Once upon a time

If you're currently in Korea or expect to be within the next few weeks, I highly recommend checking out the "Dreams Come True: The Art of Disney's Classic Fairy Tales" exhibit running at the Seoul Arts Center.

Mike and I managed to get there during one of my afternoons off and I'm glad we did. I'd never been to the Seoul Arts Center before but I absolutely plan to go back. It looks as though they generally have a handful of different exhibits running as well as concerts or shows. We took the bus from Yeonsu into Gangnam and then picked up a shuttle bus from one of the subway stations to the Arts Center, which was convenient.

I was expecting we could squeeze in at least two of the exhibits while we were there but the Disney exhibit is amazing and took us four hours. I really cannot recommend it enough if you are someone who is a Disney fan or interested in animation (or both!). It's very thorough and includes tons of film clips, concept art, and models. It's set up chronologically so it begins with Disney's earliest animations like The Three Little Pigs and The Ugly Duckling and in one section there are three screens showing some of these Silly Symphony shorts. This was the first time I saw Disney's The Pied Piper and it is seriously the creepiest thing ever.

Then it takes you through the big fairy tale flicks- Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and also includes the newer The Princess and the Frog and Tangled (still called Rapunzel in Korea though). There's lots of character sketches and storyboards and bits of background information about the various artists who worked on respective projects. We got those little headsets for the audio tour but it pretty much just reiterated information that you could already read during the exhibit so unless you're super lazy I'd say just pass on that.

The concept art for some of the movies is amazing and Tangled especially is well represented. There's a huge copy of the work below (this doesn't do it justice) and I don't think I've ever wanted a piece of art hanging on my wall so badly. If they'd been selling enormous posters of this I'd have snatched one up in a heartbeat. So so beautiful.

The exhibit runs through the end of September so I figured better to mention it sooner than later. And if you love it as much as we did then the gift shop sells art books with a lot of the same concept art pieces included. You can find more information on the Seoul Arts Center website here and at the exhibition website here. 

And if you're not in Korea then keep an eye out for the exhibition's next stop. It was first in the US and then went on to Australia so I haven't a clue where it will be heading to after Seoul but if it comes your way be sure to catch it!

Trivia of the Day: Disney Channel Korea (디즈니 채널) is a television channel which is a local version of the Disney Channel for South Korea. It launched on July 1, 2011, replacing Disney Channel Asia (the Southeast Asian franchise), following an agreement between Korean company SK Telecom and The Walt Disney Company to form a joint venture for operating all future Disney-branded channels. SK will own the majority 51% of the new company. 

Okay- 3, 2, 1, let's jam

This past weekend I came down with a case of Energizer Bunny Syndrome. See I like to get out and about, especially in the nice weather now, but I've always been someone who matches the amount of time I spend being busy with double that amount of time being lazy. It just works for me. Three hours out being social equals six hours reading comments on Oh No They Didn't, collecting recipes off Food Gawker, and watching YouTube videos of Anthony Weiner snarking on the GOP (true story, this was basically my Sunday night).

So usually even if I'm super busy one day, I take the next to relax and catch my breath. This weekend though I stayed pretty active. Let's pick it up from Saturday, starting from the top:

12:00am

I get home after grabbing dinner after work with Brianna and Kim, our newest co-worker who just started this term. I check online for info about Korea's cherry blossom festivals since they're in bloom now. Except all the festivals are about five hours away and I haven't planned in advance. Boo hiss. So Brianna and I decide to hit up the 63 Building in Yeouido instead. 

1:45am

Lights out with the intention of getting a good night's sleep in order to be up and out nice and early. 

3:30am

Planning has never been my forte. I'm still tossing around in bed, trying to empty my head of all thought so I'll fall asleep though not really since actually I'm trying to decide if the books in the home library I am determined to have someday should be placed on the shelves at random or in descending order by height from left to right like I usually do. Conundrum. 

3:45am-ish

Sweet sleep.

8:25am

My first alarm goes off (I always set three alarms, ten minutes apart and wake up on the third) and scares the bejesus out of me. I was in one of those deep sleeps that leaves you confused as hell when you're jolted out of it. When I heard the alarm I thought, "Okay 10 more minutes for the students to finish their tests". No idea.

