Tag Archives: Downtown

Madama Butterfly

Adventures, Arts, Daegu, , ,

Life lesson number # (many): Do not wear mascara when going to watch a great tragic opera. Yes, I cried. Even though I knew what was going to happen. It was beautiful.

Someone asked me last night how I understand the opera if it’s in Italian. I definitely don’t speak Italian and the sub-titles at the Daegu Opera House are in Korean, so not particularly helpful to me. What I do is to make sure that I know the story beforehand, so that I can follow what is happening. This works well. In fact, it’s great because I am able to lose myself totally in the music and singing without struggling to follow the story in two foreign languages. As an added benefit, I am slowly becoming properly familiar with the stories of all sorts of operas and ballets (because the ballet synopses are also in Korean), which is never a bad thing.

Last night’s opera was a special performance for the 25th anniversary of the Yeongnam Opera Company. This meant that it was a fairly elaborate production, which is always a bonus. The opera itself is fairly complicated anyway. Sufficiently complicated that Puccini rewrote it 4 times (there are 5 versions) before he got it right. It can’t have been easy to turn the story of an American Naval officer and a Japanese geisha into an Italian opera. Apparently he succeeded because Madama Butterfly is now one of the most-performed operas in the US.

I nearly didn’t get to there last night. There had been plans afoot to take in a musical instead and then I dawdled while getting ready so I was running late. Of course, this point – when I was already running late – would be when I landed a bus-driver who was careful and steady and slow, rather than the insane speed-freaks who could be Joburg taxi drivers and normally drive my buses. I got to the Opera house with 10 minutes to spare, in the end. I have also now established that it takes 1 hour to get from myfront door to the Opera House in Saturday evening traffic. Ticket in hand (30 000 won), I headed up to my seat on the 3rd floor balcony. The balcony seat was a mistake. Not that balcony seats are generally a bad thing but I was in a side-balcony seat, so it was a little difficult to see the whole stage. I still enjoyed myself, though.

I was impressed, the last time I went to an Opera by the set. This one was also impressive. The best description is that it was relatively simple and completely functional but managed to evoke a Japanese scene with ease and elegance. It wasn’t unnecesarily cluttered, which always annoys me in a set, but it wasn’t small either – using the entire stage. The lighting was also, again, excellent. Both the design and execution were spot-on to evoke emotions and create atmosphere in support of the music.

The most important contribution to verisimilitude, however, was from the performers. There were lots of super performances. Cio-Cio San (Madama Butterfly) was excellent and Sharpless’s rich, velvety, chocolatey baritone was gorgeous.

The star of the show for me, though, was Kim Jeong Hwa (I think) singing the part of Suzuki. Her voice was stunning and she paired with excellent characterisation. She was entirely believable in her gestures and mannerisms as Madama Butterfly’s maid and she also paid particular attention to little things. Like shoes. She meticulously took off and straightened her shoes every time she moved from the ‘outdoor’ area of the set into the house. She never once missed it and it did so much to create the separation between the spaces, which were not divided by any sort of physical wall. Her emotions were also believable. The role of Suzuki involves a lot of anguished moments and a fair bit of cowering and crying and she pulled it off.

A particularly entertaining role was that of Goro, the matchmaker. The performer singing this part had a wonderfully light touch and really pulled off the greasy, sleazy pimp-persona and added touches of humour and entertainment at exactly the right moments.

The other small part that was an absolute crowd-pleaser was the monk/priest. In the story, Cio-Cio San’s uncle, a Buddhist priest, storms into the wedding party of Butterfly and Pinkerton (the US Navy officer) and curses her for abandoning her ancestral gods to covert to her new husband’s religion. This issue is particularly relevant in Korea so it’s not surprising that the small part was given quite a lot of prominence and the priest was fierce and very good.

I was less impressed with Pinkerton, not because of his singing; his voice was gorgeous but someone needs to teach him a little acting to go with it. Also, I struggled to get past the awful orange-blond hair on a Korean. It wasn’t sufficiently problematic to detract from the experience though and, as I said, his voice was gorgeous.

Another thing about this show I particularly enjoyed was the chorus. This included a large number of people, including children. In the first Act, a group of women entered dressed as geishas but each with an outfit that was white or cream at the top and fading into colour at the bottom, in pinks and sea-greens and oranges, each also carrying a parasols in the same colour. Such beautiful little tableaux with their parasols and fans as part of the wedding scene!

One of the advantages of sitting on the 3rd floor balcony is that you have a perfect view of the orchestra. I love watching orchestras. The intricate dance of movement and timing is fascinating. I particularly enjoyed both watching and listening to this one, the Daegu Opera Festival Orchestra conducted by Andrea Cappelleri. It made me happy. I also had a delightful view of the percussion section. There were three people playing percussion with a wide range of sizes and types of instruments, from triangles and all sizes and shapes of drums to a bird-whistle for the early morning scene in the final act.

