Seoul Critical Mass

 

Critical Mass - Seoul

 The third Sunday of every month is the coming together of the Critical Mass in the city. It's apparently been going for 5 years, but by the attendance numbers, you would never know it. On the night I partook in said event, there was approximately 24 adults, and one awesome kid on a purple banana seat bicycle who rode in the centre of the pack, as if we were animals protecting our young on the african safari lands.

check out a video of it here

Follow the Women

I'm beginning to raise funds for the Follow the Women bike ride that I'm participating in April 2011.

Please help promote, donate, or even join this ride, as this is something I am really excited about! 
You can pay with PayPal, using the below, otherwise please contact me, and other arrangements for donations can also be made.

WHAT IS Follow the Women?
Follow the Women is an international non-political grassroots organization campaigning for peace in the Middle East.  Our signature activity is the Pedal for Peace Bike Rides which take place in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine. Click here for FTW’s USA website (opens in new window).

WHO IS Follow the Women?
We are ordinary women, citizens from over 40 countries.   At each bike ride 200-300 females from more than 25 countries converge on the Middle East to bike for peace.  Men participate as medics, mechanics or media.  A U.S. team has been on every ride.  Up to 20 participants are accepted per country team. Riders are expected to agree to FTW's Aims & Objectives (opens in new window)  

WHERE IS Follow the Women?
The international center of the organization is based in England where Follow the Women is a registered charity.  Each participating country has a local resident coordinator who liaisons with the international center. The USA Team, scattered all over the country, has a virtual headquarters by way of this website.

WHEN IS Follow the Women? 
Pedal for Peace Bike Rides occur about every 18 months.

April 16-23, 2004 
September 15-24, 2005
April 6-20, 2007
May 2-15, 2008
October 8-21, 2009
April 16 to May 1, 2011

WHY IS Follow the Women? 
Our main objective is to call attention to the fact that it is women and children who suffer most in areas of conflict, particularly Palestinians who live under a brutal military occupation in Gaza and the West Bank or in stifling refugee camps inside and outside Palestine.  Several hundred women riding on bicycles in the Middle East is extremely unusual.  Our head-turning cycling compels the media to report on the event and interview us and this coverage provides us a platform for our peace messages.  We also have various projects, including building playgrounds for Palestinian children in refugee camps. Our mission is summarized in four simple words:

Go. See. Tell. Act.  

back in korea; korean style

I've been back all of two nights, and last night i didn't sleep. It's 8:22am, and i'm just getting in the door.

These Koreans are hardcore man! The thing is to just stay out so long that the subway starts up again and you can get home. 

It all started when I called my friend, and there happened to be a art installation show on one stop away on the subway, so I just walked over to the abandoned hospital it was being held in, and we got to scope out 5-6 different rooms that had been decked out in different scenarios; from a student who had cheated in school and had to run away (this work space complete with police tape), to an entire room sound-proofed with egg shell cartons and set-up to look like a news room with feeds of a man in white make up and a stuffed monkey discussing ... something. Sorry, my Korean is just not that great yet. They had a great set-up for it all though - they're all art students, and from what I was told, is that it was a srt show not supported by their professor, who they don't seem to agree with for their final exhibitions for their graduate show, so they had their own vision executed here, with live bands, free pizza, and free alcoholic beverages.

From there we boosted to one place, after another, after another, each entailing food and drinking, but some venues having karaoke and giving us a free fruit platter, eating live octopus, or a restaurant with non-stop music videos playing, even though it looked high-end other than that, but met some awesome people, and had an amazing night hanging out with them until the sun rose back in the sky.

I've got to go to bed.

Oh what a night...

Last night was complete mayhem...

To cut the story short, we found out about a party on the island (Lamma Island, off Hong Kong),

And as we approached; guided by flashing construction lights in the pitch black, I whipped out my little video camera to capture our entrance, and 4 seconds later walked into a hole.

Up to my hips I went before I caught myself and scrambled out as fast as I could.

My friend and I raided the first aid kit to patch me up, and then just peaked back home.

I can't believe I fell into a HOLE.

Two countries, two islands

 

Power Station Beach, Lamma Island

Lately I've been on a slight hiatus; a holiday from the arduous task of my .. erm.. holiday. After brilliantly missing my original flight from South Korea to Hong Kong, I finally made it all work the next day and arrived in one solid piece. I've been staying on another island next to Hong Kong island; Lamma Island; known as one of the 'Outlying Islands' of the Hong Kong area, and a real treat since it is a carless, green tropical paradise only a 30min ferry ride from the central station in Hong Kong, but a complete escape from all the mayhem.