9:40am 

After pushing out our meet-up time by 10 minutes so we can finish rushing to get ready (always happens), Brianna and I head out to Yeouido. I'm rocking a head of wet hair and wonder how horrified the ever-fully-primped Koreans feel about this. Actually now that I'm thinking about it do other people in the US consider this tacky? I hate blow drying my hair and sometimes just head out when it's still wet. Air drying works best for me. Oh well. I was also wearing the "BOSTON, MASSACHUBATTS" sweatshirt that I finally ended up buying. Tack it up! 

11:30am

We arrive at the 63 Building and it's a cool place. Lots of restaurants and swanky stores and things to keep you busy.

(Your wooden goat is prohibited from the 63 building, sorry to say.)

We purchase the Big 4 ticket for ₩30,000 (about $30) which gets you into the IMAX theater, the aquarium, the wax museum, and the art gallery/observatory on the 60th floor. You can also purchase tickets for say only two or three of these attractions, depending on what you're interested in seeing.

12:00pm
The 63 Building has a spot called the Buffet Pavilion and the food on the signs looks delicious. We're starving and after checking out the price determine that ₩23,000 is totally reasonable. When we walk in the hostess takes one look at us and instead of offering to seat us says in a helpful tone, "₩68,000". We make a hasty turn back into the lobby and realize that ₩23,000 is the price for just dessert. Uh...

12:15pm
Japanese restaurant and a pork cutlet set for ₩10,000 it is!

12:50pm
Our first stop is the IMAX theater for a screening of Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs. 

It's a pretty nice theater and it's jammed pack with littles on school field trips. Unfortunately for kids here when they usually get trips they fall on the weekends. Similar to how kids in America will wear matching t-shirts on field trips, these kids are all wearing little vests that make them look like crossing guards. They're loving the 3D though and adorably spend the previews screaming and trying to grab at the things "jumping out of" the screen. Since the film has been given a Korean voice-over, the ushers provide us with a little audio set and headphones so we can hear the English version.

1:30pm
After the movie we head to the Wax Museum which is so many kinds of entertaining.

It's a nice mix of historical figures, celebrities, and fictional characters. Some of them were pretty good and others were... not so much. Make your own judgments:

There is a little clothing rack in corner where you can get dressed up to jump into The Last Supper. Will the wonders never cease?

Leonardo DiCaprio. I swear.

The absolute worst James Dean wax figure in the universe. 

There is a section with characters from horror movies. We walk through the doorway and I'm wondering why the Dracula figure is situated awkwardly right by the entrance when suddenly he lurches forward. I let out a scream and call him a not nice word in English. He laughs and tries to get us to go into the haunted house which is connected to this part of the museum. Clearly if I were a full blown automatonophobic I wouldn't even step foot into a wax museum but basically my worst fear is dolls/ventriloquist dummies coming to life and  I hustle out of there.

2:00pm

Next we head up to the observatory and art gallery on the 60th floor. It overlooks the Han River and the view is nice except it isn't really a clear day.

2:30pm
Our last stop is the aquarium, called Sea World.

As I'm walking by this tank I overhear random snatches of Korean interspersed with, "Nemo".

The sea lions have an actual playground in their tank.

And a random Maggie Simpson in one of the fish tanks. Most of the animation for The Simpsons is done in Korea so the characters are very popular here. You see them on everything from pencil boxes to phone covers.

Overall the aquarium is kind of disappointing. It's very small and the animals have very little room. The otters especially look like maybe they could be better taken care of. It makes me apprehensive about visiting a zoo here where the bigger the animals the more obvious the lack of space is but we'll just have to see.

3:15pm
We grab some gelato in the food court and head outside to enjoy it by the river. It's a gorgeous day and the riverside is the place to be. There's a spot where you can take out paddle boats and people are roller blading and riding rented bikes.

View of the 63 Building from the riverside.

4:00pm
We head back to Incheon, making a stop in Arts Center to grab food at this deli that makes great Western-type sandwiches and breakfasts.