Of course, many moments from the show are worth remembering. The Opera started at 7:30pm and only ended at 10pm, so it was quite a long performance. My two favourite moments were towards the end. Act II ends with Cio-Cio San, Suzuki and Dolore (Cio-Cio San’s child) keeping vigil in the house, now strewn with flowers, as they wait for Pinkerton to arrive. As the orchestra kept the vigil musically through the long night, the stage filled with members of the chorus, each with a single light, like a candle, dressed in white and creating such a stunning impression of a long, candle-light vigil. The second moment that sticks with me, partly because it was the moment of tragedy and partly because it was so sumptuously visual, was the final scene: Cio-Cio San’s body on the floor, surrounded by red and purple flower petals and with more petals falling from the sky and the stage awash in red light fading from the spot-light on her body, with Pinkerton calling for Butterfly in the distance.

I’m not sure it’ll become my favourite opera, but I am so glad I saw it and particularly that I saw it in Asia, where some of the themes of the opera are relevant in everyday life and aspects of culture like not wearing shoes inside and bowing in greeting are easy and normal for the performers, making the show just that little bit more authentic and moving.

After the Opera, I headed downtown to have something to eat before meeting up with friends. I was wandering the streets, searching for somewhere that looked good, when I came across a place called Gom’s something or other – possibly Gom’s Workshop. I’ve never noticed it before, which may mean it only opened recently – places downtown are always opening and closing – or may mean that I just haven’t noticed it before. Now that I know about it, I’ll be going back. Picture an industrial-style space with unpainted walls and bare cement floor, but all the piping painted in bright primary colours. The tables and chairs are all different. Every single one. Some are office chairs, some wicker patio furniture, some director’s chairs. In one corner, there is a mural on the wall – a tottering tower of tea-cups, painted in a sketch-like style directly onto the unfinished surface. The wall behind where I was sitting had shelves with a collection of old things – an old type-writer, some radios, an old telephone, a sewing machine.

It felt like the kind of place where I could sit and drink coffee and read a book for ages. Or write. The tag-line of the place seems to be ‘Walk Slowly. Eat Slowly. Think Slowly.’ I had a basic pizza, which was good. They also seem to be quite excited about their draft beer, which they serve with either lemon or lime – properly differentiated and even differently priced. I tried it. It was actually pretty good. It’s the first time I’ve found a place downtown that I can see myself visiting regularly and on my own. A good find for randomly wandering down the street at 10:30 at night on the way home from the Opera.

Madama Butterfly

Life lesson number # (many): Do not wear mascara when going to watch a great tragic opera. Yes, I cried. Even though I knew what was going to happen. It was beautiful.

Someone asked me last night how I understand the opera if it’s in Italian. I definitely don’t speak Italian and the sub-titles at the Daegu Opera House are in Korean, so not particularly helpful to me. What I do is to make sure that I know the story beforehand, so that I can follow what is happening. This works well. In fact, it’s great because I am able to lose myself totally in the music and singing without struggling to follow the story in two foreign languages. As an added benefit, I am slowly becoming properly familiar with the stories of all sorts of Operas and ballets (because the ballet synopses are also in Korean), which is never a bad thing.

Last night’s opera was a special performance for the 25th anniversary of the Yeongnam Opera Company. This meant that it was a fairly elaborate production, which is always a bonus. The opera itself is fairly complicated anyway. Sufficiently complicated that Puccini rewrote it 4 times (there are 5 versions) before he got it right. It can’t have been easy to turn the story of an American Naval officer and a Japanese geisha into an Italian opera. Apparently he succeeded because this is now one of the most-performed operas.

I nearly didn’t get to there, actually. There had been plans afoot to take in a musical instead and then I dawdled while getting ready so I was running late. Of course, this point – when I was already running late – would be when I landed a bus-driver who was careful and steady and slow, rather than the insane speed-freaks (who could be Joburg taxi drivers) who normally drive my buses. I got to the Opera house with 10 minutes to spare, in the end, however. I have also now established that it takes approximately 1 hour to get from my flat to the Opera House in Saturday evening traffic. Ticket in hand (30 000 won), I headed up to my seat on the 3rd floor balcony. The balcony seat was a mistake. Not that balcony seats are generally a bad thing but I was in a side-balcony seat, so it was a little difficult to see the whole stage. I still enjoyed myself, though.

I was impressed, the last time I went to an Opera by the set. This one was also impressive. The best description is that it was relatively simple and completely functional but managed to evoke a Japanese scene with ease and elegance. It wasn’t finicky, which always annoys me in a set, but it wasn’t small either – using the entire stage. The lighting was also, again, excellent. Both the design and execution were spot-on to evoke emotions and create atmosphere in support of the music.

The most important contribution to verisimilitude, however, was from the performers. There were lots of super performances. Cio-Cio San (Madama Butterfly) was excellent and Sharpless’s rich, velvety, chocolatey baritone was gorgeous.

The star of the show for me, though Kim Jeong Hwa (I think) singing the part of Suzuki. Her voice was stunning and she paired with excellent characterisation. She was entirely believable in her gestures and mannerisms as Madama Butterfly’s maid but she also paid particular attention to little things. Like shoes. She meticulously took off and straightened her shoes every time she moved from the ‘outdoor’ area of the set into the house. She never once missed it and it did so much to create the separation between the spaces, which were not divided by any sort of physical wall. Her emotions were also believable. The role of Suzuki involves a lot of anguished moments and a fair bit of cowering and crying and she pulled it off.

