Ah, comic book conventions. As long as the comic book was invented, so has the comic book convention... Okay, not really, but conventions do have pretty deeply sown tradition through the annals of time.
There are comic conventions in Seoul and Busan, known as Comic World, since 1999 which are up to their 128th and 89th events respectively. They are up that high because Seoul holds their events every month whereas Busan is held bimonthly. Although the anime/comic/manga demographic in Seoul is booming, I feel once a month is overkill to be hosting events and cheapens the novelty of conventions as such.
Anyway, back to Gwangju though. Gwangju held their second annual comic book/video game/sci-fi/nerdfest known as Alleycon just this past weekend and they're doing it once a year, which certainly makes it feel a little more special in that it happens annually. I wasn't here last year and was invited by a colleague whom is an avid fan of Game of Thrones (as am I) so much so that he cosplayed as one of the characters, Grey Worm, if you've been watching any of the latest season.
The first thing you see walking in: BMO!
We arrived Saturday morning to a very modest start (mind you this is a one day event). People getting set up and a local restaurant The First Alleyway setting up a food truck outside for people to have breakfast sandwiches... which also is where the name Alleycon comes from. Their restaurant has a great atmosphere with great food and drinks and most importantly, BOARD GAMES! I digress though, back to Alleycon...
Book swapping and selling
I meet a few new people, walk around the first floor with a tea vendor, comic book artists, book sellers, and others. The fourth floor contained a Dungeons & Dragons room that would be used all day as well as a lecture hall that would be used for Skype with a comic book artist living back home, musical performances, question and answer panels, and the ever-popular cosplay contest.
Settlers of Catan with some new acquaintances
The top on the fifth floor would be where gamers would find their Eden: a video game room set up with an Xbox for Halo, a Wii for Super Smash Bros., Wii U that would have a variety of games such as Mario Kart 8, PC Gaming... and right next door would be for casual board, card, and role playing gamers to try new games, meet new people, or have a nice friendly competition. Across the hall is where things got a bit more serious for competitive gaming.
Super Smash Bros. Four Player Frenzy
Though I had ample time to get a costume ready, I was just too bogged down with work to get something ready. I'm sure that next year, work will come at me a little more smooth-sailing so I could get a costume ready and participate and hopefully win the crown next year. I've already got something in mind.
Sorry for the lack of posts, it's been a long holiday weekend which lead to a two day school week and back into the weekend. I (and other colleagues) used that to our advantage and went off east into Busan, to a neighboring island Geoje the next morning and ferried to a botanical garden island called Oedo and back into Busan before taking off back for home. That's Chuseok lite digest... and a video
Here's the long version:
We start off Saturday morning, it's the 6th of September and I'm doing last minute packing, double checking, triple checking... and head off to the rendezvous for a cab to pick us up at 10:15 am to take us to the bus termintal for an 11:05 am departure. Needless to say, our cab showed up at 10:45 and we missed our bus. An inauspicious start, I felt, especially after being spoiled by the meticulous planning of my friends still in China, Becky and Neal, where plans are foolproof and there's small room for error. Anyway, right as we arrive to the bus terminal, we see all the buses leaving. Ugh. We go in and buy new tickets to leave at 11:30 am instead.
A coffee, Dunkin' Donut, 15 minute rest stop, and several dozen selfies later we find ourselves at the Busan bus terminal. We taxi about half an hour away over bridges into the other side of Busan at Haeundae Beach where our hostel awaits. We check in, settle our bags, and decide to go exploring.
Art inside our hostel
I love the feeling of walking into a new city for the first time... and I'm glad there are a lot of them to experience that over and over again. We find the beach, enjoy the water a little bit, and walk over to find food for dinner. On our way up the beach, was a commercial shoot which I'm assuming was a beer commercial; they kept yelling action and about 20 fit looking actors would run through a staged beach party full of picnickers and umbrellas. Up the street we discover a lively little street market full of live seafood, vendors selling foods on sticks, cocktails out of coconuts, everything! We eat some eel in a restaurant then continue eating more as we traipse down the market.
Eel for dinner
Street vendors
The inside of the room in our hostel. It's that small and still fits four people!
After having a Turkish Ice Cream man show off his entertaining abilities, we hang out once more on the beach to enjoy the night sky and people in the distance shooting off fireworks. THEN to sing at a noraebang which is conveniently located four floors below our hostel!
Day 2 found us starting our day good and early at about 5 or 6 am to leave for Geoje at 7. We head back over to the bus terminal to catch a bus to Geoje then a cab ride over some hilly terrain and winding roads to another, more secluded beach. This time, however, we'd be meeting four new people (there's four of us already, so that now makes 8) to board some kayaks and paddle around the sea for a few hours.
