Nausea

Today I attended a free concert at the Busan Cultural Centre featuring members from the edu-philarmony orchestra. Ms. Jang, my co-teacher, opened the concert with a set that included a piece by Rio Yashimata from The Whole Nine Yards and a string quartet by Mozart, Divertimento in D major K. 136. Despite the tuning issues, I thought that the performance went very well. Special mention should go to the cellist and her steady hand. She kept the ensemble grounded and together.

Next up was a soprano from PNU. She sang caro nome from Rigoletto and a Tosti italian art song. I enjoyed her aria but found that her fluttering eyes and her death-hold grip on her dress took away from the performance. Sweet voice. My favourite performance of the night was done by a young tenor. He sang a traditional Korean folk song but unfortunately I can't remember what it was called. Maybe Byung or Geung could help me out here...

After the concert I went out for coffee with a few of my female co-teachers. They barely spoke a word of English so the conversation was very interesting, especially because I didn't have an interpreter to translate for me. They enjoyed trying to get me to say a few words in Korean and laughed every time I tried. My pronunciation is still very crude but I'm working on it. It's very different then anything I learnt in diction class back home. The Korean dialect combines the letters L and R and the letter F is not used at all. Schwas are often added to the ends of English words like Fish and Beach. Now I know what it must feel like for the hundreds of thousands of immigrants that move to North America every year.

Thankfully it wasn't a very late night because I was starting to get tired around 10 o'clock. On our way home we decided to take the bus instead of taking the subway. My initial thought was that the bus is faster, but that wasn't the case. Ms. Jang, the music teacher, doesn't like the subway because there is no view :[ Boohoooo. The ride took twice as long and it made me incredibly nauseous because Korean drivers are crazy! They don't seem to follow any of the basic rules of the road.

The constant jerking motion of the bus left me with a similar feeling I had two weeks ago on a ship destined for Dokdo island. It was NOT a pleasant experience. Nearly all of the seafarers got sick including a passenger who had to go to emergency. In the end the trip was cancelled and we survived a horrible miss adventure that could have been much, much worse.

So here I am, safe and sound at home trying to get over my nausea. Let this blog entry be a reminder to everyone that it is not a good idea to take the city bus in Busan or to travel in rough waters with a ship full of landlubbers.