A particularly entertaining role was that of Goro the matchmaker. The performer singing this part had a wonderfully light touch and really pulled off the greasy, sleazy pimp-persona and added touches of humour and entertainment at exactly the right moments.

The other small part that was an absolute crowd-pleaser was the monk/priest. In the story, Cio-Cio San’s uncle, a Buddhist priest, storms into the wedding party of Butterfly and Pinkerton (the US Navy officer) and curses her for abandoning her ancestral gods to covert to her new husband’s religion. This issue is particularly relevant in Korea so it’s not surprising that the small part was given quite a lot of prominence and the priest was fierce and very good.

I was less impressed with Pinkerton, not because of his singing; his voice was gorgeous, but someone needs to teach him a little acting to go with it. Also, I struggled to get past the awful orange-blond hair on a Korean. It wasn’t sufficiently problematic to detract from the experience, though and, as I said, his voice was gorgeous.

Another thing about this show I particularly enjoyed was the chorus. This included a large number of people, including children. In the first Act, a group of women entered dressed as geishas but each with an outfit that was white or cream at the top and fading into colour at the bottom, in pinks and sea-greens and oranges, each also carrying a parasols in the same colour. Such beautiful little tableaux with their parasols and fans as part of the wedding scene!

One of the advantages of sitting on the 3rd floor balcony is that you have a perfect view of the orchestra. I love watching orchestras. The intricate dance of movement and timing is fascinating. I particularly enjoyed both watching and listening to this one, the Daegu Opera Festival Orchestra, conducted by Andrea Cappelleri. It made me happy. I also had a delightful view of the percussion section. There were three people playing percussion with a wide range of sizes and types of instruments, from triangles and all sizes and shapes of drums to a bird-whistle for the early morning scene in the final act.

Of course, many moments from the show are worth remembering. The Opera started at 7:30pm and only ended at 10pm, so it was quite a long performance. My two favourite moments were towards the end. Act II ends with Cio-Cio San, Suzuki and Dolore (Cio-Cio San’s child) are keeping vigil in the house, now strewn with flowers, as they wait for Pinkerton to arrive. As the orchestra kept the vigil musically through the long night, the stage filled with members of the chorus, each with a single light, like a candle, dressed in white and creating such a stunning impression of a long, candle-light vigil. The second moment that sticks with me, partly because it was the moment of tragedy and partly because it was so sumptuously visual, was the final scene, with Cio-Cio San’s body on the floor, surrounded by red and purple flower petals and with more petals falling from the sky and the stage awash in red light fading from the spot on her body, with Pinkerton calling for Butterfly in the distance.

I’m not sure it’ll become my favourite opera, but I am so glad I saw it and particularly that I saw it in Asia, where some of the themes of the opera are relevant in every day life and aspects of culture like not wearing shoes inside and bowing in greeting are easy and normal for the performers, making the show just that little bit more authentic and moving.

After the Opera, I headed downtown to have something to eat before meeting up with friends. I was wandering the streets, searching for somewhere that looked good, when I came across a place called Gom’s something or other – possibly Gom’s Workshop. I’ve never noticed it before, which may mean it only opened recently – places downtown are always opening and closing – or may just mean that I haven’t noticed it. Now that I know about it, I’ll be going back. Picture an industrial-style space with unpainted walls and bare cement floor, but all the piping painted in bright primary colours. The tables and chairs are all different. Every single one. Some are office chairs, some wicker patio furniture, some director’s chairs. In one corner, there is a mural on the wall – a tottering tower of tea-cups, painted in a sketch-like style directly onto the unpainted surface. The wall behind where I was sitting had shelves with a collection of old things, like an old type-writer, some radios, an old telephone, a sewing machine.

It felt like the kind of place where I could sit and drink coffee and read a book for ages. Or write. The tag-line of the place seems to be ‘Walk Slowly. Eat Slowly. Think Slowly.’ I had a basic pizza, which was good. They also seem to be quite excited about their draft beer, which they serve with either lemon or lime – properly differentiated and even differently priced. I tried it. It was actually pretty good. It’s the first time I’ve found a place downtown that I can see myself visiting regularly and on my own. A good find for randomly wandering down the street at 10:30 at night on the way home from the Opera.

