Seollal Swing with Chris in South Korea

The Seollal long Weekend is coming up, and it's also the second Saturday of February. Some of you may already have plans, and some of you may really, seriously have nothing to do. If that's the case for you (especially because traveling is so hard on holiday weekends), you might be stranded in Seoul with no one to hang out with.

Well, fret no more: 2S2 has the event for you.

Here's the plan:

We'll get started around 11:45am - I'll meet people at the top of Sinsa station, line 3, exit 8. From there we'll walk down to the dancing place. If you want to get there on your own, the directions are below.

So what are we doing? The plan is to get together around noon for an absolute beginners swing dance lesson, taught by two English-speaking teachers with years of experience. If you've never tried swing dancing before, this will be the class to take - it assumes no previous dance experience or knowledge. Bring your boyfriend, your girlfriend, or someone you like - coming by yourself is fine as well.

From there, we'll head up to the Twosome Place, hang out for a cup of coffee / tea / sa-ee-deo, and socialize with all the cool people.

Before long, we'll head out to an ice carving place, where we'll go through an ice gallery / museum, then try our own hands at carving something out of ice ourselves.

After some dinner, we'll be off to move our feet at the same place we had our lesson - since we'll get there early we'll have the floor to learn a few more moves. Depending on how the night goes we might end with a nightcap, but we'll play that by ear.

Come on out! If you have any questions, e-mail me at chrisinsouthkorea AT gmail DOT com :)

Directions to the Swing Bar:
Take line 3 of the Seoul subway system to the Sinsa station. Take exit 8 to street level, then walk straight to the J Tower - about 200 meters ahead. Take the first left after J Tower, then the 1st right to walk along a side street. Look for 'The Swing' sign and a restaurant with an outdoor awning - take the stairs down just before the awning. The basement is 'The Swing'.

See you there, readers!

Hands for Haiti: another fundraiser

From the facebook page:

Hands for Haiti is another fundraiser for Haiti relief.


Friday, 12 February 2010 at 21:30

Location:
FF, DGBD & Jane's Groove in Hongdae

Let's show the people of Haiti that even here in Korea, there are people who care!

On Friday, February 12, PLUR and Green Drinks Seoul brings you Hands for Haiti, a benefit concert at 3 of the best live music venues in Hongdae!

10,000W cover will get you entrance into FF, Jane's Groove and DGBD in Hongdae. 100% of the cover charge will go to Save the Children's fund for Haiti relief. Jane's Groove, DGBD & FF have also generously offered to donate a portion of every drink sold!

HOW TO DONATE
If you can't come out but still want to donate, here are the bank account numbers for Save the Children's Haiti Relief Fund. Please note that the account names will be displayed in Korean, not English.

Hana Bank
Account number: 569-910001-21804
Account name: 세이브더칠드런 (Save the Children)

Haiti Benefits in Seoul

Here's a way to help the Haiti disaster victims, here in Seoul.

Seoul2Haiti is an event organized by expat musicians to raise funds for the Haiti earthquake. 15,000 Won gets you 5 great bands and a free drink, with 100% of your entrance fee going directly to Haiti relief. This event will be broadcast on Toronto Indie Music radio station, www.indielove.ca.

It starts at 9 on February the 5th.

Facebook page here

text stolen from the facebook page; you can also read the comments at Dave's.

Once all the donations are in, a cheque will be presented to the Canadian Ambassador in Seoul during a formal ceremony at the embassy.

Also, on Thursday the 4th, Tomatillo is donating an amazing ONE HUNDRED PERCENT of all profits to Haiti Relief. Seoul Eats has more information, and they're planning a Seoul Eats Meetup there, on that day. Come hungry, and give extra.

On February 14th, Hope For Haiti is happening in Itaewon. You can read about that one on its facebook page, too.

If you know of other events that I should be promoting, send me an e-mail at roboseyo at gmail dot com, and I'll put them up here, too.

Here is the band line-up for the Rocky Mountain Tavern Fund-raiser.

The line-up is: LASSE LINDH, WE NEED SURGERY, SOLITAIRE LOVE AFFAIR, and ROAD POP, along with Special Guests.

LASSE LINDH is a a self-professed songwriteaholic, major indie star in Sweden for many years, and has also released 3 albums in the US and other countries. But something happened in 2006: his song "C'mon Through" became a massive hit here in Korea when it was made the theme song for OST drama series "Soulmate".

Since then, he's been doing 1 show here every year and released 3 albums - the latest one in April of 2009. Last month he moved to Seoul to make an even bigger impact and work on his forthcoming album. He left his band home in the cold, though...