A view from Oedo
Hours later, we buy some tickets to a nearby island called Oedo, known for their botanical garden. The ferry captains tour us around to show us some other, smaller islands before dropping us off for an hour and a half. Once there, it's up to you to decide how fast or slow you want to go as long as you're back at the wharf to catch the boat back. The landscape was awe inspiring and the views spectacular to see past the island into the deep blue sea and the amazing mountainous vistas off in the distance.
Coming back, we hang out a little with our new found compatriots in an unfinished hotel they're staying. It's a bizarre place to be: part studio apartment, part guesthouse, part cafe, part restaurant, and a gorgeous view on top of all that. A couple of drinks, fried chicken, and pizza and off we went back towards Busan. With their help of asking Koreans down the street to help us find a taxi, a kind stranger said no taxis really drive out that far into the village, so he was kind of enough to drive us without hesitation back to the bus station. We pool all our Korean together to try to entertain the stranger and he does the same. Making it just in time to catch the final bus, we head home... AND I forget one of my favorite baseball caps from my university on the bus.
Look closely and you can see a hummingbird looking for nectar
Day 3 was very nice and was the official Chuseok day (it's a harvest festival to celebrate the moon as in most Asian cultures). There really was no plan until I remembered a message from an old friend about his favorite temple to visit outside of Cambodia. So we did that. This place was very nice, I've never seen a temple placed on the edge of the sea before, so it made for some beautiful photography. Being there on Chuseok made it a little more special to see that Korean people like to go out praying for their thanks of harvest.
I had seen something on a map about a raw fish street that sounded great for lunch. This ended up an hour and a half later by taxi to Jagalchi, one of the largest fish markets in Busan... which unfortunately was closed. One of the gambles you take traveling on a national holiday I guess. We end up eating some very good Korean food anyway and head back by subway towards Haeundae Beach to wind down on the beach with our own set of fireworks to celebrate Chuseok.
Our last day, Tuesday, was nothing much but a travel day to get back home. It's strange, despite living out here a little over one month, I missed Gwangju. It feels like home now. This is my community now. That's not to say I miss California, China, or any other places I've lived, I do, but it's strange how much I'm loving life out here.
The first week of the new school year came and went, and boy did it feel like three weeks went by! Anyway, to celebrate, some colleagues and I were just going to go do some dinner. Dinner happened, which was delicious. I sure love that I get to eat more greens out here in Asia than I ever did back home in the US.
Afterwards, we decided to do 노래방 (Norae bang) aka Singing Rooms aka KTV aka Karaoke. The culture in Asia versus the West is to sing with your friends in little private rooms as opposed to singing in front of an entire crowd of drunken strangers. A lot of people seem to prefer the former, I like doing both.
The way it works: you go and tell them how many people are in your party and they find a room suitable for the size. You have a timer counting down on the television set, once it hits 0:00 it automatically gives you another 30 minutes, which you'll pay later. In the room there are tambourines you can play with, you can ring a bell for service, and at the end of your songs you're scored on how well you sung (I hit 100 5 out of 6 times!) We stayed about two hours mostly because we wanted to maximize that time limit, but would accidentally start another 30 minute session. They have a pretty vast selection of Korean, English, and Japanese music. Some of the English music I've never seen in US bars before like Weezer's "Across the Sea" or Muse's " Time is Running Out"; then again there was also a few glaring omissions that were my go-to favorites like "New York, New York", "Minnie the Moocher", and "Walkin' on the Sun".
That two hours of singing took it out of us and we went down the street to a restaurant open until the wee small hours of the morning for some more food. This place was known by a colleague for their "fire chicken" some extremely spicy poultry, but tonight we decide on this meter long skewer full of meat, potatoes, peppers, mushroom, pineapple, and spring rolls. Below the skewer is a skillet with a portable camping gas range. You take the food hanging from above, cut it into pieces and cook them. In the back is a buffet to grab extra things you want like watermelon, noodles, garlic, spicy peppers, and fresh eggs.
I'm nearing my one full month of living in Korea and it's been treating me excellent so far! Tomorrow begins the second week of school. Time to get more learning on!
I was a little nervous last night coming into this morning. I made sure to get enough rest by sleeping early. This inevitably lead to waking up in the middle of the night to scratch lingering mosquito bites or some new ones, I can't tell from my irrational neuroticism of mosquitoes, but that's for a different blog entry. Anyway, even with a good amount of rest, I still managed to hit the snooze button twice. I'm always paranoid about the snooze button and what happens if it were to never go off again, leaving me late for work. Thankfully, work is only a 5 minute walk away from my apartment, if that.