Autumn colours

Daegu, ,
All of this is still not enough, however, to detract from the glorious autumn colours that have finally set the city in a beautiful blush of reds and yellows and oranges. Yesterday, I went downtown to one of my favourite parks (Gukchae Bosang Park) to see the trees in their autumn glory. I took the bus and then the subway. In the first few months here, I didn’t notice the distance much. Because it was all different, everything felts as though it was simultaneously far away and close by. I’m starting to get more of a sense of distances and how long it actually takes to get from place to place. I’ve lived in cities before and should be used to it by now but the interludes spent in small towns have still always felt more like home, so I still find the time spent travelling frustrating. One of the reasons I prefer buses to subways is that there is something to look at while you’re travelling. They do take longer, however, so it’s always a toss-up of speed versus views. Taking the same bus-route every day also takes away some of the thrill of the views. I now know that it takes at least half an hour for me to get from my area to downtown.
When I reached downtown yesterday, I wandered up the usual road towards the park. One of the things I always find fascinating is how so many people can walk around a city and not notice things. I am always so aware of the places I’m walking past. On this particular road, which I walk down fairly regularly these days, I always notice the new wedding dresses displayed in the windows of the multitude of wedding shops. Sometimes there are pretty dresses but most of them are startlingly over the top. Perhaps it’s just that the ones they display in the windows are their most elaborate but they tend to be rather overloaded with beads and lace and sparkling crystals. I always find myself wondering how they’d actually look on a real, live Korean bride. I’m not one of those women who spends all her time thinking about weddings, but I do love how pretty brides so often look in their wedding finery. I have a feeling that these dresses would not be exactly what I think of as stunningly beautiful. Just another confirmation, I suppose, that concepts of beauty are culturally defined.
The natural beauty of trees in autumn I think of as universal but perhaps that also has culturally contextual meanings for other people. For me, the colours are stunning. I’ve watched many autumns in my life. I haven’t generally lived in places with quite this many trees that lose their leaves in winter, however. Even in Johannesburg, which proports to be the world’s largest man-made forests, the trees don’t all change at the same time. I also don’t remember them being quite as many spectacularly different colours. The trees and bushes in the park seemed each to have chosen a different shade of red or orange or yellow – from pale green-yellow to bright, bright orange and deep, rusty red. Like girls dressed for a dance, each in her own beautiful colour and style. One of the things that makes it particularly beautiful is the way these different colours are scattered – so that you almost never see two trees side-by-side with the same autumn foliage. A row of trees will be a blaze of red, then green, then orange, then yellow.
As I walked through the park taking picture after picture to try and catch the pretty colours, I heard a bell ringing. I noticed this little bell the last time I was here but didn’t pay all that much attention. Right near the Sotdae, there is a bell that rings when the wind blows through the park. I’m not sure the exact significance of the bell is, but knowing that the Sotdae are traditionally guardians of an area and that bells or wind-chimes often have the same purpose, I wondered if it was linked. It was a beautiful round sound carried on the wind, which was gusting around and about the park yesterday, carrying colourful leaves into corners and across the grass. The bell and the Sotdae stood stark against the deep, blue, cold sky and the flaming colours of the trees.
On the other side of the park, there is a paved area next to the great bell, an area that is used by teenagers for roller-blading and skateboarding and BMX-ing (there is a ramp and everything). This open area is at the corner edge of the park, where it meets the intersection of two large roads. On the park-side stands the great-bell in it’s Joseon-style structure on the edge of grassy areas, with various paths leading through the grass and trees. On the other side of the open area, trees stand along two sides of the triangle, dividing the park from the road. Next two these trees are pots of yellow and red and purple flowers (including huge, bright marigolds). It was an explosion of warm colours and rare sunshine on a chilly autumn day. I tried to take pictures of it all but I don’t think I managed to capture it.
After the glorious colours of the park (and pavements as those trees slowly change their green for oranges and reds, too), I wandered through the downtown area. I don’t spend much time downtown during the day but sometimes it’s good to walk around. I always think of downtown as primarily a night-life-entertainment area so it’s sometimes easy to forget that it is actually a major shopping area too. In the evenings, although some shops are open, the major features of pubs and clubs and restaurants. During the day, the shops spill onto the streets, with displays of shoes and racks of clothes on sale and little stalls selling sunglasses and watches and jewellery. People wander along and pop into shops, looking at things and trying to find good deals. I walked around and looked at things. One of the things I was looking for was a pair of gloves because the weather really is getting colder and I am going to need them fairly soon. I didn’t manage to find any gloves but I did stop outside a tiny shop selling scarves. They didn’t appear to be selling anything but scarves, which is a little odd, but they had a wide range of beautiful, thick, warm scarves in all the colours you can imagine. I found myself struggling to pick just one from the lovely selection of warmth and prettiness. Eventually, I settled on a caramel-coloured woollen scarf – a wide scarf that is long enough to keep me properly warm this winter.
And then it was time to go to work so I walked back to the subway station and caught the next train back to Manchon and an evening of teaching.

Everyone who moves to a new place goes through different stages in the process of adjusting. Even though this move is temporary (probably only 1 year) it’s permanent enough to make it a move rather than just travel. This means that I, like everyone else, will be subject to the various effects and adjustment stages of immigration. At the moment, and which I’m told is completely normal, I’m far from enamoured with my current home-city. I’m fully aware that it’s all part of the process, but that doesn’t stop it making me moody and irritable. It doesn’t help, either, that it’s autumn and already cold enough for me to be shivering in my limited winter wardrobe. And that I have the beginnings of a cold.

All of this is still not enough, however, to detract from the glorious autumn colours that have finally set the city alight in a beautiful blush of reds and yellows and oranges. Yesterday, I went downtown to one of my favourite parks (Gukchae Bosang Park) to see the trees in their autumn glory. I took the bus and then the subway. In the first few months here, I didn’t notice the distance much. Because it was all different and strange, everything felts as though it was simultaneously far away and close by. I’m starting to get more of a sense of distances and how long it actually takes to get from place to place. I’ve lived in cities before and should be used to it by now but the interludes spent in small towns have always felt more like home, so I still find the time spent travelling a little frustrating. One of the reasons I prefer buses to subways is that there is something to look at while you’re travelling. They do take longer, however, so it’s always a toss-up between speed and views. Taking the same bus-route every day also takes away some of the thrill of the views. I now know that it takes at least half an hour for me to get from my area to downtown by bus and subway or longer just by bus.

