mt with td in yd

or expanded, membership training with training day in yeongdeok. training day, or td, is the conversation club i sometimes go to (as in once in the last 5 months, but whatever, i'm still a prized part of the membership) and last weekend they put together a weekend trip to yeongdeok for membership training. membership training is sort of a catch-all for any event where a group of people go somewhere and do something. training may or may not be included. in this case, unless we were training our kidneys and livers to push themselves, it was not. what was included was bbq, baseball, drinking, animal noises, chopstick dexterity challenges, fun with funions, guitar playing, beach stumbling, late-night soccer game watching, and gigantic wind turbines.

The view from our pension.

gami and my boy, jinho - dude's gotta rocket side arm, and yes, that is a jack daniels hat

pass the peas game using chopsticks. to make it fair for the foreigners, the koreans had to use their opposite hand, but i'm so pro i did it with my left as well.

now is as good a time as any to say that my team didn't win a single game the entire night. i blame the other foreigner.

passin' funions on chocolate coated cookie sticks. look at the determination and preparation involved. not for chumps.

the funion face balance contest. most participants ended up looking like snack-food african royalty, with all sort of hoop embellishments and fancy head-pieces.

if i'm lyin i'm dyin!

bunch of john denvers. i never went into this room because what am i going to do with a bunch of koreans singing korean ballads on an acoustic guitar except punch them in the face? not acceptable behavior, btw.

some park...

some park with huge wind turbines. there was also a line of various military aircraft lining the field, which if you look closely you should be able to see. not sure how the two are connected.

konglish lesson

korean's say the darndest things! english is a strange language in that there is no "right or wrong" style. what i mean is, american english and british english are obviously pretty different, but they are both "correct." i can't say that a brit is wrong because they have a ridiculous word for cigarette. and i can't bemoan a scotsman for whatever it is they're saying. they're speaking english, is the general point i'm trying to make here, same as me, but not. and korea, strange land that it is, has their own unique spin on the english language as well. they call it konglish (korean + english don't ya know). some of the terms are endearing in their cuteness. some just make you wonder. but its still english, and whether or not that makes it a great language, or the best language, i can't decide, but its pretty remarkable anyways. so here are some pretty common examples of konglish:

air con - no, its not referring to the movie con air, just in the wrong order. i was disappointed too. it's just an air conditioning unit. apparently this is common in other parts of the world as well (nowhere i'd want to live though, god damn heathens!).

ball pen -like where the pitcher stands on the baseball field, right? wrong again, idiot! a ballpoint pen. that extra word in there just messes them up i guess. might as well get rid of it.

combi - i had to look this up because i wasn't exactly sure, but it just means combination. like a number 2 value meal at mcdonalds. although i think more common these days is just calling the thing a 'set.' which makes me realize that i usually just call everything a 'value meal' which is kind of like calling all soft drinks 'coke', which i also do.

cider - speaking of coke, cider is the word for soft drinks. the most popular being chilsung cider which tastes like sprite. at least its still describing a drink?

dessert - boy was this a disappointment the first time i experienced it. many places offer free dessert as part of their meal. "alright!" im thinking, "free ice cream!" but no. free coffee. free tea. dessert is a bitter beverage in this country, often served cold, literally and metaphorically.

dutch pay - in other words, 'going dutch.' splitting the bill.

eye shopping - you know, for when you need that new glass eye for the one you've been missing ever since that accident in shop class. actually, eye shopping is window shopping. because you're just looking. so you're using your eye. get it?

fighting! - beat the shit out of that guy! i think this originates from japan. its kind of like their rally cry. double weird is its usually pronounced 'whiting' because of some weird replacement of the /f/ sound with /wh/. for the longest time i thought they were just saying 'white team!' which didn't always make sense...

gagman - that guy in the office who makes you want to puke. i kid! which makes me a gagman! or a comedian, if you're american.

handphone - hand-uh pone! a cell phone. because its a phone that fits in your hand. as opposed to normal phones...?

ice bar - another one where its like..this could be anything. is it a luxury bar made entirely of ice? is it like a gold bar, just made of ice instead of gold? is it a mixed martial arts suppression move? well you're all wrong! its a popsicle. a stupid ole popsicle.

