SATURDAY:

Weather: cold and windy, rainy after dark

Holy Cow, this is a big day.

First I meet my penpal Gyesoon. I'm 15 minutes late because I was at the DUNKIN DONUTS on one side of the subway station, and she was at the Tourist Booth on the other side. The only good thing about the subway ride was, some girl saw my hair and spit out part of a roll she was eating. Fucking awesome.

Here's why Gyesoon is rad: she's a book editor, working on a book about poop. AND she spent 9 months in India by herself, AND worked on a Kibbutz. Oh, and she can speak fluent English, and despite being totally busy, wants to help show me the city. Oh, and she's sexually neutral too.

We go down Insadong, which is a big arts-and-crafts street. I buy the 'good luck on your exams' octopus. Why is the octopus the designated patron of exams? If you've got enough time to read this, why don't YOU call up the embassy and ask 'em?? Also, it's cold so we buy a big fuzzy green blanket at the pizza store. Sure, where else?

Insadong is full of schoolgirls giggling at me, trying to tell me in broken English that my backpack is open, then running off laughing.

But after that, I have to tear-ass all the way back across the entire city to visit this RUINS concert at 'SSAMZAT livehouse'. The concert hall's sign is in Korean, of course, so I pass by it like 5 times before I finally go to a botiques to ask directions. . . . the gorgeous, smirking hipster girls working there take one look at me and they say, "ssamzat?" I reply: "uh, yup."

Luckily, rock shows all over the world are the same, so by being an hour late, I just miss the crappy opening bands. The first band I DO see is GARORINZ, this all-Japanese girl punk band who wear nurses' uniforms onstage. Their music was kind of creative, but they didn't move around at all. I guess it was OK.

Then, the RUINS played. It was a good show, even for them. The sound was really clear in the club.

The only problem was the FUCKING AUDIENCE. . . . jerky art student jerks who sat there like they were in a lecture, instead of dancing. I mean, they were literally sitting down the whole show. Jesus. . .

 

Later I say Hi to the ruins. I've already seen them in Cali, and Tokyo. and they-- amazingly- are totally unfazed that I show up to see them in Korea.

Then HONG KONG OTOKO MATSURI played. I don't know where they were from. But, they played improvised rock music with two drummers, and this skinny lead singer, who stripped naked and used a belt sander to shower the crowd with sparks. Then they did this Butt hole-Surfers-style cover of SMOKE ON THE WATER, before collapsing back into unstructured noise. How random is that??

I had a great time at the show, but didn't make any friends. Kind of disappointing, considering that I probably have way more in common with these art students than with the average Seoul-ite. But I guess art students all over the world are stuck-up assholes, so fuck 'em. On the subway ride back, however, this dude starts talking to me. he's dressed head-to-toe like a California skateboard kid; definitely the coolest guy in the city (under 60 years old anyway). He's got just enough time to write his phone number down, before my subway stop comes up. His name is Gunhee.

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