When I reached downtown yesterday, I wandered up the usual road towards the park. One of the things I always find fascinating is how so many people in the world can walk along and not notice things around them. I am always so aware of the places I’m walking past. On this particular road, which I walk down fairly regularly these days, I always notice the new wedding dresses displayed in the windows of the multitude of wedding shops. Sometimes there are pretty dresses but most of them are startlingly over the top. Perhaps it’s just that the ones they display in the windows are their most elaborate but they tend to be rather large, full dresses, overloaded with beads and lace and sparkling crystals. I always find myself wondering how they’d actually look on real, live Korean brides. I’m not one of those women who spends all her time thinking about weddings, but I do love how pretty brides can look in their wedding finery. I have a feeling that these dresses would not be exactly what I think of as stunningly beautiful. Just another confirmation, I suppose, that concepts of beauty are culturally defined.

The natural beauty of trees in autumn I think of as universal but perhaps that also has cultural context for other people. For me, the colours are stunning. I’ve watched many autumns in my life. I haven’t generally lived in places with quite this many trees that lose their leaves in winter, however. Even in Johannesburg, which proports to be the world’s largest man-made forests, the trees don’t all change at the same time. I also don’t remember them being quite as many spectacularly different colours. The trees and bushes in the park seemed each to have chosen a different shade of red or orange or yellow – from pale green-yellow to bright, bright orange and deep, rusty red. Like girls dressed for a matric dance, each in her own beautiful colour and style. One of the things that makes it particularly beautiful here is the way these different colours are scattered – so that you almost never see two trees side-by-side with the same autumn foliage. A row of trees will be a blaze of red, then green, then orange, then yellow.

As I walked through the park taking picture after picture to try and catch the pretty colours, I heard a bell ringing. I noticed the sound the last time I was here but didn’t pay all that much attention. Right near the Sotdae, there is a bell that rings when the wind blows through the park. I’m not sure the exact significance of the bell is, but knowing that the Sotdae are traditionally guardians of an area and that bells or wind-chimes often have the same purpose, I wondered if it is linked. This bell rang with a beautiful round sound carried on the wind, which was gusting around and about the park yesterday, carrying colourful leaves into corners and across the grass. The bell and the Sotdae stood stark against the deep, blue, cold sky and the flaming colours of the trees.

On the other side of the park, there is a paved area next to the great bell, an area that is used by teenagers for roller-blading and skateboarding and BMX-ing (there is a ramp and everything). This open area is at the corner edge of the park, where it meets the intersection of two large roads. On the park-side stands the great-bell in it’s Joseon-style structure on the edge of  trees and grassy areas, with various paths leading through the trees. On the other side of the open area, trees stand along two sides of the triangle, dividing the park from the road. Next to these trees are pots of yellow and red and purple flowers (including huge, bright marigolds). It was an explosion of warm colours and rare sunshine on a chilly autumn day. I tried to take pictures of it all but I don’t think I managed to capture it.

After the glorious colours of the park (and pavements as those trees slowly change their green for oranges and reds, too), I wandered through the downtown area. I don’t spend much time downtown during the day so I always think of it as primarily a night-life-entertainment area. It’s easy to forget that it is actually a major shopping area too. In the evenings, although some shops are open, the major features of pubs and clubs and restaurants – complete with neon lights, loud music and bubbles (yes, one of the places has a bubble-machine that floats masses of bubbled down into the crowded streets). During the day, the shops spill onto the sidewalks and streets, with displays of shoes and racks of clothes and little stalls selling sunglasses and watches and jewellery. People wander along and pop into shops, looking at curiosities and trying to find good deals. I walked around and looked at things for a while. One of the things I was looking for was a pair of gloves because the weather really is getting colder and I am going to need them fairly soon. I didn’t manage to find any gloves but I did stop outside a tiny shop selling scarves. They didn’t appear to be selling anything but scarves, which is a little odd, but they had a wide range of beautiful, thick, warm scarves in all the colours you can imagine. I found myself struggling to pick just one from the lovely selection of warmth and prettiness. Eventually, I settled on a caramel-coloured woollen scarf – a wide scarf that is also long enough to keep me properly warm this winter.

And then it was time to go to work so I walked back to the subway station and caught the next train back to Manchon and an evening of teaching.

