Vaclav the metro musician

I posted a new video :)

Well, it's not new, it's from Seoul. But it's so great! :)

It's from the subway when we are on our way to a club in Hongdae when Vaclav was playing his flute. Check it out! :)

YouTube!

I joined YouTube, and I'm so socially networking... right... Well I posted some cool videos! :) Go check out my channel GreeteGoGo! :)

Here are few:


Attitude! We had to make an advertisement of ourselves to a course at the Uni.


Our locking performance! I wrote about the hiphop club Ggun in Sungkyunkwan Uni when I was in Korea. And this was our performance! :D In the beginning there are some people on the way, but they do move.


Ggun song "We can". I really like this song. I connect many good memories with it. When we had dancing practise in the club room there were singers and rappers outside practising this song and playing the music. Also outside there were people from some other club singing and playing guitar, people from the orchestra playing trumpets and violins, people playing the traditional Korean drums, and across the corridor you could hear the punk band, which I also liked, practising and always there were freshmen in the corridor playing drums. It was great!! Miss you!

Leaving Seoul

It's 4:25 in the night and my alarm rings in an hour. Then in another hour we will take the bus to the Incheon airport. Bags are packed. It's over.

For the past week every day someone has left and we have said goodbye. It was like... Well, it didn't feel like this, when you're leaving yourself! I'm gonna miss so many things here, even though this is not a place or society I would move to for good.

The most of all, I'm gonna miss the life we had here. We were living in a fairytale, a dream world with no responsibilities but to be and enjoy. I know I'm not the only one feeling this way. And the worst thing is when we have to return to the real life and worries about whatsoever.

At times I thought that what the fuck is this exchange for? To show that this is the most fun you're ever gonna have, and the rest of your life is gonna be more or less shit making your way through the career tube until you get old and useless??

But I also realized that this has been a great opportunity to view your life from a broader perspective and to realize what you really want. That is: not what you're supposed to want.

One thing... I'm not always devastated, I usually have a good time. But for some reason I write this blog always when I'm feeling bad or something. I guess it's like therapy.

But anyway, it's sad to leave. It would be so much easier, if the cashier in a close by food mart and the coffee girl in our usual coffee place wouldn't start to cry when you told them you're leaving.

For some reason I always try as hard as I can not to cry in public.

Last night we went to a norebang.

For the last time...

But heads up now, girl! You're going to go backpacking in Southeast Asia for a month! It's gonna be great!

Now I have half an hour until my alarm. The birds are singing and it's getting lighter outside. I'm looking at the neighbour's brick wall for the last time.

...

In the summary. Career tube: fuck you. Southeast Asia: here we come! (with Raita and Ho Yiu)

Rollercoaster

It's one week until I leave Korea.

Because of that and some other things going on in my life at the moment, my feelings are on a rollercoaster.

And at the same time I'm panicing because I feel like I haven't done, felt or experienced enough. I feel like I have too much to do and because of that I can't do anything. I'm just paralyzed.

I know, that I shouldn't let the stuff just hang and stress me. On Friday I'm gonna be done with exams. I hope I can stop stressing and just relax then. Because that's how I wanna spend my last times here: just relaxing and doing what I like the best.

I am positively surprised how my mind has already gotten quite ready for leaving though. My love story with Korea has come to a point where we have to go our own seperate ways. We have had some great, great times, but I know I gotta let go. It's no good feeling bad, you have to move on.

Mari jokes about when it's time to leave. When you start to like kimchi and when Korean men start to look gorgeous, it's time to leave Korea. :)

Today we ate dog. Koreans do that. And it's not pet dog that youre eating. Anyway we wanted to try that out and ordered some dishes of dog meat. It tasted like any other meat. It was just the uneasy atmosphere while eating that made it different.

But on the way to the restaurant we saw an odd thing. You know, I've written about demonstrations. But this was quite a one.

The demonstators were disabled people. That was not odd. What was odd was when the demonstration broke out to be violent.

Here you can see a shield of riot police (which was totally rediculous). And demonstrators trying to brake the wall. Imagine the situation: disabled people in their wheelchairs with motors trying to drive and push the wall of riot police. Dzzzzt, dzzzzt, as they drove their wheelchairs 2 km/h to the shield. I don't wanna make fun on anyone, but you have to admit that that kind of a situation is quite absurd.

There was one even fighting. He was kicking the shields.

Again bravo, Seoul. If there were no riot police provocating the demonstrators these violent incidents wouldn't happen. You could see that the demonstrators were feeling bad and just taking out their anger to the police.

In this case the police had problems too though. They couldn't use physical power against disabled people. So they couldn't really do anything. At one point some demonstrators got through the wall and all the police could do was to withdraw. Go wheelchairs! :)

Hip hop club Ggun

When I came to Korea, I wanted to get a hobby so I would have activities and something to do outside school. And in SKKU there are dozens and dozens of clubs to choose from. At first I tried out taekwondo club. It was okay, but really hard traning, which I do like, but it wasn't quite my thing. Well, later Anja asked if I wanted to go with her to a hip hop club she had found.