WE NEED SURGERY is an expat band formed in Seoul, Korea in 2007 with members from Canada and the United States. They have been playing regularly since, gaining attention from the Korean music industry and Seoul indie rock scene due to their thirst for live performance. They are currently finishing their debut album. Following its release, the band plans to relocate to Vancouver, Canada later in the year. The 'wNs' sound is of its own breed: dance, rock, electro and punk. 'wNs' will move you, whether you like it or not.

SOLITAIRE LOVE AFFAIR - the torrid love child of the ex-bands Saint John the Gambler and The Bellows, reinforced from the world beyond Seoul, fueled by one man's forgotten love for a Bond girl of yesteryear and held together with booze and cigarettes. Locked, loaded, and ready to rock.

“Sounds like trucks falling into a canyon filled with Christmas hams, fine china, and cutlery - if Tarantino directed Bladerunner, Solitaire Love Affair would be the soundtrack.”

ROAD POP - Though working separately on music projects from places as far-flung as Canada, Taiwan, Australia, and South Korea, these two long-time friends and writing partners have always managed to find time to write and perform together. Melding influences from the blues-rock of the 60s, hard rock of the 70s, retro sounds of the 80s, and alt-rock of the 90s, a set of their originals is truly eclectic.

Making Seoul their base for now, they will be entering the studio soon, and look forward to hitting a stage near you.

For those of you overseas, an account will be set up in Canada so you can donate. Please tune into the broadcast on indielove (broadcast time TBA).

Program REACH, Suwon, wants You to Help Out

I got a letter from a fella who's organizing a volunteering program for expats in Suwon.

Program REACH meets in Suwon to volunteer at an orphanage there.

Here's their website.

and here's an explanation of the program's goals:

This program aims not only to teach conversational English but also to teach mentoring to the students. This program motivates and urges the high school students to assist the lower elementary students in academics. The program creates a sense of responsibility and community work among the high school students.

This program is all about giving something back to the community. We, the expatriates, are the part of Korean community and we want to help the community in every feasible way. The high school students are the part of Korean community and they will help the community by assisting the elementary school students. The cycle goes on. Expatriates, elementary school students, middle school students and high school students, all are involved in this program.

If you live in, or anywhere near Suwon, I strongly encourage you to get involved; you can contact Mr. Joshi at programmereach@gmail.com so... go do that.

2S2 Seoul + Seoul Eats Meetup

In 2S2 Seoul, we had a great time on Saturday. Seoul Eats teamed up with 2S2 for a tag-team day. The Seoul Eats meetup started at noon, and they had dumpling soup: an appropriately new-years-y dish for the first Seoul Eats meetup of the new year. You can read about it here. They also had hotddeok, an amazing winter treat, which I swear I've written about before, but I can't find it back, so you'll have to watch Dan's video, linked above.

Funny thing about this 2S2: after planning it, my boss came to me and asked me to do level testing on Saturday morning, so I couldn't attend the first leg of my own event.

Fair enough: hence the links to Dan's write-up of the dumpling place; however, I WAS there for the book exchange. There are some pictures of that.

A few ajosshis came... just to round out the demographics...


And the lovely and wildly hilarious Jolene came: she was at the Christmas party, too, and I hope she comes to more of these things. Also pictured is Yvonne, whose face actually looks like that: it's not just the camera. Her whole family has blurry faces. I saw pictures.


By the end of the meet&greet&book esxchange, these ladies had just about mastered Gostop.


and Josephine brought an epic book haul: look at all those! Everybody found something in the book exchange.


We left the Twosome Place and headed out, ending up having tea at a sweet little tea room near the other end of Anguk Station.

Sanghwacha, I believe, is the name of this one.


I like the raspberry tea

Wonju Works It

The first meeting for 2S2Wonju was a hit! It was fun, it was adventurous (pushing yourself across hard and frozen surfaces with small monsters called children speeding past you definitely counts as adventure), and it was delicious. We met at a coffee shop, went ice skating, and then warmed up at another coffee shop. I met wonderful people and had thoughtful conversations. There was also a lot of laughing. An extra thanks to Darren, who suggested we follow Rob's lead in the first place. If you want all the lovely details, you can read about our first gathering over at Wonju Wife. If you're in the neighborhood, or heck, if you feel like a day trip to Wonju, come on down and get in on the fun! There really are lovely people everywhere waiting to be wrangled into 2S2. So get busy and get wrangling!

2S2 Wonju Style

Hello everybody! Wonju Wife here. My friend and coworker Darren sent me an inspired email about how we should start a 2S2 Community here in Wonju. And so, we did! If you're in Wonju, or even in Gangwondo, (okay, heck, if you're in Korea and feel like a trip to Wonju), why don't you join us for our first ever meet up? I couldn't think of any reasons not to, either! So, here are the details.

And a map!

And if you're not really down with whole hand-drawn-with-love thing, here's a boring Google map for you.


View Larger Map


Hope to see you there!