Nightlife in Daegu

Daegu, Food, ,
A friend pointed out the other day that I haven’t talked very much about Daegu nightlife on this blog. This is partly because I’m not all that active a part of the nightlife scene but it’s not really fair to a city which has plenty going on, particularly over weekends.
In fact, many people apparently also go out during the week, although after our experience of trying to find somewhere to have dinner on Tuesday night, I’m not sure where they go. I had arranged to have dinner with a friend after work, so we met at the Samdeok Fire Station taxi drop-off point as usual. It was a chilly evening and downtown was strangely empty. I’m used to the area throbbing with crowds and noise on Fridays and Saturdays, so it was odd to see the alleys dark and the streets almost deserted. At one point, on our way to try and find a Mexican place we’d been told about, we walked past a waiter (he was wearing an apron) and a friend playing badminton in the street outside an almost deserted coffee shop – one of the few with lights still on. We contemplated stopping there but it looked more coffee shop than restaurant and we were hungry, so we went on to The Holy Grill. I’ve seen ads for the Holy Grill all over since I got here. It’s run by foreigners and serves ‘comfort food’ (according to the menu). Until this week, I hadn’t actually eaten there. The place is divided into two levels – a second-floor restaurant and a third-floor sports bar (with snack menu). It sounds like this (the two levels) is a fairly recent development. The menu definitely a wide range of what many Westerners would consider comfort food – from Burgers and Steak-rolls (Philly Cheese Steak for the Americans) to a Tex-Mex section and even good old Macaroni and Cheese. In retrospect, I probably should have had the Mac and Cheese. I ordered a burger and it wasn’t bad but I wasn’t overly impressed. I suppose I assumed it would aim to taste like a burger back home, forgetting that what is normal for me is probably not normal for the Americans who are the biggest customer group of this venue. My friend had something Mexican (a burrito?) which she seemed to enjoy, although they didn’t have guacamole, which is a disappointment if you’re going to be a place that serves Mexican food. Not a bad place to go if you’re looking for specific things but I don’t think I’ll be spending all my evenings there.
Oddly, the entrance to the Holy Grill is right next to the spot where many evenings downtown start: Gogo Vinyl. I like cocktails. Living in and later visiting Joburg with friends who are significantly more sophisticated and trendy than me, I was introduced to the wonderful world of cocktails at places like Bar Six in Melville and became quite fond of them. One of the things I secretly love about cocktails is that they’re so sophisticated in their elegant glasses with garnish and, because I am a fan of margaritas in particular, things like salt around the glass. Gogo Vinyl goes in for a whole different style of cocktail. This, along with Viniroo just down the road, is where you get ‘bag-drinks’. Bag-drinks are cocktails over ice in a ziplock-type plastic bag, with a straw. They’re also, from these particular places, cocktails with a ‘alcohol-to-taste’ twist – all at no extra cost. Gogo Vinyl has apparently now opened a proper bar a few doors down but the original Gogo, apart from a tiny number of seats inside, is really a tuck-shop type window onto the street where people buy their bags and then stand around, or sit on the odd benches scattered in the road and drink them. In the heat of summer this is great, although I imagine people may start drifting indoors as the weather cools. Viniroo and Gogo are in direct competition but there isn’t a huge difference in price or variety of options. The cocktails themselves are not fantastic but they’re about as good as can be expected for the price (around 5000 won).
Along the street from the bag-drink places is one of the few restaurants I’ve sampled downtown (as most evenings start rather later than I like to eat, I generally have dinner before going out). Italy-Italy (or Italy & Italy as it’s apparently actually called) is a little pizza/pasta place where you can create your own pizza/pasta from a list of options. When you sit down, each person is handed a check-list style menu where you fill in your name and then start choosing. There are three portion sizes, named something along the lines of hungry, very hungry and starving (that’s not exactly right but something like that) and two options: pizza or pasta. Once you’ve chosen your size and type of food, you choose sauces, pasta-type, toppings and for pizza, the shape of your pizza (heart-shaped pizza anyone?). The food is tasty and the range of options are not bad, even if there are little things missing that you’d find in Western countries and which we all lament every time we go there. I had dinner there a while ago and had a lovely Alfredo Pasta, although the wine wasn’t great, but that may have been our choice of wine. That particular evening, we also went to a lovely little Martini Bar (which was completely empty and had a remarkably uneven wood floor – quirks to remember places by) but I didn’t see an English name at the time and I keep forgetting to ask what it was called.
This block of one street – where Italy-Italy, the bag drink places and Holy Grill are – seems to be the most common meeting place and where most people start their downtown evenings. From there people scatter to various bars, clubs and other restaurant/drinking places. I haven’t been to all that many but I have spent a little time in Organ Bar and Who’s Bob. I’ve avoided  dance clubs so far, partly because they charge cover and because I have yet to walk past a place and be sufficiently excited by the music to want to go in.
The place that ends many evenings – and the place that sometimes shows rugby and therefore makes me happy – is Commune’s – variously also called ‘Commune’, ‘the commune’ and ‘Commune’s Lonely Hearts Club’. It’s a somewhat dark basement bar, with walls painted black with designs and pictures in white, photos of famous rock stars, a drum-set and PA system in the corner and a few tables set around the room. A lot of people do not like this particular bar and talk about it as dodgy and dingy and generally unpleasant. I don’t find it that way at all but I think my perspective may be a little tainted with nostalgia, partly because the atmosphere (and sometimes the music) reminds me a little of CJs, where I spent so many happy nights in during varsity, and partly because this is the first place I went out downtown, so it feels familiar. It probably also appeals less to those who are used to (and like) the sparkly-new, colourful world of the much younger bar-crowd. Some of the other places feel a little like a kindergarten classroom to me in terms of the range of  and the atmosphere – in comparison to Commune’s anyway. My friend and I actually stopped at Commune’s on our way home on Tuesday and the place was deserted except for the barman sitting quietly behind his bar and playing good song after good song – it was odd to be in Commune’s without anyone else there.
All of the above tend to be the haunts of the rare Saturday night when I actually make it out (and all other Saturdays for the rest of the crowd). Fridays are a whole different experience. Near one of the other branches of my school (where a good friend works) is a restaurant/bar called The Hut. At least, I don’t know if it’s actually called that or for that matter if it has an English name at all. Or any name. To us, however, it’s The Hut and it is where people generally gather after work on a Friday. Given that most of us are teaching at Hagwons, ‘after work’ tends to mean somewhere around 10 or 11pm but when that time rolls around the two back tables are pretty much reserved for the foreigner teachers. The place itself apparently used to be a restaurant specifically for men to take their mistresses, which is why there are absolutely no windows. It also appears to be the reason that the wooden poles and decorations carved around the place are somewhat… um… obvious. The main drinks of the place are Dongdongju, Soju and Beer (in large pitchers). These evenings vary in terms of who is there but some things are constant. Like the topics of conversation – school, where everyone is from, things that bother people about Korea and comparisons with home. And the fact that the Ajummas who run the place will bring out a variety of free nibbling-foods at some point. These include cucumber sticks, kimchi (unsurprisingly), other bits and pieces and, which always gets everyone particularly excited, a plate piled with salty fried eggs. There is also an actual menu and they serve all sorts of Korean food, including kimchi pizza. They also do a platter of chickens’ feet – which was ordered by one of the Koreans in the group the other day and thoroughly grossed out the foreigners. It was quite funny to watch.
I have yet to experience one of the karaoke clubs which are apparently so common here. They’re called Noraebangs. I don’t mind karaoke but these sound a little different from karaoke experiences back home. I’m used to karaoke evenings involving a sound system set up in a bar where everyone who wants to puts down his or her name on a list and picks a song and then sings. Here you apparently pay for a room where you pick songs and sing as a small group, just you and your friends, in your own room. So a little different but on my list of things to try at some point.
Ultimately, I still prefer going out to dinner at a good restaurant with friends and an evening of good conversation and laughter to ‘real’ partying but sometimes it’s good to venture out into the somewhat unreal world of Daegu nightlife with some of the other foreigners and relive some of the crazy nights I remember from places like Grahamstown and Stellenbosch, the kind of times that only youth (or the borrowed youth of friends you’re out with) and a transient existence can create.