It was great! :) Just the fact that you have an activity where to go two times a week was really nice. But what was just awesome was that you met new people and did what I really like: dance!

Ggun.

The hip hop club is called Ggun. It consists of rappers, singers and dancers. And there are many different dancing groups: regular hip hop, locking, popping, girls' hip hop and break dance. We did regular hip hop and locking with Anja.

We danced the whole spring. And we had a performance in May. But apparently the Korean style is that you start to practise for the actual performance 2 weeks before the performance. This is true. We did just some random dance moves and small coreographies the whole spring, and 2 weeks before the performance everyone started to panic and we had practises every day. Those were very stressful times actually. I mean, we had a lot of fun in our practises, but during that time I didn't have a minute for myself. I went to school in the morning, had group meetings, more classes, and straight from those went to hip hop practise. And from that ran back to dorm to get in before the curfew. Yes, ran. And before going to bed did some school work. Because of that I didn't have much time to update my blog either...

Our locking team and late night practise.


People falling asleep...


But then came the big night! :D A concert of the whole club in our school's concert hall.

Anja watching the dress rehersal.

The atmosphere in the backstage was... I love it! You could feel the excitment in the air! People going through the performance in their heads and doing some last minute practising. And cheering before going to the stage. :)

Girls trying out their moves.

Guys doing their last minute practise.

Lockers getting dressed up.

Us in our hip hop performance outfits.

The hip hop outfits were cool, but when we saw our locking clothes for the first, okay also for the second, third,,, and probably even on the fifth time we were... shocked. Hidious. We were about to tell everyone that the performance was cancelled... But. After a while we realized that we're not ourselves on the stage, the clothes are part of the act we're doing. And when I look at this pic, I have to admit that we do look kinda cute with our pink bows. :)

Our locking team.




Our performance went well and we were so excited! After we had ran back to the backstage, we were out of breath, smiling and hugging each other. Oh, I don't want to leave Ggun!

After the performance we had dinner together. Awwaww, I'm gonna miss u! ^__^ <3

Hi Seoul Festival: Day time

The Hi Seoul festival was really cool. The theme was something like "from history to today" or something, and they had some old stuff on show. One of the exhibitions was a timeline through the last 50 years in Korea and one presented old everyday life places, and that exhibition you could take part in. There were actors interacting with the people. I got punished by a police woman for wearing too short shorts!

And as you can see, the theme color was pink.

The timeline of Korean history, aka the great things that happened to change the world:

1982 Antti was born.

1983 Mari was born.

1986 Tola was born.

1987 Greete was born.

Great events indeed...

But the intresting thing was how the years of Korean war were presented. Rainbows and flowers.


We experienced the old life with Mari.

Posing in a photoshop.

Sitting in a comic book store.

Admiring the precise work at a tailor.

Spying on a hairdresser.

Waiting for a school bus at the bus stop.

Not concentrating in the class.

But Mari was made to study by a strict teacher who hit his pointing stick to the desk. We got really scared in the beginning when we didn't realize what was going on!

And Birgit got a trimming at a barbershop.

It was a really nice day to go there. It was sunny and the weather was warm. Also the actors were all enthusiastic in the beginning of the festival. We walked by also on the last day of the festival, and the actors seemed quite tired... :)

Children playing in Cheonggyecheon.

Hi Seoul Festival: Night time

In Seoul they organize an annual ’Hi Seoul’ festival to promote the city (you might have heard the slogan: Hi Seoul, Soul of Asia). The festival was awesome, I mean there was really a lot going on in the city center during that week. There were music, dance, actors, art, food and so on and so on.

The festival started with an opening event in front of the city hall in the evening. The square in front of city hall is a common place to arrange events, or demonstrations. Basically stuff where lots of people gather together.

We wanted to go to see the event, but it definitely wasn’t easy to get there. Since the event was on a date that was a one-year anniversary for the major demonstrations against imported beef from USA, the police had sealed a huge part of the city center off. There were riot police everywhere. It was just ridiculous, don’t they get that they cause more bad than good by having thousands of riot police around. You could just sense the surrounding unease and alertness among the regular people walking on the street when a squad starts quickly moving to another place.

I could sort of compare the atmosphere to what caged animals feel when they are transported to the place they’re put to death. I'm talking about the not knowing what’s going on. We were surrounded by riot police that was on the move. You know something is going on but have no idea about what’s gonna happen next. Someone told us that you can’t get through there, another one said that the event is cancelled because of demonstrations. The rumors spread like wind.


Some riot police.

A word to the police: don’t create fear on the streets, especially when there is no need for actions in that scale. When the crowds are alert and in unease, violent incidents are much more likely to erupt.

Well, we walked a few blocks to the side and around the police, and got to the event. It was so ridiculous again… The event was for promoting Seoul, but because of the damn police shields it was almost insuperably difficult to even get to the area. Hello, is the kind of picture you want to give about Seoul? Police blocking all the ways even though there is no aggression to be seen anywhere.

