Thursday, September 04, 2008

Food Gathering in Post-Industrial Korea, 2008















In Korea, inexplicably the US dollar seems to be bobbing it's head just barely above water. Just about everywhere I've been in the last few years has seemed to get increasingly expensive as our economy rather rapidly falls apart. In Seoul it would appear that they didn't get the message, or maybe they are in worse shape then we are. Either way it meant that a few of us felt pretty justified in having dinner on the top floor of the hotel one night. We had several inexpensive cocktails (someone, I'm not pointing fingers, had a few too many 'www@.coms' while I tended towards the Dr. Pepper based rum prom night cocktail).















I also opted for the 'romantic lobster indulgence' mostly because I have never uttered those words in succession much less been presented with a huge lobster tail for doing so.















The view from business class.















I feel like I'm mostly filling in the gaps here, as the internet was pretty much nonexistent for 3/4s of my trip. It popped up occasionally here and there, but was usually too expensive to warrant five minutes of use. Oh, and the iphone, while pretty slick stateside was basically an alarm clock for a month.















The show in Korea wasn't really a disaster. Sure the festival lineup was well-stocked with metal bands and while this particular band has the word 'death' in their name, they don't really mean it, and seem fairly well adjusted for this lifestyle. The stage looked suspiciously like H.R. Giger had a garage sale, and there was a steady stream of dry ice and propane-fueled fire throughout the day. Rock show whether you want it or not.















It also began to biblically downpour just as the band was walking on stage. Everything from the crowd to the lighting desks got soaked. The local lighting guy was none too pleased, or maybe he was. I'm not too sure.















Another day, another flight. This time it was a breezy twelve hours to Australia. No danger.