A friend pointed out the other day that I haven’t talked very much about Daegu nightlife on this blog. This is partly because I’m not all that active a part of the nightlife scene but it’s not really fair to a city which has plenty going on, particularly over weekends.

In fact, many people apparently also go out during the week, although after our experience of trying to find somewhere to have dinner on Tuesday night, I’m not sure where they go. I had arranged to have dinner with a friend after work, so we met at the Samdeok Fire Station taxi drop-off point as usual. It was a chilly evening and downtown was strangely empty. I’m used to the area throbbing with crowds and noise on Fridays and Saturdays, so it was odd to see the alleys dark and the streets almost deserted. At one point, on our way to try and find a Mexican place we’d been told about, we walked past a waiter (he was wearing an apron) and a friend playing badminton in the street outside an almost deserted coffee shop – one of the few with lights still on. We contemplated stopping there but it looked more coffee shop than restaurant and we were hungry, so we went on to The Holy Grill. I’ve seen ads for the Holy Grill all over since I got here. It’s run by foreigners and serves ‘comfort food’ (according to the menu). Until this week, I hadn’t actually eaten there. The place is divided into two levels – a second-floor restaurant and a third-floor sports bar (with snack menu). It sounds like this (the two levels) is a fairly recent development. The menu definitely a wide range of what many Westerners would consider comfort food – from Burgers and Steak-rolls (Philly Cheese Steak for the Americans) to a Tex-Mex section and even good old Macaroni and Cheese. In retrospect, I probably should have had the Mac and Cheese. I ordered a burger and it wasn’t bad but I wasn’t overly impressed. I suppose I assumed it would aim to taste like a burger back home, forgetting that what is normal for me is probably not normal for the Americans who are the biggest customer group of this venue. My friend had something Mexican (a burrito?) which she seemed to enjoy, although they didn’t have guacamole, which is a disappointment if you’re going to be a place that serves Mexican food. Not a bad place to go if you’re looking for specific things but I don’t think I’ll be spending all my evenings there.

Oddly, the entrance to the Holy Grill is right next to the spot where many evenings downtown start: Gogo Vinyl. I like cocktails. Living in and later visiting Joburg with friends who are significantly more sophisticated and trendy than me, I was introduced to the wonderful world of cocktails at places like Bar Six in Melville and became quite fond of them. One of the things I secretly love about cocktails is that they’re so sophisticated in their elegant glasses with garnish and, because I am a fan of margaritas in particular, things like salt around the glass. Gogo Vinyl goes in for a whole different style of cocktail. This, along with Viniroo just down the road, is where you get ‘bag-drinks’. Bag-drinks are cocktails over ice in a ziplock-type plastic bag, with a straw. They’re also, from these particular places, cocktails with a ‘alcohol-to-taste’ twist – all at no extra cost. Gogo Vinyl has apparently now opened a proper bar a few doors down but the original Gogo, apart from a tiny number of seats inside, is really a tuck-shop type window onto the street where people buy their bags and then stand around, or sit on the odd benches scattered in the road and drink them. In the heat of summer this is great, although I imagine people may start drifting indoors as the weather cools. Viniroo and Gogo are in direct competition but there isn’t a huge difference in price or variety of options. The cocktails themselves are not fantastic but they’re not bad for the price (around 5000 won).