The day started off with some flashes of lightning and rumbling of thunder with a nice little dose of rain. That didn't detract me from putting on my suit and bow tie to dress for success. I started with my fifth grade music class, then a little time to prepare for the afternoon with 4th grade, a new music appreciation class, orchestra, and an assembly. Walking back home, I collapsed straightaway into my bed for a nap to revive, though I'm afraid that might leave me awake longer tonight than I'd want.
Tomorrow starts day two and I'm still shaking off a little bit of the dread seeing that most of my students are very well-mannered and know a good amount of music. That makes my life a bit easier, but at the same time has to give me more things to find for them to learn.
Having lived in southern China for the last year, beer selection was extremely limited with barely passable beers in Tsing Tao, Harbin, and Pearl River. The end of my stay, however, saw some familiar bottles I've had before making it into restaurants such as Rogue Brewery from Portland, OR, Rochefort Brewery from Rochefort, Belgium (listed in a 2012 issue of Men's Journal as one of the world's top 25 beers. Read here.), and Sierra Nevada Brewing in Chico, CA. This is not to say that China didn't have beer at all; there was. In fact, one of my favorite spots was in Zhujiang New Town in Guangzhou. If you ever find yourself in the area, check out The Strand Beer Cafe off the Wuyangcun metro stop. The owner, David Strand brewed all the beers "in-house" (actually somewhere a bit away from his bar) and that was the closest I've ever gotten to tasting craft beer since living back in the US. Before his bar, was a South African bar, Moutia, whose owner Martin was a South African wine and South African beer merchant. Those were quite delightful as well.
Fast forward one year later and I'm here in South Korea, unaware and ignorant to the beer scene. In a store not too far from me are beers you can definitely find in your local grocery store such as Lost Coast Brewery from Eureka, CA, Hoegaarden Brewery from Hoegaarden, Belgium, and Samuel Adams from Boston, MA. After growing fond of the beer scene in my hometown of San Diego, CA, mind you it's an acquired taste to build up those IPA muscles, I just can't drink lagers since they lack that "hoppy" kick to the tastebuds. Stumbling into a popular expat Canadian-owned bar in Gwangju, The First Alleyway, there is a small but high quality selection of beers including those brewed locally in Seoul.
Let's get to it, shall we?
First up, we have Craftworks' Jirisan Brewery Moon Bear IPA from Seoul, Korea. It had that hoppy kick I was looking for as well as a sweet, citrus kind of flavor that pleasantly took me by surprise. Overall, it will definitely do its job in keeping me satisfied for my IPA fix.
Next up, also from Craftworks is Buk Han San Pale Ale. This was a lovely little beer, reminiscent of a California beer from Firestone Brewery. There was a nice full flavor without being too full of its self. If Amber Ale is one end of the ale spectrum with IPA on the other, this Pale Ale leans closer to that of IPA.
I know they may not be brews that I'll find back home, but it's nice to know that I won't have to digest another sip of Tsing Tao or worse yet, Pearl River. It's even nicer that if I want, I CAN get a legitimate taste of home, granted it costs a few dollars more, but it's nice to have that peace of mind.
Allow me to introduce myself, I'm Ryne. I'm no stranger to the blogging world, though I've taken quite the hiatus from documenting my thoughts, photos, and general ramblings to the internet thanks to *certain* social media conglomerates. I meant to start this a year ago when I was living near the gigantic Chinese city of Guangzhou (population 14 million). Perhaps I'll throw in some of my travels from there onto here in due time. Anyway, I've gone from Guangzhou to, what I've recently discovered is its sister city Gwangju in South Korea.
From this Facebook screenshot of the Places sections, you can see the numerous places I've either lived or visited. In the order of places lived it's San Diego, California to Adak, Alaska to Agana, Guam to Bremerton, Washington, to Yokosuka, Japan to Fresno, California to Guangzhou, China and finally to where I am in Gwangju, South Korea. Sprinkle in visits to Hong Kong, Kunming, New Orleans, Boise, Vancouver, Hiroshima, Manila, Seattle and it's not too shabby of a travel resume. Though, I have yet to visit anywhere outside the Pacific Rim. That will soon change now that I've met some amazing colleagues that have lived in Colombia, Turkey, South Africa, Toronto, and various parts of England.
Interests include food, both cooking and devouring, sports, gaming in any sense of the medium, music (seeing as I am a teacher in the field), cinema, television, and crossword puzzle solving and puzzle construction (I ran a puzzle blog for a time as well). So, you may see some of these more mundane items among the exotic things you probably came here for... I mean, it's called BulgogiSpot for crying out loud!
With that first post finally out of the way, let's get this blog hitting on all cylinders!
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