In the other hand maybe the police blocked the ways to save people from the horrible show that they had in the event. It was this song playing over and over and over again and these people dancing to it on the stage. I don’t know who it was for…

The city hall plaza.

The show. Notice the semonstrators' flags.

Actually right after this video the demonstrators with the flags made their way to one of the stages and overtook it. In a second all the lights and music (oh thank god…) were off. We wanted to be part of the excitement and went to see it closer. Well, in about 2 minutes the riot police came in and broke the crowd apart. At first I got scared since I hadn’t been in a situation like that before. But we weren’t their target or anything. In a while we got so comfortable with the situation that we were just hanging around…

What concerns me is that the riot police here are not real police with proper training or experience. They are 20-year-old punks doing their military service. The usual duties for them are sitting or standing in lines in the city center or where ever there might be something happening. But when it comes to real action, they are very poorly skilled in using power. The wrong usage of water cannon, or physical power generally, can sometimes have severe consequences.

When the police arrested someone, emphasis on the word one, they had like 30 people moving the arrested person. This describes the power relation in general too. A reporter told us that there were 5 000 police. That is more than the people attending the event. And many many times more than the people demonstrating.

This is a video of an arresting. I had to reduce the quality so it's pretty lousy... but all those riot police are carrying probably one demonstrator.

I wonder what is it… Why aren’t the people given a possibility to raise their voice?

I guess the officials are afraid of the power of the people. So they cut off all the expressions of dissatisfaction instantly. If the French would march and demonstrate their opinion, it would have an effect. But a year ago in Seoul millions of people stood in the city center for months holding candles in their hands making no fucking difference what so ever.

The riot police emptied the area pretty quickly. Even the people peacefully playing guitar were recklessly carried into buses. I have to admit that the squads were excellently organized though. Even after there was no soul left on the field without a uniform, they kept moving from one shape into another.

General atmosphere after the actual action. Police moving around, surrounding us, whatever...

At one point a squad with only women in it came. We were talking to a reporter at that time so she explained us about that. Men in the riot police are only allowed to capture men. And if there is a woman that needs to be captured, it must be done by a woman. The women in the “girl squad” didn’t have helmets or any other sort of armor though. Instead they had pretty buns in their hair. You know that makes perfect sense. Female riot police are there just to capture women. And as we all know, girls don’t fight back. Why would they even need any armors…

But a few words about the demonstrations in Korea generally. It seems to be part of Korean mentality to oppose and demonstrate. Most demonstrations are poorly organized without a clear message. People feel bad and just whine about stuff. I think one reason for this is that they don’t have a channel to get their message through. And if there’s no way to be heard they just stop trying to do it sensibly.

Buddha's Birthday

Last Saturday it was Buddha's Birthday which is one of the biggest holidays here in Korea. Well.. it wasn't that big... But there sure were a lot of lanterns! I guess the holiday is more for the Buddhists to celebrate.

Lanterns.

Lanterns.

Temple.

It was really nice at the temple we went to. The decorations and music were beautiful, and there was a peaceful atmosphere. There was just one thing, worshiping a statue, that felt a bit odd for me grown up in a Christian environment. *In the Woljeongsa monastery I was told that it's not worshiping, it's respecting.*

Buddhist women.

Birthday guests.

Also Buddha has basic needs. :)

Lanterns above Cheonggyecheong.

MayDay / Vappu / Valborg!

Since to the Finns and Sweeds here celebrating MayDay / Vappu / Valborg aka labor day is an important part of spring we decided to have our own vappu party here in Seoul!

There were no "munkkis" here so we had Krispy Kreme donuts.

However we did find sparkling wine from a local food market.


But again there was no "serpentiini" here so we improvised and bought party poppers that shooted this shiny strip.

We played games such as the ghost game (where people scream all the time), shooting game (also including variable sound effects) and spraying sparkling wine all over the place. We probably scared some of the locals on their evening stroll.

They were trying to have a romantic evening which we probably ruined...

One of the most interestind points of the evening was when we played truth of dare. People truly dared to ask questions everyone's been thinking about but no one dared to ask. And no one was saved, especially not Ville who was bombed with questions. Sorry!


After the sunset it was time for a ritual that had been waiting for its execution since last Christmas. That was burning Tola's Christmas Goat.




We played the hugging game "where everybody wins" ;) and trusting games (=crowd surfing) which somehow every time ended up a human pile with Tola at the bottom.

Poor Tola once again crushed...

Anyway, our MayDay / Vappu / Valborg night was great!

The next day which was the actual May 1st we took it easier... We went to a really, really cool Jazz bar with totally awesome decorations. The place looked like it had been put together of small metal and wooden objects.






After that we went to a cool norebang with neon lights and sung songs like 'Umbrella', 'A whole new world' and 'Mamma mia' :)