Incheon Korean Music Wave

I'm actually really mad that I missed this concert.  It's especially frustrating because the concert was 10 minutes from where I lived, but I was too busy moving all my stuff and leaving Korea to attend.  Anyway, allkpop.com collected all the videos from the concert, so I'm watching them all right now.

The Pentaport Rock Festival line-up was updated.

Not any real major changes, but at least they're saying what days the bands are playing on.

So The Pentaport Rock Festival finally posted some of the line-up on their site.  LCD Soundsystem looks like it's going to be the headliner.  More importantly, Hoobastank is still around?

I'm organizing a picnic in Incheon.

Well, I've been throwing out the idea for the past month now, but every time I thought the weather was going to be cool, it started raining. I've decided that it's going to be at the Incheon Grand Park. Some people were suggesting Yeouido, which is a really nice place, but I figured an Incheon picnic should be in our city. Represent yo' shit! and other similar sentiments. Anyway, the date's not set in stone, but I'm thinking it's going to be the last weekend in May.

I feel for an occasion such as this, there must be proper activities. Here's what I'm thinking.

• Eating food (I'm thinking sort of potluck-ish with people pitching in for pizza)
• Drinking lots of beer
• 3-legged races
• Kick ball (maybe)
• A giant game of freeze tag

There's a lot more dumb shit I thought of, or things people suggested, but they escape me right now. Anyway, let me know if you have any ideas or anything.

Glad to know it's still the same in Korea.

I check craigslist fairly often. Back home I used to search it for bike parts and random shit all the time. Now that I'm in Korea, I usually check it for job postings and shit people are selling on the cheap because they're leaving the country. Sometimes I check all the other sections on craigslist, like tonight because it came up in conversation. Anyway, this is in my city, but what intrigues me the most is the "and more" part of the post. Like what's left, fake sex?

It's fucking raining again.

Seriously, I don't see how people like the rain. I hate it. It makes everything more inconvenient. It's been raining on and off for the past few days, but unluckily, it hasn't been raining when I walk to school, just when I'm walking home. So for the past couple of days I've walked home without an umbrella and that shit sucks.

It's been a beautiful weekend.

It might just be because I'm from California where the weather's always nice, but the weather in Korea has been horrible since I've been here. It was way too humid when I got here and then it was cold for so long. I feel like I haven't seen the sunlight in a long time. However, this weekend has been perfect. It was in the 60's and the sun was out. I even went biking down the Han River and it was great. Sure, this forecast says it might rain or whatever, but if it's going to be like how it was this weekend for the next month, I would be happy.

It must be something I ate.

Jajangmyun at a restaurant in Incheon's Chinatown

I ate this yesterday, April 14th. The date's really significant since it's Black Day, an informal holiday in Korea. On Valentine's Day in Korea, women give men chocolate. One month later, on March 14th, the men give women back candy. Black Day is for single people and what they do is go out and eat jajangmyun. I think it's a hilarious concept so I got some people together to go out get some in Chinatown. I guess I should go ahead and drop a little bit of knowledge about Incheon's Chinatown:

• It's listed as a tourist destination, but overall, it's rather tiny and unimpressive. It's worth a look, but not really worth a trip on its own. It's near Wolmido though, which is pretty cool, so you could make a trip out of visiting both of them.
• There's Chinese people there and they've been there for a long time. Since the late 19th century according to my travel book.
• It's the birthplace of jajangmyun.

If you were wondering, jajangmyun is made with a black paste of some sort, honey, onions, and noodles. Also, it's pretty fucking tasty.

Some good news and some bad news.

Good news: The McDonald's in Bupyeong has finished renovating and is now open again.

Bad news: The Costco in Youngdeungpo-gu has started closed its food court temporarily. When I went with my friend earlier this week, an employee said that it was going to reopen in October. The guy hopefully had it wrong and that's some kind of mistake, since I don't know if I can go half a year without a chicken bake.

Incheon Pentaport Rock Festival

There's still no line-up posted for this event, but there's this video posted on their site. It looks like it's going to be a fun time.

Ireland wins the Mr. World Competition.

Not like anyone was really interested, but the Mr. World Competition that I mentioned a few weeks ago took place over the weekend. The contestant from Ireland won the competition. Girls' Generation also performed the songs Gee and Oh!, which would have been the only reason I would have went to the damn thing.

I'm back in Incheon.

I had a lot of fun on my trip to Gwangju. There was a huge birthday party and a lot of funny shit happened but sadly, there's no pictures. I packed my camera bag and then right after I got on the bus, I realized that I left both my memory cards sitting on top of my desk. It's sad really, since the camera was the heaviest thing that I brought and it was entirely useless for the entire trip. Anyway, I'm glad to be back in my apartment. It really is home now that I think about it. It's scary that I'll be leaving it in less than a month.

Bummer.

Went to the event at Orange Night Club I mentioned yesterday. I was excited to see MC Mong too. Anyway, I met up with some friends for dinner and then we headed to the club around 8:30, which we thought was a good time. It turns out that Orange Night Club is a huge place. However, WE WERE THE ONLY ONES IN THERE. We were also in there the entire time we were at the club. The place was fully staffed though, with about 20 people standing around doing nothing. MC Mong apparently showed up at 11AM to make an appearance, which is before I even had lunch at school today. I guess I can say that it was worth the experience, but man, that shit sucked.

MC Mong in Incheon!?

There's an event going on near Juan Station for the next few days at Orange Nightclub. I don't know all the details about it since I couldn't find the event online. All I saw were the flyers/posters on the ground the past few weeks, so I stole this one off a wall yesterday just so I could bring it home and try to translate it. Turns out the poster doesn't really have much information either. There's going to be some comedians from those Korean variety shows, b-boys, and some pop stars. I'm going to go check it out tonight and see if it's hype. Tonight there's supposed to be a mystery guest too, so hopefully it's someone crazy. However, tomorrow's the real kicker, since MC Mong is going to be there. You should come out tonight with me to check it out if you're free, but if not, I'll let you know how it is for tomorrow.

Mr. World Competition

So the Mr. World Competition just started. This is sort of big news since it's right here in Incheon. Apparently it's the biggest male beauty pageant in the world. I'm not particularly interested in this, since it's a male beauty pageant, but I'm really hoping the dude from Latvia wins.

Just look at his mullet.

Anyway, the finale is supposed to be on March 27th. Girls' Generation and 2PM are performing, so I'm a little interested in going if it's not too expensive. It should be down in Songdo, since I think that's the only place they can really have it, but I'll look into it.

The Incheon Marathon...

was a complete success. Maybe not complete, but we finished it. There were about 7 of us who managed to finish the entire thing. There were a few problems along the way:

• There are a lot of stops on the with nothing by them.
• A large group of foreigners walking around in a random neighborhood gets a lot of stares.
• The six newest stops on the subway in Songdo weren't on my subway maps.
• The subway crawl got a little bit harder when the subway stopped.
• The last stop on the line, The International Business District, isn't even open yet. We had to have a cab drive us over there, take a picture at it, and then have him drive us back.
• It cost more money that I thought it would.

Anyways, it was a good way to spend a Saturday.

The Incheon Marathon

My buddy Ryan came up with the idea and I helped to coordinate the event. Basically, we're starting at the top of the Incheon Line, going to each stop on the line and having a drink until we reach the end. If you have nothing else to do today, then you might as well come join us. We're meeting up at 2PM at Gyeyang Station right where you get off the subway (don't go up the stairs).