More like rice cake burning.

Another weird, out of the ordinary event happened in the morning. Dad dropped me off at my workplace. I was on my way inside the building when I heard some high-pitched noise. Right as I was near the entrance, a couple of people who were going in came back out saying that they were to leave the building since it was a fire drill.

My next thought ended up being, “who the hell does a fire drill exercise at 7:15 in the morning?!” Turns out that it wasn’t a drill. The fire alarms did go off, and a fire truck came and everything. I found out later that one of my co-workers had decided to heat some 떡 (Theok — Korean rice cake) in the microwave. Well, my co-worker had unknowingly punched in 10:00 instead of 1:00. While the microwave was running, my co-worker was too busy gabbing with friends to realise that the food was burning inside. It wasn’t until the smoke was being emitted from the microwave that the people in the staff lounge realised something was burning. They stopped the microwave and tried to open the window to let the smoke out, but it was too late as the smoke set the alarms off. O_O;;

Good thing it wasn’t anything seriously horrible, but boy the smell was bad in there when I walked in after things were cleared. Seriously. After yesterday’s morning events and today’s . . . I hope tomorrow’s morning is less strange.

Speaking of yesterday, I have no clue what happened to the dude we rescued. See, we didn’t get the two men’s names, so yeah . . . O_O;; Oh well. I just hope he’s fine.

My father and I took someone to the emergency room this morning.

What happened was that my dad was driving us in to the base as he usually does. We had just left our apartment complex, and we were halfway down “Garbage Hill” when he suddenly stopped, backed up, and then went back to where he stopped. I asked him what he was doing, and he answered me, but I didn’t hear him. Just as I was thinking my dad suddenly turned insane, I see a Caucasian dude carrying an African-American dude over his shoulder like he was a sack of potato. The two of them, who were somehow affiliated through the base (either by being military or civilian), must have been out for a morning run together when something happened to the latter. The former asked us if we were heading to the base, and next thing I know, my dad and I were helping the two of them into our jeep. The African-American dude was lying in the back seat, and the Caucasian dude ended up in our trunk.

Let’s just say that woke me up in a really nasty way and put me in a daze that lasted the next fifteen minutes. That fifteen minute felt really long though. Here, my dad was trying to drive us as fast as he could, and he offered the dude in pain some water, which I ended up opening for him. The Caucasian dude kept comforting and reassuring the African-American dude who was moaning and groaning in pain. I was in the front clenching my fist and teeth, wishing we had a siren on the top of our car. Of course, the sirens wouldn’t have made a big fucking difference in Seoul, but once on base, the other auto mobiles would have moved out of our way.

We arrived on base for the base guard to scan our IDs. It was a bit annoying to see the guy not doing it fast as he could, though, even after my dad told him we had an emergency. X___X;; After the long, agonising ride, we finally made it to the hospital, and I ran in to get somebody. One guy on duty ran out with me with a wheel chair.

Now that the day’s over, I just hope the dude’s okay. I asked me dad if he was dehydrated, and my dad wasn’t sure what exactly was wrong with him. See, I thought it was like a heat stroke, but my dad said it doesn’t seem to be the case since he was sweating so much. Whatever it was, I am just glad that we were there at the right time. Even better, I am so glad my dad’s more observant than me!

What a weekend. I think I’m still recovering from what had occurred on Friday and Saturday. It was fun, don’t get me wrong. In fact, here are the summaries and pictures that will explain the adventure I went through.

Friday: Returning to “All That Jazz”
About five years ago, I went twice to a small live jazz club located in Itaewon. I went back there on Friday night because Ahmi’s class decided to make field trip out of the club, so I decided to go with her. When we arrived, we ordered our drinks along with the cover charge. Let’s just say that this club reminded me of why I hadn’t gone back in five years. Expensive. Drinks like juice and ice tea were about 7,000 won ($7) and cocktails were about 9,000 won ($9) plus 10% VAT (taxes of some sort), and the cover charge was 5,000 won ($5) per person. O_O;; I ordered a June Bug and it cost me 14,500 won ($14.50). Ouch.

However, I must say that the price for one drink and cover charge was WORTH seeing the band for the night. The band, 룩복성 (Luke-Bok-Sung), didn’t start performing until 9pm. We watched them start setting up, and there was this one ol’ 할아버지 (Halabuji = grandpa/old man) who was a percussionist/vocalist, a tenor saxophonist, an alto saxophonist, a pianist, a bassist, and another drummer. For the next two and a half hour, they rocked out the following stuff:

* An original piece. Nothing special. It just showcased each instrumentalists’, minus the Halabuji, skills.
* Some weird song where the Halabuji sang. X____X Let’s just say his vocals weren’t that great. But the lyrics were funny . . . since the audience were laughing.
* A cover of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five”. HOMG. AWESOME cover. Halabuji took over the drums . . . and whoah!
* A cover of Herbie Hancock’s “Cantaloupe Island”. It was an okay song, but what made this song truly amazing was that one of Ahmi’s classmate, Barbara, an African-American woman was talked into singing with the band. She went up in this song and did some scat singing. Let’s just say we were blown away by her talent.
* A cover of Duke Ellington’s “Take the ‘A’ Train”. Earlier, Ahmi and I were saying that it’d be awesome if they played this song. She thought the song wouldn’t be played since it was mostly meant to be a Big Band piece, but they played it! As soon as we heard the beginning chord, she and I squealed excitedly.
* Barbara’s Blues Song. Honestly, I have no clue if this is a cover or not, but I don’t think it is. Barbara went up there again, and this time she sang a blues song. Damn that woman is talented.
* Another weird song where Halabuji sang . . . only this felt more like one of those Ahjumma (older woman’s) songs meet jazz than anything else. X___X;;
* Finally, they performed a really fast version of “Saint Thomas”. Like, whoah.

