an adventure, of sorts
Today was a very, very long day. Jen showed up last night at almost 11, as it took about an hour longer then the subway map said it should have. Then we ended up eating fried chicken on the roof, and just hung out as we made fun of the cats, who stood guard of the door, waiting for their moment to escape (bad kitties!). We talked about traveling and dyke drama and the fact that her Brit slang is rubbing off on me. We ended up watching Imagine Me & You, and stayed up much later than I'd meant to. More teasing of Xander insued; she loves the guy - but then, who doesn't? I think we ended up going to bed around 2 or 2:30. It took me forever to fall asleep because it was so warm; I finally turned on the AC in my room. And then I woke up at 7:30.
We left around 8:30 to catch the subway for our '81' minute ride to where I needed to be for the concert. I was supposed to get there at 10, and even with the slight delay we had in getting breakfast, we got to the subway station just after 10. So all we had to do was hop on bus 4 and we'd be at the building in a few minutes. We were standing at the bus stop for a bit, and two older women who were going to the same concert came up behind us. They asked if we were going to the LMB Singers, and then waited with us for the bus. And waited. And waited. After probably about 10 minutes of just chillin' at the bus stop, we finally got in a cab. Four of us, plus the driver, plus the cello, all crammed in that little taxi. And then we found out that the two women didn't actually know where we were going... So we got out of the cab, a ways down the street from where we started, and one of them called someone to give us directions and we walked probably over half way back to where we had started. It seemed these two women were my fan club, as one of them decided she wanted to carry my bag, and the other decided she wanted to help me carry the cello (which was probably bigger than she was). I tried to explain that it would probably be easier if I carried the cello by myself, but she was so excited about helping out! So we walked down the street, me holding onto the neck and a handle, and her holding on to the tiny piece of endpin sticking out. Poor Jen was carrying a bag and a backpack, and they didn't offer to help her out. So not only were we whities walking around some ghetto part of Seoul, but we looked absolutely rediculous! We ended up getting there after 10:30, which was when the chanting was supposed to start, and they herded Jen into the room to participate in something she was not at all familiar with, while I was closed into a TINY room to attempt a last minute rehearsal with my accompanist. I feel really bad for Jen, as I was planning on being in there with her to explain things, but apparently she took it all in well. The concert itself was so-so. My new strings aren't broken in quite yet and I had a couple of issues with some of the octave shifts; but they enjoyed it, so I guess that's what really matters :)
I thought Jen was going to go home after the Dharma talk, but Sunim managed to talk her into coming to help with the Dharma class at 3. I'd been planning on going straight from the talk to KTM so I could practice haegum a bit before teaching, but they gave us lunch after the talk, and while I'm not a big fan of kimbop, I felt it'd be rude if we just left. We ended up being the last ones out of there, because everyone was talking to us the whole time. And they gave both of us a bracelet of prayer beads and a chime before we left. On the subway, we both got text messages from Liz (another lesbian who we've hung out with a couple of times), who asked what we were up to and if we wanted to do something later. Jen got it first, and replied 'just got done with a Buddha thing. going to teach some kids for free. not sure about tonight'. And then she had me send the same message... so we're going to find out if we started up any lesbian gossip! We didn't get up to Muakjae until after 2, and seeing as it's about a 10 or 15 minute walk to KTM (and I was in a skirt, a long sleeve shirt and carrying a cello on my shoulder) I figured it'd be best to go straight to the temple. I showed Jen the Lesbian Van that's parked down the street from the temple, which amused her greatly (I'll have to get a pic of that at some point). She wanted to know if could pay to watch some Korean chicks making out in it or something lol
Class was a lot different than usual, as we were playing games the entire time. It was a lot of fun; the teacher had us split into two groups and a member from each group stood up and they had to try to name off things from different groups (animals, colors, countries, etc) in English (though, it started to lapse into Korean after a while). Me and Jen were on different teams, so the kids loved it when it was our turn to go up there and beat eachother down. Jen really wanted to name off English footballers :P but the kids decided on movies. So the whole time we were up there, the kids were telling us what movies to say (in Korean, of course). When if finally got too crazy for us to be able to hear ourselve, the teacher called it a tie lol
We stayed after for quite a while, talking to Sunim after the kids left. I think I have to write this out in dialogue (as best I can remember it, and in a slightly abridged version) for you to be able to grasp the greatness of it:
Sunim: It was wonderful for you to join us today Jen, though, you need to work on your bowing, it takes lots of practice.
Me: That's my fault. I was supposed to show her how to do it last night, and I forgot.
Sunim: You slept together last night?
*awkward silence, then various stuttered explanations*
Sunim: You have a personality like a man.
Jen: Really?!
Sunim: Yes, you like sports, and you're very strong and independent. You also have the personality that would make a great nun.
Jen: Cool.
Sunim: What is your animal? (Chinese zodiac)... You are a chicken!
Jen: Rubbish!
Me: I'm a tiger.
Sunim: Oh, Jen, be careful, or she will eat you! She is the boss of you!
So, apparently Sunim has Jen figured out! She has a wonderful gaydar that she didn't even know about! LMAO!
And that basically concluded our cultural immersion for the day. We decided not to go hang with Liz, as she's kind of odd, and we're both exhausted! But I had to meet up with Sogyem and Dany to pick out books for Dany to start her cello lessons next week. I got her a beginning book and a book of pieces that she'll have to work up to. They have a nice range of ability in that book too, so I think it'll be a good one for her. Sogyem wanted me to pick out a book of etudes that I thought would be good for her, but I didn't think that would be a good idea, since I'll only be teaching her for a month. If she enjoys cello, and wants to keep studying it, the teacher she finds will give her etudes that they are familiar with. Sadly, I could find a single book with any scales in it! So I'll teach her some basic scales, and her homework can be to right out the scale and the fingering *evil grin* Then Sogyem insisted that I join them for dinner, so I had some amazing Korean bbq. I think I finally got home around 9:30, so as I said, it was a very, very long day!
