Roxboro Entertainment debut, 28Jan11

Friday night (28Jan11) was the debut night for Stanley Clarke's new label, Roxboro Entertainment, featuring 4 artists, Lloyd Gregory (guitar), Sunnie Paxson (keyboard), Ruslan (keyboard) Kennard Ramsey (guitar). I was a guest of "Barefoot Music News" (so, I was actually "on the guest list," my first time actually "being on the list!" The doors opened around 8:30 or so and the crowd was huge, filling the top floor of The Federal Bar in North Hollywood. Dan, the guy who runs Barefoot Music News, was VERY impressed with the talent that was in the crowd, a real who's who of jazz in L.A.

There was general socializing and milling about for about an hr, then each artist played 2 of their songs from their albums. All 4 were amazing (and the band backing them up were just outstanding as well). Around 11:30, all 4 were done and then the jam session began. Anyone could go on stage and...holy shit, there were some just outstanding musicians in the crowd that had brought their instruments. The jam session ran past 1:30 (when I finally left, I was tired!).

As I walked back to my motel...I had a real "you know you're in L.A. (more specifically, Hollywood), as I saw to NYFD (yes, New York Fire Dept) trucks going down the street. No, I wasn't that drunk!

Overall, an amazing night of jazz. I was glad I got to go!

Koera Trip, pics, links

US Forces Korea Off-limits areas (see the Itaewon map)

N Seoul Tower Webpage

Photo Gallery

Jinhae Tower 1

Jinhae Tower 2

Snack aisle at Home Plus

Changing of the guard at Deoksugung Palace:
Part 1
Part 2


Cable car ride up to N Seoul Tower

A story about how Japan is shrinking (not having babies)

Korea Trip, Impressions, notes &c

The town where Noreen's base is is spelled "Jinhae", but the spelling was recently changed from Chinhae. It's Jinhae on train tickets, but Chinhae on the manhole covers in town. The base is called "CFA Chinhae."

The chow hall on the base wasn't very good; one morning, I tried to eat one of their pancakes and was shocked at how bad it was; either they cooked it on the grill without cleaning it first or they used too much flour or something. The chow hall at Guantanamo was way better, which is surprising considering the logistical differences.

Noreen's base is on the side of a hill and it's terraced, so it seems like everywhere you walk is uphill! It's not directly connected to the habor, but it does get a fair amount of "business" from the crew of ships/subs that pull in to Jinhae to refuel, resupply, etc. The base is pretty small. For her barracks, she shares a "common area" that has a kitchen & bathroom with a roommate and she has her own bedroom.

Jinhae is a decent-sized city (about 200K people), not too bad of a city. It's primary reason to exist is the tiny harbor and the military bases (the ROK Navy's officer academy is in Jinhae).

The Koreans are generally friendlier and more outgoing than the Japanese. They're also not xenophobic/racist (compared to the Japanese), I suspect that's because Americans (and other foreigners) are everywhere.

I also started to start figuring out Hangul (Korean) writing. It's really not that difficult!

Korea Trip, (a VERY LONG) 5Jan

Up at 4:30am and took a taxi to the Busan airport. The JAL flight to Narita was nice and then I had over 6 hrs to kill at Narita. So, I walked all over the terminal and read, had lunch, walked some more, etc. etc. The flight to LAX was uneventful until the last 2 hrs. I was dozing (I don't really sleep on planes) when I was awoken by a very bad smell - a kid in the same row (but across the aisle) as me had puked and the parents were cleaning up the mess. Also, about the same time, a baby decided to start screaming, and didn't sound human, it sounded more like a referee's whistle. The plane landed around 9:15am (5Jan!) and by 10am, I had cleared immigration, gotten my suitcase, cleared customs and was waiting on the curb for the shuttle to the parking lot.

