Today was Luna’s happy birthday, so: Happy Birthday !
To celebrate, we ate huge shrimps and then went to cinema to watch Toy Story 3. But no any kind of cinema, a 4D cinema. For about 20 bucks you get now common 3D glasses and shaking seats. So whenever anything fall down in the movie, your seat, and yourself, “fall” as well. You move as the camera goes up or down. That’s actually pretty cool. And of course when somebody crashes on the wall, you get a pretty brutal shock as well. That was a bit too violent for my taste, because it is often unexpected and I could imagine being actually annoying in action packed movies.
But that’s not all. You also get back “massage” from time to time, wind blown on you and water sprayed on your face. That’s pretty much fun. And I almost got a heart-attacked when the character on-screen got tackled and I felt my ankles being hit. And there is even more ! They also spray different perfume, even though I hardly realized it was on purpose and wondered almost all movie why the girl next to me smelt strawberry so strong. And finally in most romantic moment you’ll get soap bubbles coming from the ceiling.
Overall I found it was good fun and worth the price. But I am still not really convinced by current 3D technology. Hopefully it will improve quickly as it gets more and more popular. And the movie itself was ok probably not worth the IMDb rate, but not bad either.
This saturday we went to Pentaport Festival. It was my first Korean festival. Although Luna swore not all festivals are like that, there were seats in front of the scene. They were actually quite far so even though we sat on the first row we probably were 5 meters from artists. That was a shame, because we obviously couldn’t stand up in front of other people and I guess it didn’t help the ambiance. Anyway most people were probably over 40 years old. Honestly that looked pretty weird, there were no even a single food shop !
But I didn’t really care anyway because I could decrypt my favorite Korean band name on the festival poster. I already saw SmackSoft on Christmas day 2008 so I knew what to expect. And I was not disappointed. That was a tremendous concert. I have no idea what’s different or what lyrics are about and it will probably sounds like average alternative rock to most people, but their songs really move me. Especially in live. I never saw any concert like that. It is pure awesomeness. I just can’t wait to see them on more time, that time in a small concert hall hopefully. I strongly suggest to check out their Facebook profile as well.
And to complete my perfect festival, I could record some part of the concert in full HD with not so crappy sound, enjoy !
Oh ! I almost forgot to mention why there was such a wide space between the scene and the seats. At the very end of the festival, they shot fireworks from there. So they needed a security distance to protect people. But that was way not enough. It was raining fireworks on us. People used umbrella to protect themselves and I even got a bunch of fireworks on my laps. That was fun, but it looked more like people going in panic mode rather than enjoying the nice scenery. Somehow it reminds me new years eve in Seoul were everybody shoot fireworks in the crowds (even do firework battle).
At Istanbul I realized how much I enjoy traveling alone and being totally lost with nothing else to do than find your way. But much more strange is when I got to the gate for my next flight and got surrounded by Koreans, a different ethnicity than me, and yet I had such a strong “home” feeling. Anyway after a long trip I ended up safely in Incheon airport (they didn’t notice my massive food importation) where Luna’s father and brother were waiting for me. They told me Luna couldn’t come as she was sick. Pretty bad start for my stay here. But then I felt someone giggling behind. She actually was recording me from far away. Anyway I was glad to arrive there as I was sure the weather would pretty hot and much more stable than in Switzerland. Not disappointed, it was hot enough.
Before leaving the airport we had a walk there as it is a much awarded place. There is a kind of botanic garden which reminded me of Papiliorama (included natural hot and humid weather). We took a few pictures and left for home where Luna’s mother were waiting for us with welcoming meal. I ate almost all bulgogi by myself, one of my favorite Korean dish.
Adventure
As I am lucky enough to be able to work from there we mostly went out in the evening. But Luna is busy in the afternoon, so I have to meet her outside before meeting our friends. That was my very first time I went out in the street by myself. Needles to say I got lost. It was supposed to be an easy bus ride: from right in front of our house, to 16 stops later and then just walk in the subway. First trouble is the bus was full so I had to stand up. Who cares ? People like me who tend to be taller than everybody else and actually can touch the bus roof if standing straight. That especially mean I have no way to see anything outside. Windows are either way too low or cluttered with ads. So I am supposed to rely on bus stop counting. The problem is I am not much concentrated and probably miss a few stops or count them twice and the bus may not even stop everywhere if nobody is going out. So it’s not an exact science. Luckily they told me the trip was 20 minutes long. The bus had a very convenient clock right in front of me. So when I kind of guessed enough time passed and when I may have more or less heard something similar to the name were I had to stop, Bupyung, then I got off.
But nobody told me there is a Bupyung Market, before Bupyung Station. So I walked around, tried to get some directions, and surprisingly enough I quickly found a map, understood my mistake and tried to take the subway to the next station. For some reason my transport card didn’t work, so I went back to the street and started walking to my destination. Luna called as I was already 30 minutes late and suggested she come pick me up, but I had no way to tell here where I was anyway. So I walked till there, and somehow found my way in subway labyrinth to the right platform, but I was not sure, so I was looking at the map when Luna scared me from behind.
After this adventurous trip we finally met our friends (1 hour late). We had samgyeopsal and went to a bar for drinking where they taught me drinking tricks to show off back in Switzerland.
Enjoy local stuff
I still have quite strong jet lag and it’s pretty hard to get “normal” timing as here everybody eats whenever they want (many times a day) and we go shopping at 22h00 and come back around 01h00. There is no such thing as timing rules here. So I set up my computer to Korean time and set up a daily alarms on my mobile to remind me when it’s morning and evening. But I still got to enjoy Korean life. First of all is bathrooms. This is the most ingenious and yet most obvious invention ever. Bathrooms where you can actually spread water everywhere, flood the bathtub, or have a shower while seating on the toilet if you ever fee like. It’s so much more convenient. I wish all bathrooms were like that.
