Get Ya Shine Gone

No one is bald here.  Seriously, I find myself taking a double-take whenever I see someone without hair on their head.

Initially I chalked this up to genetics, but the abundance of wig shops has made me rethink this.  Normally, a subject this blasé wouldn't warrant a post, but I saw a few weird wig shops this week.

The Sides Wig

When your completely confident about your top side bareness, but above your ears needs some beefing up, go for the "sides" wig.

Hand Hair

This wig is more understandable.  My younger students always want to touch my arm to feel the hair on it...to them it doesn't seem real.  Most Koreans have little to no arm hair, so wanting to use a wig to amp up your hand hair makes perfect sense.

Bottled Water

Sure, you can buy bottled water just about everywhere here for about 60 cents.  But why?  Water is free everywhere.  Filtered, hot and cold water is in almost every public space.  The art museum, E-Mart (the equivalent of Target/Walmart), school, library, post office, mall...you get the idea.  They have these little paper sleeves that serve as cups, so you usually need a few refills.  Or you can just carry your own water bottle around and fill it up throughout the day, wherever you are.   It makes 8 cups a day no problem.

This one is in The Daegu Art Factory.

Baseball

I've now completed my quest to see all the baseball stadiums in Korea.  All 7 were completed over Chuseok, the Korean equivalent to Thanksgiving.  With my trusty partner Beth we traveled to Seoul on Sunday to catch the Nexen Heroes lose to our hometeam, the Lions.  Then, down to Daejon to see the newest stadium in the league, Hanbat stadium.  These were the last two on the list.

Mokdong Stadium

The stadium is comparable to the Texas Ranger's stadium in that it feels very far away from the city.  Nothing else is really around it.  We were pleasantly surprised to find hotdogs being served here, an unfortunate omission at most stadiums.  

We bought our seats ahead of time, before I even knew what teams were playing.  Later I learned that the Lions (from our city, Daegu) were playing, so I suited up in my Lions shirt.  When we got to our seats, we were smack dab behind the opposing team's fans.  We opted to go to the Lions cheering section, which was way more fun.

Cheerleaders are a huge part of every game.  They cheer the entire time the team is up to bat.

This Lion is a real show stealer.

Beer sales prove to be different at each stadium.  Most just have cans at a convenient store inside the stadium while others have a guy walking around with a keg on his back.  This one poured the draft beer into reusable plastic bottles, and gave you cups with it.

Hanbat Stadium

I didn't know what to expect at Hanbat.  This team is over 20 games behind first place, and we were there for the last regular season game.  I thought the place would be depressing.  I was so wrong.  The crowd was awesome, and the field was really nice.  Daegu will get a new stadium next year, and I hope it's like this one.

They have the only high definition jumbotron in the whole league. 

They had hot dogs, Pizza Hut, and other goodies here.  The most popular food was the dokbokki, there was a huge line for it.  Beth was salivating just thinking about it, and after she saw this big red pot she wanted some (but she resisted the temptation).

The crowd participation is just amazing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.  The Korean baseball experience is so fun.  Taking a train to get around the country, and paying about $6 on average for tickets is awesome.  The games are really engaging and the fans are neurotic.  I hope to do another baseball trip in the summer, any takers?

Mashin' Out

Earlier this summer we took a picnic to the park to enjoy the weather.  Under a shade tree we had sandwiches and played Mille Borne with our friends Chris and Mandy.  A good time was had by all.  We noticed that there were a ton of Power Wheels out that day.  Turns out that parents take their toddlers to the park, rent a Power Wheels for them, and tool them around the park.  That's right...the kids have no power over the cars, the parents just remote control them wherever they want.

                                      

This little one's father thought it would be funny to ram her car onto the curb and onto our blanket.  She did not find the humor.  I immediately thought of The Simpson's episode where Homer's brother invents something that could translate what toddlers are thinking, before they can speak.