Along the street from the bag-drink places is one of the few restaurants I’ve sampled downtown (as most evenings start rather later than I like to eat, I generally have dinner before going out). Italy-Italy (or Italy & Italy as it’s apparently actually called) is a little pizza/pasta place where you can create your own pizza/pasta from a list of options. When you sit down, each person is handed a check-list style menu where you fill in your name and then start choosing. There are three portion sizes, named something along the lines of hungry, very hungry and starving (that’s not exactly right but something like that) and two options: pizza or pasta. Once you’ve chosen your size and type of food, you choose sauces, pasta-type, toppings and for pizza, the shape of your pizza (heart-shaped pizza anyone?). The food is tasty and the range of options are not bad, even if there are little things missing that you’d find in Western countries and which we all lament every time we go there. I had dinner there a while ago and had a lovely Alfredo Pasta, although the wine wasn’t great, but that may have been our choice of wine. That particular evening, we also went to a lovely little Martini Bar (which was completely empty and had a remarkably uneven wood floor – quirks to remember places by) but I didn’t see an English name at the time and I keep forgetting to ask what it was called.

This block of Rodeo Street – where Italy-Italy, the bag drink places and Holy Grill are – seems to be the most common meeting place and where most people start their downtown evenings. From there people scatter to various bars, clubs and other restaurant/drinking places. I haven’t been to all that many but I have spent a little time in Organ Bar and Who’s Bob. I’ve avoided  dance clubs so far, partly because they charge cover and because I have yet to walk past a place and be sufficiently excited by the music to want to go in.

The place that ends many evenings – and the place that sometimes shows rugby and therefore makes me happy – is Communes – variously also called ‘Commune’s’, ‘The Commune’ and ‘Commune’s Lonely Hearts Club’. It’s a somewhat dark basement bar, with walls painted black with designs and pictures in white, photos of famous rock stars, a drum-set and PA system in the corner and a few tables set around the room. A lot of people do not like this particular bar and talk about it as dodgy and dingy and generally unpleasant. I don’t find it that way at all but I think my perspective may be a little tainted with nostalgia, partly because the atmosphere (and sometimes the music) reminds me a little of CJs, where I spent so many happy nights in during varsity, and partly because this is the first place I went out downtown, so it feels familiar. It probably also appeals less to those who are used to (and like) the sparkly-new, colourful world of the much younger bar-crowd. Some of the other places feel a little like a kindergarten classroom to me in terms of the range of  and the atmosphere – in comparison to Commune’s anyway. My friend and I actually stopped at Commune’s on our way home on Tuesday and the place was deserted except for the barman sitting quietly behind his bar and playing good song after good song – it was odd to be in Commune’s without anyone else there.

All of the above tend to be the haunts of the rare Saturday night when I actually make it out (and all other Saturdays for the rest of the crowd). Fridays are a whole different experience. Near one of the other branches of my school (where a good friend works) is a restaurant/bar called The Hut. At least, I don’t know if it’s actually called that or for that matter if it has an English name at all. Or any name. To us, however, it’s The Hut and it is where people generally gather after work on a Friday. Given that most of us are teaching at Hagwons, ‘after work’ tends to mean somewhere around 10 or 11pm but when that time rolls around the two back tables are pretty much reserved for the foreigner teachers. The place itself apparently used to be a restaurant specifically for men to take their mistresses, which is why there are absolutely no windows. It also appears to be the reason that the wooden poles and decorations carved around the place are somewhat… um… obvious. The main drinks of the place are Dongdongju, Soju and Beer (in large pitchers). These evenings vary in terms of who is there but some things are constant. Like the topics of conversation – school, where everyone is from, things that bother people about Korea and comparisons with home. And the fact that the Ajummas who run the place will bring out a variety of free nibbling-foods at some point. These include cucumber sticks, kimchi (unsurprisingly), other bits and pieces and, which always gets everyone particularly excited, a plate piled with salty fried eggs. There is also an actual menu and they serve all sorts of Korean food, including kimchi pizza. They also do a platter of chickens’ feet – which was ordered by one of the Koreans in the group the other day and thoroughly grossed out the foreigners. It was quite funny to watch.

I have yet to experience one of the karaoke clubs which are apparently so common here. They’re called Noraebangs. I don’t mind karaoke but these sound a little different from karaoke experiences back home. I’m used to karaoke evenings involving a sound system set up in a bar where everyone who wants to puts down his or her name on a list and picks a song and then sings. Here you apparently pay for a room where you pick songs and sing as a small group, just you and your friends, in your own room. So a little different but on my list of things to try at some point.

Ultimately, I still prefer going out to dinner at a good restaurant and an evening of good conversation and laughter to ‘real’ partying but sometimes it’s good to venture out into the somewhat unreal world of Daegu nightlife with some of the other foreigners and relive some of the crazy nights I remember from places like Grahamstown and Stellenbosch, the kind of times that only youth (or the borrowed youth of friends you’re out with) and a transient existence can create.