OH! And I finally went out and bought a bootleg of Pirates 3, so I'll be watching that tomorrow!
We left around 8:30 to catch the subway for our '81' minute ride to where I needed to be for the concert. I was supposed to get there at 10, and even with the slight delay we had in getting breakfast, we got to the subway station just after 10. So all we had to do was hop on bus 4 and we'd be at the building in a few minutes. We were standing at the bus stop for a bit, and two older women who were going to the same concert came up behind us. They asked if we were going to the LMB Singers, and then waited with us for the bus. And waited. And waited. After probably about 10 minutes of just chillin' at the bus stop, we finally got in a cab. Four of us, plus the driver, plus the cello, all crammed in that little taxi. And then we found out that the two women didn't actually know where we were going... So we got out of the cab, a ways down the street from where we started, and one of them called someone to give us directions and we walked probably over half way back to where we had started. It seemed these two women were my fan club, as one of them decided she wanted to carry my bag, and the other decided she wanted to help me carry the cello (which was probably bigger than she was). I tried to explain that it would probably be easier if I carried the cello by myself, but she was so excited about helping out! So we walked down the street, me holding onto the neck and a handle, and her holding on to the tiny piece of endpin sticking out. Poor Jen was carrying a bag and a backpack, and they didn't offer to help her out. So not only were we whities walking around some ghetto part of Seoul, but we looked absolutely rediculous! We ended up getting there after 10:30, which was when the chanting was supposed to start, and they herded Jen into the room to participate in something she was not at all familiar with, while I was closed into a TINY room to attempt a last minute rehearsal with my accompanist. I feel really bad for Jen, as I was planning on being in there with her to explain things, but apparently she took it all in well. The concert itself was so-so. My new strings aren't broken in quite yet and I had a couple of issues with some of the octave shifts; but they enjoyed it, so I guess that's what really matters :)
I thought Jen was going to go home after the Dharma talk, but Sunim managed to talk her into coming to help with the Dharma class at 3. I'd been planning on going straight from the talk to KTM so I could practice haegum a bit before teaching, but they gave us lunch after the talk, and while I'm not a big fan of kimbop, I felt it'd be rude if we just left. We ended up being the last ones out of there, because everyone was talking to us the whole time. And they gave both of us a bracelet of prayer beads and a chime before we left. On the subway, we both got text messages from Liz (another lesbian who we've hung out with a couple of times), who asked what we were up to and if we wanted to do something later. Jen got it first, and replied 'just got done with a Buddha thing. going to teach some kids for free. not sure about tonight'. And then she had me send the same message... so we're going to find out if we started up any lesbian gossip! We didn't get up to Muakjae until after 2, and seeing as it's about a 10 or 15 minute walk to KTM (and I was in a skirt, a long sleeve shirt and carrying a cello on my shoulder) I figured it'd be best to go straight to the temple. I showed Jen the Lesbian Van that's parked down the street from the temple, which amused her greatly (I'll have to get a pic of that at some point). She wanted to know if could pay to watch some Korean chicks making out in it or something lol
Class was a lot different than usual, as we were playing games the entire time. It was a lot of fun; the teacher had us split into two groups and a member from each group stood up and they had to try to name off things from different groups (animals, colors, countries, etc) in English (though, it started to lapse into Korean after a while). Me and Jen were on different teams, so the kids loved it when it was our turn to go up there and beat eachother down. Jen really wanted to name off English footballers :P but the kids decided on movies. So the whole time we were up there, the kids were telling us what movies to say (in Korean, of course). When if finally got too crazy for us to be able to hear ourselve, the teacher called it a tie lol
We stayed after for quite a while, talking to Sunim after the kids left. I think I have to write this out in dialogue (as best I can remember it, and in a slightly abridged version) for you to be able to grasp the greatness of it:
Sunim: It was wonderful for you to join us today Jen, though, you need to work on your bowing, it takes lots of practice.
Me: That's my fault. I was supposed to show her how to do it last night, and I forgot.
Sunim: You slept together last night?
*awkward silence, then various stuttered explanations*
Sunim: You have a personality like a man.
Jen: Really?!
Sunim: Yes, you like sports, and you're very strong and independent. You also have the personality that would make a great nun.
Jen: Cool.
Sunim: What is your animal? (Chinese zodiac)... You are a chicken!
Jen: Rubbish!
Me: I'm a tiger.
Sunim: Oh, Jen, be careful, or she will eat you! She is the boss of you!
So, apparently Sunim has Jen figured out! She has a wonderful gaydar that she didn't even know about! LMAO!
And that basically concluded our cultural immersion for the day. We decided not to go hang with Liz, as she's kind of odd, and we're both exhausted! But I had to meet up with Sogyem and Dany to pick out books for Dany to start her cello lessons next week. I got her a beginning book and a book of pieces that she'll have to work up to. They have a nice range of ability in that book too, so I think it'll be a good one for her. Sogyem wanted me to pick out a book of etudes that I thought would be good for her, but I didn't think that would be a good idea, since I'll only be teaching her for a month. If she enjoys cello, and wants to keep studying it, the teacher she finds will give her etudes that they are familiar with. Sadly, I could find a single book with any scales in it! So I'll teach her some basic scales, and her homework can be to right out the scale and the fingering *evil grin* Then Sogyem insisted that I join them for dinner, so I had some amazing Korean bbq. I think I finally got home around 9:30, so as I said, it was a very, very long day!
OH! And I finally went out and bought a bootleg of Pirates 3, so I'll be watching that tomorrow!