So, during the aforementioned weekend Jon (Canadian musician I've been work with, best friend in Korea), Justin (Korean who worked for Vice magazine in Toronto and went to Parsons for a while), and I went to Hongdae to find the elusive indie scene of Seoul. Elusive indeed I dare say! Find it we did not. It rotates around the district in roving nights of partucularity daring not show itself to the masses happy to be un the wiser of its existence. Yet, we found its haunts. Little out of the way rock clubs who infrequently host shows and parties with indie rock music for the few dozen or so people who enjoy such things in Seoul. We even found a chill hipster bar decorated in a hodge-podge of 60's-80's used furnuture, where they serve drinks out of plastic bags, which you drink with a straw (very carefully I add).
We met at Hongik Station. Jon and I were 30 minutes late due to our inability to judge Seoul transit times as of yet. We all ate some street food (everywhere here, and cheap!), and headed the wrong way for ten minutes trough a small neighborhood typical of Seoul. After Justin retreaved some vital directions from his little sister via technologies I had not as of yet, we headed to Club FF, supposed inde venue supreme. I was skepitcal, as Justin lived a 5 minte cab ride away and had not heard of the place. They were playing House music. We went to some rock bar upstairs, where they played mostly shitty pop music but garnished the musical palette with our requested songs of actual substance. We made fun of people, got to know each other a bit more, and talked to some random German girls. All was feeling rather typical of Seoul, but the company was great. Justin insisted I had to see the film "Drugstore Cowboy", I agreed to comply promptly, and we left after 3 beers and Justin and Jon did shots of Canadian Club.
Wandering around Hongdae looking for a place playing rock music "any rock music will do at this point", we laughed and generally felt happy and comical. Topics such as New York and Toronto, 200 zillion bands, films, and drugs were discussed, half in jest, half in the way people chat when they don't yet know each other thoroughly.
Eventually we settled on a Canadian style bar that serves Poutine. The bar was full of half foereigners, and half Korean business guys and well dressed girls, all making fools of themselves on the dance floor. Justin and I in partular showed little restaraint in our cynically jovial commentary on the dance floor situation. We all moaned a bit when the waitress returned with our rather insufficient bowl of poutine. After despensing with the poutine in record time, we concurred that it wasn't as good as one would find in Montreal, yet it was a slice of heaven in Seoul nonetheless. The debauchery became a tad too much to take after countless modern pop and awfull hip-hop songs, even shots couldn't cure it, and thus we got the hell out of there.
Justin said we should skip the next bar, and get beer and drink at his place as we watched episodes of Arrested Development in succession. We took a cab there for a mere yuke-chun won ($6), and Jon and I found ourselves in Seoul's wannabe Manhattan, Yeouido. Justin's place was on the 27th floor, one 3 second elevator ride later (seriously), and we watched in some sort of dramatic sci-fi awe as Justin scanned his fingerprint in the front door of his family's condo. Holy Shit! (insert wisper) Yeah, seriously dude. We ended up watching "Drugstore Cowboy" and passing out on Justin's large modern couch at about 4:30 a.m., the average time for us in Seoul it seems.
The next day Jon and I got up headaches in tow, and grabbed omlet sandwiches for about a buck, and took a cab to Insadong. Insadong is the traditional cultural district of Seoul, where one can find palaces and historic sites nestled between vendors of pirated DVD's, Burger King, and all things modern Korea. Jon and I were on a sort of mission: To find a drum machine at Nagwon music Arcade! The mission took a long time. Nagwon is three floors of massive amounts of musical instrument vendors. One can a find a vast array of anything from recording gear to toy instruments, and guitars, guitars, GUITARS everywhere! Needless to express the inevitable end: Us wandering around ooohing and aahing at vintage synths and Gibson guitars. After much playing, and various forms of brush off the foreigner antics we found a drum machine suitable for our little project. We headed back south to Pundang, and I ended up crashing early and resting so I could climb on Sunday, because the cold I was battling was clearly getting the best of me. I fell asleep watching pirated episodes of Rome.
Sunday I met up with some people from Korea's version of rockclimbing.com and went to Bukansan National Park. Let's just say that when Koreans hike, they bring Soju. I was shown this cool river with Boulders all around. Bouldering is not popular here, and it is mostly undeveloped. Projects abound. I flashed some girls "v-4" sloper problem and went exploring. It was frustrating because virtually all of the overhanging faces have no features. The granite is quite good quality, and ranges from j-tree sharp, to smooth as hell. I found some potential projects, and froze my ass off sitting on a rock in the middle of a river with my sleeping bag wrapped around me like a little down cacoon. I'll definately be heading back there, probably on an every sunday basis. I can put up numerous lines I think. and there are some boulders large enought to put up sport lines on. I'll have pictures after my next trip I think. You don't even need to bring food because there are food vendors on the trail to the river. The moutains which surround the river are quite beautiful, and the climbers are welcoming. Koreans clamber around confused as to why people would spend so long climbing such short rocks, when there are clearly easier ways to up said rocks on the other side.
I'll have pictures from Friday and sauturday night soon, and I will post them. Thanks to all who read my drivel, and I apologize for negativity as of late. I hope all is well with all those back home on their own adventures and such!
Until next time.