7:30pm
Nap time! One of the things I miss most about college is taking naps. When you wake up everyday at noon though there really isn't room for naps so getting a chance for one on the weekends is always nice.

8:40pm
I wake up, finish off a bag of caramel popcorn, and get ready to celebrate Kim's birthday in Hongdae.

9:30pm
Head to the subway with Jim and Brianna and realize that I should have brought a change of shoes since I'm breaking in new wedges. Oh well. At least I packed band-aids.

11:30pm
Begin the night at Ho Bar III which is basically crawling with teenagers. This happens from time to time. My assumption is that they are the kids of military personnel stationed in Itaewon. They're definitely not of drinking age but they're there anyway and acting ridiculous, as teenagers who are underage in a bar are apt to do. When everyone else is just starting the night at 11 or 12, these kids are already super wasted so they've probably been out since 7 or 8. They're gone by midnight though which I figure means they have to make curfew.

It's a fun night and I don't even check my phone so three bars later I'm shocked to hear that it's

5:00am
The night started with a pretty big group but by now there's about seven of us so we leave the last place and head outside where the guys buy some kebabs from a street vendor because of course it is completely normal for someone to be selling kebabs on the street at 5 o'clock in the morning.

Since the trains are up and running again we head to the station (instead of paying about ₩40,000 for a taxi back to Yeonsu) but not before stopping at Burger King so Brianna and I can get burgers and watch the sunrise.

8:00am
After a nice shower to wash off the stink of Hongdae (I will never get used to Korea allowing smoking in bars) I hop into bed and I'm out like a light.

1:00pm
I force myself up and get ready because the last performance of The Little Mermaid at Arts Center is today and I have to see it.

3:00pm 
Brianna and I are the only non-children/people accompanying children in the theater.

(Stealth shot so the ushers wouldn't come over like they did during Macbeth)

The posters for the show are actually posters for Disney's The Little Mermaid so I figure even though it will be in Korean that they'll sing the songs from the movie, which are among some of my favorites. This isn't the case at all and the whole performance is ridiculous. Ariel is super whiny and keeps making wavey movements with her arms to show that she's underwater. Ursula is dressed like a goth with tentacles coming out of her costume at random places. Instead of Flotsam and Jetsam her sidekick is an orange starfish who she keeps beating with her tentacles and at one point they break out into an 80s dance number, complete with funky moves.

So the whole thing is hilariously bad and I'm not sure it could be anymore absurd when all of a sudden the greatest thing ever happens. One moment the characters are talking and the next moment the speakers are blaring "I LIKE BIG BUTTS AND I CANNOT LIE. YOU OTHER BROTHERS CAN'T DENY". My immediate thought is that someone backstage messed up big time but no no, the characters start dancing to it. Flounder, Ursula, Sebastian, the Starfish Sidekick- all rocking out to Sir-Mix-A-Lot. They only play that first line and suddenly it's over but we are cracking up.

Overall definitely not worth the ₩15,000 we paid but I can add it to the growing list of weird performances I have been to.

4:30pm 
Buffet lunch/dinner at VIPs which has amazing cashew chicken, broccoli soup, and the only good Caesar salad I've had since coming to Korea. Very tasty.

6:50pm
Sucker Punch at the movie theater by our apartment. I don't dislike it as much as I'm expecting but the action scenes become redundant and I can only watch Emily Browning do that same dramatic leap in which she lands with one arm stuck into the air so many times. Plus there's too much slow-mo and not enough John Hamm. And Abbie Cornish is awful. But the music is good. It's ridiculous but I could forgive that if only Zach Snyder and Emily Browning would stop going around claiming that it's empowering to women. I especially liked the part where the twenty-year-old protagonist is infantilized, not given a real name, and in her self-created escapist world basically just functions as fodder for male fantasy. Great going Zach Snyder!

9:15pm
Home at last to relax and catch my breath after a good, busy weekend.

Korea is keeping me on my toes. I like it.

Fin.