What's the deal with the beach...it's where dirt meets water.

I've never understood the appeal of the beach.  Sand, sticky water, the sunburns, no bathroom to clean up in...I could go on.  The title is taken from a Bill Hicks bit that I immediately identified with.  If it weren't for the fact that it's outdoors and you might see some cool fish I would probably hate the beach.
 
Clearly I am in the minority.

I've never seen anything quite like Haeundae Beach in Busan on the busiest travel weekend of the Korean summer.  To spend time on the beach on this particular weekend you need $7.  This gets you an umbrella and a mat to sit on.  Once you've gotten under your umbrella you feel like you're under a giant low-hanging shade tree that reaches a few football fields in length.  Seriously, look at these pictures and see if you can see an end to it.  I already tried and you can't.  

Take note that this is both the right (above picture) and left (below picture) of the beach.

                                      

Under this canopy were families and couples, but also old women walking around hunched over trying to sell fried chicken.  You tell them your tent number and they'll bring it to you.

Borneo & Beyond

We had a day layover in Ho Chi Minh, just enough time for a few photos.

 

Then off to Malaysia.  We flew into Kuala Lumpur and spent a day there walking around the incredibly modern city.  Tons of skyscrapes, a stark contrast to our destination the following day:  Borneo.

Malaysia has two parts:  Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo.  The parts of the country couldn't be more different.  Borneo is more remote and is host to amazing rainforests and spectacular diving.  We focused on the wildlife, taking river cruises and getting rings around our eyes from the binoculars being on them so much.  The camera I brought couldn't capture all of the critters unfortunately, but here are a few pictures of where we were.

Orangutan Reserve

This place is a haven for orangtans that have been found in adverse situations and brought here to be nursed to health and hopefully released back into the wild.  Their aren't a whole lot of these left so their work is incredibly important.

We spent an entire day bird watching in this rainforest.  

The next stop was sleeping in the rainforest.  We hooked up with a really cool place that does conservation and tours.  You sleep in the rainforest, get fed, get a few river cruises, and plant a tree to replenish burned areas of the forest.

The conservation group also set us up with a homestay, which is a host family giving you two meals and a bed.  They were pretty interesting to talk with, they wanted to discuss American politics.  This happened over an awesome dinner of curry, which they ate entirely with their hands (rice and all).

Malaysia.

Super Sketch

I had the opportunity to participate in really unique event in Busan this weekend.  It's dubbed the "super sketch," and is a meeting of live music and live art.  I've seen events like this in the past, and they've usually been pretty, well, uneventful.  It's difficult to coordinate such a thing, getting musicians and artists on the same page.  This gig was quite successful however, and I was lucky enough to be invited to this.  Myself along with my buddy Chris Cote managed to create a pretty excellent set.

The event is the idea of Sean Maylone, the founder of SuperColorSuper, an art and band promoter here in South Korea.  He (along with Britt McKee from Busan) helped organize the venue, the bands, and even set up an art market for all the artists participating to sell their work.   Even though he is constantly at risk of losing money on events like this he continues to push for a good indie/art scene here.  With the overwhelming power of K-Pop this is no small feat.

The name of the band we played with was sleepstalker.  The band consisted of only two (at least the night we worked with them) and played some beautiful shoegaze noise.  They are a Korean band, and though lingual communication between us was limited I feel like our art and their music went very well together.

I worked on about 9 different skulls for the event.  Utilizing two overhead projectors, Chris and I arranged, layered, folded, peeled, and manipulated the images for a 30 minute set.  We'd practiced some, but it was really a seat-of-your-pants type of show and we both finished the set feeling pretty good.  We received a lot of good feedback from those in attendance as well.

Here are some of the pics, credited to Beth.

This is not the band we performed with, but they were quite an act...it was a bit confusing to hear Koreans sing a blend of punk and traditional Irish music.  Complete with lute and banjo, this 6 piece was a ton of fun to watch.