klaxon - i had to ask my coteachers if this was actually real because...i mean what's a klaxon? but i guess you brits out there already know because its apparently an english word for car horn. not my english!

light coke - diet coke. pretty obvious.

macguyver knife - hands down the best one. apparently macguyver was hugely popular in the 80's, even in korea. so much so that they started naming multi-purpose utility knives (aka. swiss army knives) after him. i will try my hardest to popularize this in the western world.

name card- hello, my name is ________. is your name 'wrong'? because that's what you are. name card isn't something you put on your shirt, it goes in your wallet. its a business card.

oil bank - so cute. an oil bank is a gas station, which i guess makes sense if you see a bank as some kind of magic money factory where you just withdraw money that materializes from nowhere. unfortunately it also has to be deposited by you as well, which is where this metaphor runs a little short. still, adorable.

one plus one - its one plus one sale! buy one get one free!

one shot - how many bullets it takes to put down that dog you're fixin to eat for dinner. just kiddin! how horribly stereotypical can i possibly be in one post? to be fair, the practice of eating dog is not very popular in korea. my friends (korean!) girlfriend actually forbade him to try it. i think there's even an law where a restaurant can't outright say "dog food" - it has to be like "vegetable stew (with dog meat)." anyways, one shot is like saying 'bottoms up!' and is usually in reference to the 10th straight shot of soju you have in your hand.

pocket ball - i guess other people call pool, or billiards, pocket ball. i am not one of them, but i'm coming around to it.

rinse - what you do after washing, right? so when you wash your hair, you use shampoo. but what do you do after you wash your hair? condition! so...after washing...you rinse...you condition...rinse...condition...rinse...you got it! rinse is conditioner.

service - servis-uh. like fixing your car? or an action somebody does for someone else? mass held for the dearly departed? well would you believe a free bottle of coke is service? anything extra that you receive for free is service. so little side-dishes with your meal. that cup of coffee after dinner. an extra smaller bag of detergent that is taped to your larger jug of detergent. or stranger, that tony the tiger laundry basket that comes with your box of frosted flakes. service.

same same - i will be saying this for years after korea. its like saying 'same' but instead of saying it once you say it twice. its like saying the word 'two' twice because thats what the word means, you're saying the word same twice because the second word is the same as the first. so you're literally comparing both words as you're saying them. that baby dog and that puppy over there? oh, yeah, they're 'same same.' oh yes, but kyle teacher, what if you say "my head hurts" or "i have a headache"? yes, very good, same same.

stand - i can't do it anymore. these damn koreans are driving me insane! just kidding. they're great. except when it comes to describing lighting fixtures. apparently what everyone else in the english speaking world knows as a lamp is called a stand in korea. well i won't stand for it! hah!

sharp - as in, be careful, because my wit is so sharp it cuts diamonds. no, not really. i mean my wit is pretty sharp, but that's not what it means. sharp is a mechanical pencil. so called i guess because they always have a point as long as there is lead, but the tip is never really sharp. its pretty blunt actually. so, i don't know korea. we are just going to have to see things differently on this one.

talent - actors and actresses. who said koreans don't know sarcasm? (koreans did)

white - the desired skin color. when is a joke not a joke? white is white out, they just whited out the out. heh.

y-shirt - because i guess its one of those no shoes, no shirt, no service places? why not is the better question. a y-shirt is just a button-up collared shirt. because with the collar it makes a y at the top. its not completely ridiculous i guess, but it seems like it was created with the same thought process as a 3 year old's deductive reasoning. its smelly and its invisible comes from my butt so im going to call it the smelly butt ghost. sorry junior, but those are called farts, and that nice business shirt you're farting on is called a button-up, not a y-shirt. dumdum.

but seriously, its all english. i make fun because i find it endearing and fun, not because i hate. if i'm constantly saying these when i return to the states i apologize. ive been indoctrinated. or reprogrammed. same same.

k-pop compendium: 10 cm - 아메리카노 (americano)

this post is technically a lie. when i was first introduced to this song i was told that it belonged to the rare and mysterious field of k-indie. i was excited. but then i figured out pretty quickly that k-indie was just k-pop with bongos. i guess last weekend when i saw those kids sitting around downtown singing jason mraz songs and playing the bongos that was also k-indie, but for the purposes of this blog, if it looks like a k-pop song and sounds like a k-pop song, it might as well be a k-pop song.