Trivia of the Day: Soju (Hangul 소주) is a distilled beverage native to Korea. Its taste is comparable to vodka, though often slightly sweeter due to the sugars added in the manufacturing process, and more commonly consumed neat. Most brands of modern soju are made in South Korea. Though traditionally made from rice, most major brands supplement or even replace the rice with other starches such as potato, wheat, barley, sweet potato, or tapioca. Soju is clear in colour and typically varies in alcohol content from about 18.5% to about 45% alcohol by volume (ABV), with 20% ABV being most common. It is widely consumed, in part, because of its relatively low price in Korea. A typical 300mL bottle of soju costs the consumer 1,000 to 3,000 South Korean Won in South Korea (roughly $1 to $3 United States Dollars). Soju was first distilled around 13th century during the Mongol invasions of Korea. The Mongols had acquired the technique of distilling arak from the Persians during their invasion of Central Asia/Middle East around 1256, then it was subsequently introduced to Koreans and distilleries were set up around the city of Kaesong.

By the pricking of my thumbs, a crummy sequel this way comes

Two weeks of teaching down and I'm feeling pretty good.

Last week was a little more hectic for various reasons. Week two of the term is when we start giving students daily tests, three tests for the first class of the week and one for the second, and even though I'd only had one week under my belt I was already used to how much class time it would take to get everything done. The first couple days I felt rushed grading everything, inputting the scores online, and just in general being properly prepared for classes. I went in extra early all week since I'm still new and not only want to make a good impression but also needed that added hour to be sure I didn't forget to do anything.

By Friday it had all sort of fallen into place so I'm breathing easy again. My other stress had to do with money. When I came over I exchanged a few hundred dollars to won and brought the rest in traveler's cheques, thinking I didn't want to be walking around with huge amounts of money in cash. Only when I went to the bank this week to cash some of the cheques they weren't able to process them because I didn't have my passport. I didn't have my passport though because the school is setting up my bank account and getting my Alien Registration Card which, of course, requires the presence of my passport.

Blergh. So I was in a bit of a pickle. I still had a chunk of cash left but didn't want to have to stretch it over the weekend, especially considering I needed to go grocery shopping, and I wouldn't have my passport back until sometime this coming week. Luckily one of my fellow teachers, Traci, was awesome enough to sign a couple of the checks that I hadn't stamped my John Hancock on yet and accompany me to the bank to cash them. I felt like kind of an idiot for needing someone to help me out but I hadn't counted on the school having my passport for so long and in retrospect I probably should have just exchanged a couple hundred more in cash before coming. Ah well, lesson learned.

So with my wallet successfully fattened up again I was able to do a few things this weekend. Yesterday I tagged along with Traci and another teacher Jason to Juan (Joo-ahn), a small section within Incheon, where their church was screening the first two Narnia movies with the intention of seeing the third right afterwards. It was a pretty cool group of people and the guy organizing the whole thing bought the tickets all together because apparently it's assigned seating at Korean theaters. I've been in this country for three weeks now and assigned seating in a movie theater is thus far the strangest thing to me.

CGV is Korea's biggest movie theater chain.

The theater was really big and we got to our seats just a few minutes before it started so I didn't get a chance to see too much of what they show before their flicks but mostly it was commercials. There was one preview for a kid's movie that's coming out but it was more like an ad than a trailer. This was my first time seeing a movie here though so I'm wondering if this is typical or just at this chain.

So the movie itself. Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Probably tied for my first favorite book in the series. It's silver screen twin however... kind of a mess. I loved The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I own it and watch it often. Prince Caspian I only saw once and actually enjoyed it better seeing it a second time around yesterday. It wasn't held together quite as nicely as its predecessor but I'd watch it again.

This one though, eeshk. You could really tell that Disney did not have a hand in it this time which is too bad because it had a lot of potential to be good. Aside from nit-picky things like Ben Barnes suddenly dropping Caspian's Spanish accent and the voice change for Reepicheep (I like Simon Pegg but I missed Eddie Izzard) it was overall a weak effort. I appreciate that the source material often needs to be changed to translate better onto the big screen but the whole evil-green-people-snatching-mist storyline was laaame and at one point they  totally used the same sound effect that Lost's smoke monster was notorious for.