Korea Trip, 4Jan

Spent a good chunk of the day unscrewing Noreen's laptop. I noticed that every time it shut down, it was doing updates, so I poked around and figured out that the updates were failing. So, I spent hours trying something, reboot, do updates (and fail) and then repeat the process. After I got it fixed, we went to the commissary and picked up stuff so I could make dinner for Noreen. We had pasta with meat sauce, garlic bread and salad. I had Fosters (beer) - that was brewed in Belgium! (so, to recap, I had Australian beer that was brewed in Belgium on a US Navy base in Korea) It was fun to cook for her (and now I can say I've cooked in 4 countries!). We went to Duffy's to play more slots and have a drink.

Korea Trip,3Jan

I wanted to get the post cards we bought at N Seoul Tower mailed, so I used my phone (on the base hotel wifi) to google "jinhae post office" and figured out where the post office was, so we walked there and got the cards mailed. We noticed a small monorail that went up the base of "Jinhae Tower", so we paid our won and went up to the base of the tower and then climbed the 8 flights of stairs to the top and took some pics of Jinhae. You can see the whole town from there, including the harbor and the Korean & US military bases (there were spots on the tower that had signs "No pictures from this area" because you can see a base). After the tower, Noreen mentioned that she wanted to go to Home Plus, which she described as a department store. So we walked there. And walked. And walked! Took almost an hour to walk there! We got there and had lunch in the food court and I noticed something that I hadn't noticed at all in my 10+ trips to Japan - KIDS! The food court was filled with moms with little kids. (I then also realized that I'd seen a lot more couples in Seoul than I'd seen in Tokyo). Home Plus is more like a small Target or Walmart with a grocery store. The grocery store was also "normal" and the prices were better than the place I'd been earlier. They had big (1.5 liter) bottles of Korean beer for sale, about $3 each (if you bought a case of 12, the price came down to about $2/bottle, which is still overpriced for the crap that Korea calls beer!) They also had sushi for sale, each piece individually wrapped in cellophane and I took a quick movie of the chips/snacks aisle. Noreen bought some stuff she needed and we took a taxi back to the base. We went to the Chinese restaurant in town and experienced the only blatant racism during the whole trip; when we were seated at our table, there were a couple of older (60+) Korean women at the table next to us who gave us the evil eye and then were re-seated. (the young couple at another table next to ours had no such problems and their baby was having fun making faces at us). Later on, 2 more older women were going to be seated at the table previously vacated and they decided they didn't want that table and were seated elsewhere. The food was great - we had shrimp in cream sauce (kind of sweet) and sweet & sour beef. Both dishes were exactly like what I get at Sam Woo BBQ (a Chinese restaurant in the Ranch 99 Asian grocery store here in SD). Went to a bar for a drink & stogie and back to the hotel.

Korea Trip, 2Jan

Taxi to Seoul Station and then the train back to Jinhae. We did laundry and puttered around. Had pizza at Mr. Pizza out in town (whose very bizzare slogan is "Love for women") for dinner and came back to base. Noreen wanted to get emails out to olunteers for the Career Day she was organizing, so I went to the base club (Duffy's) with the intent of sitting under the heat lamp and having a stogie, but it was too damn cold, so I went back in to check out Duffy's. They have a slot-machine room where you can smoke, so I whittled away a $20 and had my smoke in there.

Korea Trip, 1Jan

Breakfast at the buffet in the hotel - and the place was overrun with Russians! We took the subway to "Techmart" which we assumed would be open, but wasn't. It's a store with lots of electronics & whatnot, but we didn't get to see it. Since there was nothing really in the area (mostly residential with the generic apartment buildings that seem to be everywhere in Korea), we took the subway to Yongsam which has another high-tech mall called iMall. There was a place selling boots & shoes and Noreen found a pair of Ugg boot knock-offs that she figured would be better for walking around than her hiking boots. Went back to the hotel and then headed out for dinner; we walked around a bunch and eventually settled on a Korean BBQ place on "The Hill" (see the off-limits map, it used to be called "Hooker Hill," but now it's just a bunch of tiny restaurants and small bars and stuff). There was an American ex-pat (prior Army) and his Korean girlfriend eating there and he helped us order and get going and we talked to him and had a great time. Walked down the hill and found a wine bar and had a pitcher of sangria and a cheese plate for dessert.