i don't actually know anything about 10cm and i don't really feel like investigating so i'm just going to make some things up. the name 10cm obviously means 10 centimeters which is exactly as high as their ambitions. or maybe they're feeling a little confident in the underpants department. or maybe its how much narrower they wish their faces were. who knows. (okay i just looked it up - its the difference in height between the two members - i like my explanations better) anyway its just two dudes, and two sharp dressers at that, singing a song about their favorite beverage, the americano.

a quick history of the americano for all y'all in the dark on this drink. the americano, or caffè americano, is a coffee drink made by adding hot water to espresso. its pretty similar to regular drip coffee but tastes like...well espresso, more than regular coffee. from what i hear, and apparently wikipedia confirms, that americanos were first made popular in ww2. american gi's stationed in italy were jonsin' for some bean, but all the italians were familiar with was espresso. to compensate, the gi's would mix hot water with the espresso to make it more similar to the coffee style they were used to. and thus, the americano was born. and now, for some reason or another, its hugely popular in south korea. there are legion coffee shops in most cities, daegu included, but not all of them sell drip style coffee. but what you will find, every single time, is an americano.

so here we have two guys singing about this weird coffee concoction, probably in their favorite cafe to a bunch of indifferent patrons around them, and you know, whatever, its not bad. the little chorus hook - amer-amer-amer-amer-americano! - is pretty catchy and the dude isn't a bad singer (even if he does do a weird accent on the 'icano' part that makes him sound like he's a snobby asshole). of course i wouldn't think of what is basically korea's take on jason mraz as sounding anything like indie music, but for a soundscape that is ruthlessly dominated by your girls generations and 2ne1's, its a pretty significant alternative leap - which i guess is sort of a depressing statement about korean music.

oddly enough, another korean group, ye ara (예아라), made a song called 'americano' just earlier this year. its about 20 times worse than anything i've heard yet in korea. its like they just took a bunch of tracks and crammed them together. although i guess the dance scene in the diner is a little reminiscent of the dance scene in godard's 'band of outsiders', right? and whereas 10cm's americano is a charming ode to a much loved beverage (i'm only guessing here because i don't understand the lyrics), i have a feeling ye ara's is only a thinly veiled metaphor for giving someone some hot sexing, as if to say, "here, have some of my delicious hot americano. its hugely popular here in korea. and did i mention that its super hot? you might be sweating afterwards." both videos below!

10cm:


ye ara:

suh-creen golp-uh

one of the surprisingly popular sports here is golf. why a surprise? because it's a mountainous country, and where there aren't mountains there are cities, so where, in that already limited space, are they going to fit golf courses? well they find ways, sure enough, but there aren't very many. and the ones that do exist are extremely expensive (like $200 on average). so, as a recourse, many fans play the digital indoor version - screen golf.

i used to be a bit of a golfer in my youth (ahhh youth), but i probably haven't hit a green in 4 years. still, i was pretty interested in trying out what digital golfing was like - probably somewhere between mini-golf and wii sports, right?

the first time i went to play was with a party of 5, which is too many, and for the most part the other 4 were first time players (to be fair, one guy was a lefty and they only had right handed facilities - so he was pretty screwed regardless). we started around 11pm and were informed that they would be closing at 1 in the mornin. in 2 hours we made it through 5 holes...yeaaaaah. not a great introduction. luckily my school bud, hwan sun, goes about once a week. so the next time, with just hwan sun and myself, we finished all 18 holes in about 2 hours and 10 minutes....yeaaaah. also i won, so that's cool.

aside from the obvious differences - you know, not being outside and shooting at a screen - the mechanics are pretty much the same. you can still slice the ball (which i did a lot on the drives). putting is near impossible because you have absolutely no feel for the green. chipping not too easy either. also you have to play by the rules which is a bummer. you cant go climbing out of bounds and find your ball and just hit it anyways. OB is OB. sometimes though you totally screw up a shot and it thinks you are like tiger woods or something anyways. for about $20 its a pretty good use of 2 hours. we ended up getting some fried chicken and beer and ate that in the room while playing, which is a little weird because its all greasy and then you have to grip a club, but im 100% behind the idea. fried chicken and beer belongs with every sporting event.

here's a crappy phone video of hwan sun playing (secret spy style):