Welcome to Gimhae

hej all and sundry. Life is great in Gimhae. I have started work in earnest now. I have my own desk and computer with high-speed internet and c.d. burner, and best of all I have a lot of time to study, as my university course has also started in earnest. Tomorrow I have 3x40 minute lessons and a staff game of volleyball. That is my entire schedule for Wednesdays. I have absolutely nothing amusing to say at all. Sorry about that.

Unfortunately Parky has been a little unwell and spent last Friday until Sunday in the hospital, but she’s good now, possibly better than she has been for 12 months. Everybody is happy and there isn’t anything amusing there either. The new motorcycle is going like a trooper. I’m loving driving around South Gyeongsang. I left Parky at the hospital Sunday morning and rang her just over an hour later to check up on how she was doing and I was just as surprised as she was to learn that I was nearly in North Gyeongsang. If it goes any harder I might have to trade it in for one of these.

The music teacher at our school gave me 2 tickets to a concert of a traditional Corean musical instrument today. It is called “ga-ya-gum”. It is both a 12 or 25 string traditional guitar-like-thingy. It looks more like an Indian zither. I have an example of it here on the blog, but if you would like a much better version click on the link that i will place over on the right with the other links and choose either 56k or 200k depending on what you have available to you.

I must say that I really enjoyed the performance this evening. I am not being facetious, it was very enjoyable. There were six songs in all, a Mozart piece, a tango number, a traditional Corean number with 25 Ga-ya-geum players alongside a big bamboo flute and Corean bongo drum (that is in the photo, it was nothing short of excellent, to be sure) as well as a version of AHA’s ‘take on me’ (also a gas) one other something-or-other and the finale, which was meant to be the highlight of the evening. Corea’s most celebrated Ga-ya-geum player, flown in from Seoul just for the performance. She only played for about 15 minutes, thank god. She looked like a Corean Amanda Vanstone. She played the ga-ya-geum like Amanda Vanstone with Parkinson’s Disease. I don’t mean to be stupid here, actually there is no way to justify that statement and not appearing stupid without playing you the video. Here it is.


I must also say that this bike gave me a good old fashioned giggle. Who chooses the names for these Corean made products. I love it and I want one.