Today's Music Monday offering goes back to my favourite genre - punk which was where we began with Music Monday #1 and Bad Religion.
This band however is a new favourite, I'm really loving them right now and they are most played on my iPod. Front man Dave Hause has an awesome voice and they have a great sound. The earlier stuff is a bit more punk and recently they have been branching out with a more diverse sound, they have always been more on the melodic side of the punk spectrum rather than hardcore (some might say pop-punk but I don't think it's quite there). On their album 'Build and Burn' you can hear the rock and even a bit of country influence there. They have also done some covers on an earlier EP - Springsteen and Strummer which they put their own sound into and sound great (I liked their version of Johnny 99 better than the original). All-in-all they are a great well rounded sounding band and I hope they have a long future. Also hope they come to Korea so I can see them live, I have to say I think they would play a mean live show.
So if you don't know who I am talking about - the name of the band is 'The Loved Ones'. I had a hard time picking a song to showcase here (because I like quite a few of them) but I decided to go with one of their older ones as it was one of the first I heard.
The Loved Ones - 100k
If you like the band you can check out more of their music on their myspace page.
Today I am going to introduce some commonly found drinks in Korea. You can get these or variations of them at your local Convenience Store. Convenience stores are ubiquitous across Korea - from where I live I can get to at least six in under 5 minutes (not kidding) there is even one in my building so I don't even have to go out if its raining.
These are just four drinks that I have recently tried, I will follow up with some more and maybe some snack foods in the future. As I have said before I am very picky so I don't like coffee or tea and this limits my choices a bit in the drinks department here in Korea.
1. Hot6 (핫식스)
This one is a carbonated energy drink and is relatively new to the market. Prior to a year or so ago there were no 'engery drinks' per se in Korea. They had their own vitamin drinks which we will look at in number 4. but when I first got here just over a year ago you could not even get Red Bull in most places, there was only one Convenience Store that carried it in my area. I believe this was due to the ingredients which were not allowed but I am not 100 per cent on that. Anyway now most of my local stores stock Red Bull and there are some local variations making their way onto the market. The one they are pushing the most is this one Hot6 so I thought I would support local trade and give it ago. I have to say I did not like it, it was too bland and kind of tasted faintly of flowers. It was relatively sweet but not as sweet as Red Bull.
2. Honey Water (꿀물)
I like honey and water so I thought I would give this a try. Way too sweet and this is coming from someone who loves sweet things. According to the bottle it has 20 % honey which was maybe a bit much. It pretty much just tastes like what it says honey flavoured water.
3. Woongjin Aloe Juice (자연은 알로에)
This one is my pick of the bunch and my new favourite non-caffeinated beverage. There are a couple of other brands of Aloe Vera drink on the market - one is Del Monte but the one pictured here is the best I have tasted. I did not like the Del Monte brand one at all. The drink tastes a bit like a sweet green grape juice, its refreshing and has little chunks of aloe vera in it. The chunks might put some people off and I was dubious at first but they are really soft and small and you don't really even notice them.
4. Bacchus-F (박카스)
This one is a non-carbonated Korean energy drink. It has been around for a long time and was originally sold as a herbal remedy for colds and hangovers. Korea has a few of this kind of vitamin drink, there are ones that have vitamin C in them for example and taste like orange. I had tried the vitamin C ones first and they are quite nice, a sweet flavoured orange taste and I could immediately taste the similarities when I tried this one however I did not like it as much and I found it a bit too bland like the Hot6 one. It is kind of sweet but it does not have the citrus flavour that the other ones do so is not as nice.
This week it's back home for Music Monday. A little bit different as it is not a video clip but the movie trailer for the new documentary about my favourite New Zealand band. If you are a Kiwi then you will have already guessed the topic of today's post - Shihad.
Shihad are New Zealand's greatest rock band and this month they have released a documentary about their journey - the highs, the lows and above all the music.
I have not seen it yet but its on my list of things to do when I go back home for a visit in July. So please have a look and a listen and see what you think.
Shihad - Beautiful Machine (Documentary)
Welcome to the second installment of Music Monday. This time I thought that seen as though this is a blog about living in Korea I would show you just a taste of K-Pop. If you don't know what K-pop is - well then what rock have you been hiding under :)
K-pop is apparently taking over the world, well especially if you talk to a Korean person, it is in fact the most popular music in Asia at the moment and most of the K-pop groups have large followings in Japan for example. The are also trying to move into the American market and some groups have released songs in English just for this. Girls Generation arguably the most famous girl group recently made an appearance on 'The Late Show with David Letterman'.
