit through lots of speeches and stuff when you have NO idea what's happening haha), but was really fun! It's great to see Young Ah doing what she loves and having fun, and it's awesome to get a traditional experience. Lauren, Sarah and I all remarked on the weird phenomenon of the janggu. We all felt quite mesmerized and almost hypnotized. The songs are very rhythmic, and the drummers all move in unison, so it's easy to get kind of lulled into a trance. Lauren said "It's like I'm falling asleep but I'm still tapping to the rhythm..." It's not boring by any means, but you'd have to see a full performance to know what I mean.
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| The janggu is the hourglass shaped drum |
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| janggu |
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| Add caption |
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| I can't remember what the hats represent. But Young Ah was in this dance! |
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| Head twirling!! SO COOL!!! |
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| Young Ah is learning this, but is still a beginner so she isn't performing it yet |
here are some blurry pics of Young Ah (oops. It's hard to capture a moving performance with an iPhone...)
I can usually find her because she's one of a few people who wears black shoes.
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| Hae In, another teacher from my school, Lauren, Sarah and I all came to see Young Ah! |
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| I'm so lucky to have such an awesome co teacher :) |
Here are a couple of better pictures from my digital camera. I'm too lazy to move them because blogger is annoying and it takes forever.
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| young ah is third from the front. Black shoes, remember? |
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| This is the one part of the traditional music that I'm not too fond of. It's a little ear piercing... |
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| The last song is a mix of all instruments and includes the head twirling. |
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| She's so awesome! |
I'm so happy she invited us! And she was really excited to have guests! She always tells me how grateful she is that I'm interested in traditional Korean music. I love having the opportunity to see traditional Korean things, because they're so much older and so different than anything we have. Part of me really wants to learn the janggu, because it seems pretty fun and also cause how awesome would "Skills: can play the traditional Korean janggu" look on my resume?
Here are some clips of the show, in case you want to hear some traditional music. It's a long video, but it's a conglomeration of 30 second clips, to give you a sample of all the different parts of the performance.
The janggu part in the beginning is used to drive away evil spirits. Some parts represent nature by using the sounds of heaven and earth, others (like the hat spinning one) are meant to show the harmonious movement of different parts of the body
Sunday was a really rainy day, so I spent most of it as I usually do, cleaning my apartment, working out, studying, catching up on TV and relaxing. I also did a little shopping. Etude House, a popular makeup store in Korea, is where I buy lots of cosmetics, especially face masks. Lo and behold, Sarah informed me of a sale happening on, you guessed it, FACEMASKS!!!! It was essentially a buy one get one free sale (here they call it 1+1, or in this case 10+10), so I ended up getting about 25 ish masks for $12.
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| all the letters are different masks, doing a variety of things, like nourishing, revitalizing, brightening, repair, etc. |
I don't really know if they do all that they promise, or if they're really just moisturizing masks, but I generally like the way my skin feels during and after use, they smell nice, and mask time is my chill and relax time. It's a win, win, win!
Cesca, I promise you'll get addicted to them too!
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| JACKPOT |
It's looking to be a sweltering summer here in Seoul. Stay cool, everyone! Also please hope I don't melt. Damn energy crisis and AC limits at school. And damn Koreans and their lack of sweat and therefore limited need of deodorant. They all look normal and I always look like I'm dying in the heat. WAMP. Oh well. Wish me luck.
In light of the Sewol incident, lots of Kpop comebacks were understandably and justifiably delayed. EXO pushed it's comeback back till May, and I gotta say, their new songs is pretty catchy. I dig it.
EXO is also in the news a lot recently because of a big, er, not scandal per se, but big fight? One of the Chinese members, Kris, wants to leave the group (maybe he did already, I'm not sure) because SM entertainment is notorious for treating their artists poorly, and so there was a whole big hullabaloo about that. The Kpop world is intense. I wish him and the rest of the group well in future endeavors, and hope that SM changes it's borderline criminal ways.
So here's your Kpop song of the week, EXO's Overdose
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