Mostly it was the special effects that turned me off though. I'm pretty sure Weta Workshop of Lord of the Rings fame worked on this Narnia movie as they did the others but it could not possibly have been in the same capacity because towards the end of the movie there's a battle between the ship and a sea monster that now officially registers are some of the crummiest special effects I've seen. And I say this as someone who frequently watches Sci-Fi original movies. It was bad.

My understanding is that they have plans to adapt more of the books with The Silver Chair up next since there was a blatant shout out to Jill Pole at the very end of the movie which was almost as bad as the, "Here's your veggie platter Stephenie!" line that accompanied Stephenie Meyer's Twilight cameo. If that's the case though I think Voyage of the Dawn Treader really under-utilized Eustace. The little inserts of Susan and Peter in this one showed that they were nervous to have only two of the Pevensie's shouldering the film so I can't really imagine how they're going to handle putting it all on one slightly less annoying Pevensie cousin in the next one.

And so ends my movie review/rant. I promise that this blog will first and foremost be about the goings-on in Korea but I'd be lying if I said it won't be peppered quite often with bits of geekery here and there. If I were sitting at home I'd be writing about the same things. That's not going to change just because I'm here but I will do my best to tailor it accordingly!

So after the movie marathon yesterday I slept in late today then woke up and went to the Arts Center to see:

I'd seen the posters up last weekend and luckily I could get the website in English so I got all the info for the last showing at 3pm today and just showed up around 2pm with the hopes that there would still be tickets left. There were and I ended up sitting in the third row! The theater wasn't packed which I always think is too bad for the performers who've been practicing so hard but it was sweet for me since I scored such a good seat.

It did fill in a lot more than this. This was just the only shot I could get before the usher told me to put my camera away.

It was a pretty good performance. Sometimes when I'm watching something in another language I wonder if actually the acting is terrible but because I can't understand a word of it I don't notice. The only exception is dramas or soap operas because everyone is so dramatic that universally you just know it's bad.

All the actors seemed decent in this though. I bought a program before the show and fortunately my very basic ability to read Korean paired with the fact that the characters names are exactly the same as in English meant I had a chance to figure out before the show started who was who, just in case I got lost. I'd re-read some of the scenes last night and skimmed the summary on Wikipedia because I haven't read Macbeth since high school and this was the first time I saw it performed.

For the most part they went with a traditional interpretation, Elizabethan costumes and such. The set was different but in a good way. Very minimalistic with a big slanted platform (you can see it a little in that last picture up there) that had a couple sets of stairs leading off. The whole thing rotated every few scenes. They had six witches instead of three and those ladies were creepy. Also Fleance was played by a woman which I thought was pretty cool. And Lady Macbeth was a crazy ass ice queen as is to be expected. The actress kept staring off at the same distant point whenever she spoke her lines, it was kind of unnerving actually.

It was strange not having subtitles or anything but it was a pretty cool experience. I'm not sure I would see a show that I was completely unfamiliar with though. Knowing the story made it easy to follow along.

Also these are two of their upcoming shows:

Merry Grease Mas! Oh Korea, never change.

Trivia of the Day: Empress Myeongseong, also known as Queen Min, was the first official wife of King Gojong, the twenty-sixth king of the Joseon dynasty of Korea. The Japanese considered her as an obstacle against its overseas expansion. Efforts to remove her from the political arena compelled the Empress to take a harsher stand against Japanese influence. In the early morning of October 8, 1895, sword-bearing assassins, allegedly under orders from Miura Gorō (the Japanese Minister to Korea at that time and a retired army lieutenant-general), entered Gyeongbok Palace. Upon entering the Queen's Quarters (Okhoru), the assassins "killed three court [women] suspected of being Empress Myeongseong. When they confirmed that one of them was the Empress, they burned the corpse in a pine forest in front of the Okhoru complex, and then dispersed the ashes." She was 43 years-old. In South Korea, there is renewed interest in her life because of recent novels, TV drama and musical. In Korea she is viewed by many as a national heroine, for striving diplomatically and politically to keep Korea independent of foreign influence. She had planned to modernize Korea.