It's pretty much just what it says - Korean Popular music. However its a bit different than pop in the west, first off - well it's pretty much a religion over here, the majority of your average everyday Korean is going to love K-pop. Secondly they do not do things half-arsed - its bigger, flashier and more put together than what you are used to. Third they like groups better than solo acts, also the bigger the group the better (I guess they figure if it is big you will be able to relate to at least one member) and finally these groups are made by big companies - they recruit the talent, put them in groups, train them for years and finally release them to the world as a brand new act, they work very hard and don't get much time off.
Also as a side note - my personal opinion - some of the boys in the boy groups are almost indistinguishable from the girls. Often you see a picture of one of the 'famous stars' promoting a beauty product and not knowing who they are you have to ask yourself - hmmm is that a girl or a boy (case and point in this video today - guy with the long hair could totally pass for a girl especially with the makeup).
This video is a new one from what I would say is the most popular K-pop band (you may disagree). They are called Big Bang and have been around for a while now. This is one of the popular new singles of their new album. Lots of my students at school are all quoting it and making references to it. I did not know it was what they were quoting until I saw the video a couple of weeks ago after making a music lesson for one of my classes. Anyway here it is and I think its a great one to show just what K-pop is all about.
Big Bang - Fantastic Baby
I just found a great article about the Foreign Food places in Seoul so thought that I would share it here for you.
It's written by Chris Backe for travelwire Asia - Life in Korea: Finding some tastes from home
It lists some of the different places you can find some foreign foods in Seoul and also where and how to find these places. I've been to a couple of them in Itaewon.
Where: Demilitarized zone in Paju ,Gyeonggi-do
How: Tour with Adventure Korea
Length: One day
In February I took a one day tour to the DMZ, it was a great
trip and I would recommend it to anyone who is coming over to Korea. If you are
in Seoul then its not too far away and you can easily do it as a one day trip.
I went with Adventure Korea, I have used them before when I went to Jeju Island
and found them to be very good.
There are various stops along the way when you do this tour:
Imjingak
Imjingak is as far as you can go towards the North without
permission, it was built for the people who had to leave their homes in the
North and there is an altar where they can pray for their ancestors.
At Imjingak you can also see the Peace Bell which was built
in 2000 and is a symbol for the hope of peace and unification between the North
and the South. There is also the Freedom Bridge where they used to exchange
prisoners after the war and you can buy some North Korean money here which
is a great souvenir.
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| Imjingak |
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| The Altar |
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| Freedom Bridge |
The Third Tunnel
South Korea has discovered four tunnels dug by North Korea
to infiltrate the south. They think there could be more but it has only been by
chance that they discovered these ones so far. The 3rd Tunnel was found in 1978
and you can walk down into it for a ways – its about 73 meters below the
surface. I’m pretty unfit at the moment and it was a bit of a hike – it’s not
bad going down but you have to come back up at the end and that was a bit of a
climb. There is a little car that goes down but the Adventure Korea tour price
does not cover that. The actual infiltration tunnel at the end is pretty small,
they give you hard hats so you don’t hit your head and after bumping mine with
the hat on (after feeling a bit silly wearing it) I was glad of it.
The tunnel could apparently allow 10, 000 to 30, 000
soldiers to invade Seoul within an hour. Lucky for us it’s all blocked off now.
Tongilchon (unification village)
There are two villages inside the DMZ, which I found to be
very strange and interesting as I had not known that anyone actually lived
there besides the soldiers.
One village is Daesongdong and the other is Tongilchon, you can see
some of the houses and hear about the life of the people who live here. The
tour guide was really knowledgeable about this and it was really interesting –
there are no gates or anything because there is no crime. There are too many
soldiers about for there to be any problems. The villages are famous for their
produce as the environment is a lot more natural up there.
Dora Observatory
The observatory is where you can actually see the DMZ and
the North. Its pretty far away but they do have some binoculars that you can use
(500 won to make them go). You can see some of the cities of the North, again
its pretty far so you really just get an impression. Kijongdong is the
‘Propaganda Village’ which was built so that when you looked into the North you
could see how prosperous they are.
Dorasan Station
You also visit the last train station that goes towards the North, you can even buy a ticket (really cheap) and go onto the platform to see the train.
I thought that one way to keep my posts up a bit would be to have something that I do every week. Sometimes I don't have time to write a whole post and as I usually make then pretty long when I'm telling about a particular topic it can take some time to write and edit.
So I thought that I might include a 'Music Monday' post every week, in it I will post a song that I like. It might be one from the past or one I have just recently heard. I will try and include some from Korea (but I'm not really a big K-pop fan as I grew up listening to Rock and Punk so its not really my thing) if I find something I think is worth sharing. It may just be for the weirdness factor.
Anyway this week's song is from one of my favourite bands of all times. Bad Religion - its hard to chose one song as this group has been around for over thirty years doing their punk thing. I have so many favourites from over the years but I chose this one because it always makes me smile.
Bad Religion - Generator
(Warning - there is some profanity in this video - its a punk song so don't watch it if you don't like that kind of language)