Hong Kong IS organized chaos. It's a hilly, efficient, and eclectic city with all the amenities you could hope for all boiled in a Chinese mixing pot. It's good. Really good. I've been describing it as a world city for all these reasons to all those who ask what my opinion on the place is. Halloween a few days ago was the epitome of organized chaos, with the whole downtown area completely congested by decorated and costumed foot traffic, and the police making the most popular areas a one way for said party-goers to ensure nothing like what happened a few years ago happens again, when some participants were trampled to death by the sheer mass of the surging crowd literally plowing over their bodies.

 Downtown in Macau, known as 'Centro'

I also went to Macau, one of the strangest culture mashes I have ever seen - it's a Portugese colonial area of China (now a S.A.R. like HK), meaning it LOOKS like Europe in so many ways, with brightly coloured, slightly decaying buildings, mosaic tiled streets, and portugese foods at hand, but the people are most definitely Asian. It's as if they were supplanted into an area not their own. I loved it; it's not like anything else I've seen anywhere in the parts of Asia I've trekked through. Not just the culture mash did it either - it's also been set up to be Asias answer to Las Vegas of all things, with gaudy, towering casinos blaring their expectedly bright lights. The handy thing here is that even though they have their own currency; the Macau Patacas; they readily accept the Hong Kong dollar everywhere, which is handily currently right on par with the local currency.

I met some other travelers; two Swedes; and we adventured down south to Coloane Villiage. There r e a l l y wasn't a lot there. We scoped out the beach - a blend of tan and black sand mixing with the brown and black sea water - and then explored a hotel that seemed as if it was from a childrens book or horror movie plot. It was a slightly delapitated old five star hotel, complete with missing characters from it's title clinging to the far of the front entrance, then once you walk in, it is fully staffed and just as fully free of guests. We were convinced to check out the 18hole golf course built into the side of the hill the hotel was built into, the indoor and outdoor pools, and the driving range with the deranged cat skulking around it.

Woman in Macau

Missed flight to Hong Kong

I bought a flight two days before my October 21st departure, and really ran Seoul hard in order to catch up with all my friends and past encounters that I could possibly squeeze in (as well as a hang with a random couch surfer who turned out to be flipping awesome!), and what do you know, I ended up missing my flight and unintentionally bought myself one more night in my beloved city of light and sound. I visited an old district of town I hadn't been to since my first trip to Korea; nearly two years ago, and went to the old hang out, where after a split second of being looked at like a lost tourist, I was recognised.

So awesome.

The owner even left me there for about 10mins as she ran home to get a country rice desert to share with me, introduced me to her boyfriend and his colleague, and caught up as much as we could in our broken versions of each others native tongues. Turns out however, that her boyfriend counts English among his list of 5 languages that he speaks, and ended up liking me so much that he even decided to 'adopt' me as a child of him and his girlfriends. This to the point that upon hearing I was headed to Hong Kong the following day, handed me a business card and told me to 'call Daddy' should I need any help or get injured at all. I had a great time, but his non-polyglot friend wasn't of a similar mind an ended up feeling left out of the conversation (which I empathize with, since the remainder of the time was spent in fast-paced, slightly slurred Korean), and ended up standing up to announce that he was bored, ad stormed out in an effort to attract some attention. This is of course, a culture based on honor and respect though, and since he was dining with a superior, it really ended up in him being more ignored and him lurking back in 10mins later with a gift bag peace offering in hand. Whoops!

I decided to take my cue and make an exit to 'meet a friend', and headed over to Hongdae, the pumping arts district next to the university my friend is currently a 4th year student at. I had a few hours until she was done (she's hand weaving a rug of ... Newton(??) with a rice cooker), so I heading into the streets with a self-imposed mission to take photos. This was dashed from my head quickly as the first booth I slowed to peruse had a nice man with a guitar. BAM! we started playing and next thing you know it's attracting customers who are buying things and attributing it to my presence and music, so my new friend gifts me one of his wares (a plastic phone charm back-scratching animal claw) and decided I was his new guitar teacher.

Have I mentioned I'm quite decidedly mediocre at guitar?
...It's just not nearly as common to play here as something like violin or piano.

abandoned lanterns

 

I was playing at a volleyball competition on Jeju Island, South Korea when I found out all the cool stuff you could see from the beach was an abandoned lantern festival that just was left there rather than being taken down.

Obviously, I snuck in, tried to flick the breakers to make the lights turn on to no avail (can you IMAGINE how cool that would have been?!), and snapped some photos I really love.