Couple side notes:
* Of the whole band, Ahmi and I both agreed that the tenor saxophonist was the best instrumentalist. When he played, he had the most passion. Whenever he had the solo, it was really a great listen.
* Halabuji can’t really sing, but MAN is he a genius of a percussionist! He played the following instruments that night: drum set, tom-toms, cowbell, maracas, some kind of kazoo/whistle thing, and lastly, the bottom part of a metal stool. *sweatdrops* The last “instrument” cracked me up so bad.

Anyway, that was Friday. SO FUN. Minus the monsoon rain, but I would so go back there now. I mean, yes, the price is a big turn off, but if we can get away with getting one drink and stay there for four hours to listen to a live band, the price isn’t that bad then. :3

Saturday: Re-living High School Days?
Ahmi and I had planned to meet up our friend Hannah. We decided to meet at Itaewon’s McDonald’s, but Hannah was held up for a bit. Ahmi and I decided to get some Oreo McFlurries while we waited.

When Hannah came, we went to Taj Palace for some Indian food. Mmmmm. X___X Stupid me forgot to take pictures of the food. DARN. After that, we left, and I wanted to take some pictures of a couple things around this area.

I am awfully curious as to what they mean by “well-being Billiards”. And, really? “Mbargo?!” There needs to be an “E” there! XD XD Don’t mind me. I’m just being silly. But after I took pictures, we decided to hang out at my favourite cafe, “Hell Beans”. Okay, it’s supposed to be called, “Hello Beans”, but it’s hard not resisting the temptation to call it “Hell Beans”. Here, I took some pictures of the second floor interior and my drink. XD

Don’t ask about the first image. I have no clue why there’s a picture of a woman like that. The second pictures just show more of the area with Ahmi and Hannah ducking out of the way. The third and fourth picture shows the window seat, the right and left side respectively. The view overlooks the main street of Itaewon. The last picture shows my Royal Green Tea (Green Tea Latte), Ahmi’s Royal Milk Tea, and Hannah’s Americano, all of them iced! Mwahahaha.

After that, we stayed until it was time for Hell Beans to close. Then we went to Dragon on base and . . . chilled out in the lobby like a bunch of a high school students! Hannah’s brother Donald came by later, and we goofed around some more. :3 Then we all met up with Hannah’s parents, drove to Hannah’s house, switched into Hannah’s car, and went back to the base to meet various people where they were going to go to Gangnam to party. That’s when Ahmi and I decided to just head for home.

But yeah. LONG WEEKEND. And long post, too! X____X;; In the meantime, time for a cold shower (no hot water until Monday or Tuesday X___X), and start figuring out my Tokyo Trip website. Now that I finally finished formatting the pictures (all 154 of them) that only took two months (BLEH), time to do that! . . . After I finish my workplace month’s newsletter, though. OI. SO MUCH TO DO. Why can’t tomorrow not be Monday!

ETA: OH! Hannah created a new word on an accident: TRINOSAURS. She meant to say “triceratops” but somehow combined that word with “dinosaurs”. I thought that was just the most brilliant ROTFL moment.

. . . After waiting a month and a half for it. And it’s only an 80 cents increase. But better than nothing.

Still, a month a half?! Oi. X_X;; Working for the government will always mean slow results.

Anyway, now that’s finally done with, I can cross it off my combination of a check/to-do list. Unfortunately, I still have a tonne of stuff I need to accomplish. Am I the only one who always have a huge list of stuff to do . . . and no matter how much I accomplish, I always find something new to add?! Arghhhh.

The last few days proved to be very tiring, wet, long, and fun. Oh and I had more of a social life than I did in the entire month! Here are some brief summaries of what had happened.

Thursday
The dreaded staff meeting occurred after work from 6:15 to 8:15. Blehhhhhh. That wasn’t much fun. I wanted to sleep in the meeting! But boy, the week felt so long. By the time it was today, I wanted it to be Friday night instead.

Friday
Met Jennifer for lunch at Commiskey’s. Had a fun time talking and catching up on stuff. Then after work, I went to meet Tiffany. We had dinner at Istanbul and then hung out at Starbucks in Itaewon. Again we caught up on much stuff and whatnot.

Saturday
Tina and I met up again and this time we went to Electronics Market. Unfortunately, it was pouring down buckets that day. That part was not fun. But we did get her a RFour thingamagie, got her camera fixed, and had lunch. Then she had to go do other stuff, and I had to meet Ahmi. The two of went back to my house where we worked on her paper. After that, she ended up getting some free music, and we decided to go get some pizza at this pizza restaurant in my neighbourhood called “Pizza School”. And since it was Saturday night, that meant Istanbul had its Happy Hour = 2 cocktails for the price of 1, so we headed there and ended the night with some drinks. :3

And now it’s Sunday. Finally. A day I can just stay home and bum around! Whoo hoo! Time to catch up on stuff.