Korea Trip, 31Dec

Had breakfast at the buffet in the hotel and then took the subway to the Lotte Department store. Noreen's cellphone has a Seoul subway map and routing tool (put in the start and end stations and it gives you the route, where to change trains, etc) which made life VERY nice! Noreen needed long johns and I figured that Lotte would be the best place to look. We walked around Lotte and found the sporting goods/clothing area and bought her long johns. Lotte is orgaanized with lots of small "departments" - each brand more or less has its own department, like Ralph Lauren (men and women in their own dept), Burberry, etc. We then walked around an underground mall and Noreen saw a "Hello Kitty" handwarmer that uses Zippo gas at a Zippo store, so we bought that. (yes, the tiny store had nothing but lighters and accessories for lighters!) While walking around, Noreen mentioned that there was a palace near the City Hall, so we walked that way and had lunch at KFC. Paid the 1000 won to get onto the palace grounds (Deoksugung) and walked it and took a few pics. It was kind of dead there and not very interesting, and when we finished up walking it, we went into the tea shop on the palace grounds and had tea and Noreen got her hand warmer working. I made an off-hand comment that "this place would probably be interesting if something was going on" and we left the tea shop. As we walked out, I noticed something going on in front of the palace - they were doing a changing of the guard ceremony! It was very cool (see the videos) to see and there was ommentary (in Korean, Chinese, English and Japanese) explaining what was going on. Noreen and I had our picture taken with the sergeant of the guard and I used Noreen's hand warmer to thaw out my hand which was holding the camera and had frozen! I also ran into the middle of the street to take a picture of the mountains just outside of Seoul.

We then walked to the cable car that takes you to the base of N Seoul Tower (I think the N is short for the name of the park it's in, Namsan, also the name of the mountain it's on). You can also walk up the mountain to the base of the tower, but we decided to take the elevator/monorail - too cold and too far uphill. We walked around the base, took some pics/video and bought some schwag. Then, we took the elevator up to the observatory, which had a great view of Seoul. After the tower, we took the subway back to our hotel and took a nap - it had been a VERY long day and all that walking had worn us out! I woke up around 6pm and asked Noreen if she wanted to eat dinner, but she said she wanted to sleep some more, so I went to the Korean BBQ restaurant (cook your own meat at the table) in the hotel and then Noreen and I hid in the room for New Years Eve - we decided warm and sitting was better than out and about in the freezing cold with all of the drunk idiots.

Korea trip, 30Dec

We got up early so Noreen could check out on leave on the on-line system. Noreen was (and still is) having problems with her ID card signing on and sending email (her military ID is a "smart card" that's used to sign on to government computers). It took Noreen 90 min working with the IT help desk getting on and checking out on leave. We had breakfast and then took a taxi to the train station. Took the local train to Dong-Daegu. On the way we passed lots of VERY heavy industry and factories. At Dong-Daegu, we changed to the KTX (Korea's bullet train that runs at 300kph) to Seoul. We had first class tickets, which was nice, giving us bigger seats, TVs in the ceiling of the car showing news or whatever and free wifi! Got into Seoul and my first impression was that Seoul was crazy (and cold!) The train station was a zoo and there were lots of military in uniform (Korean military wear their uniforms out in town), I suspect that they were coming home for New Years or whatever. We grabbed a cab to our hotel (Hamilton Hotel) in Itaewon and we passed a few forts (military bases with 10-12ft high walls). Itaewon is the party district of Seoul; lots of bars, night clubs, restaurants, etc. It used to be overrun with lots of hostess bars, nudie bars, etc. but has gentrified quite a bit. US Forces Korea (USFK) has a map of places that are off limits and it was theoretically updated in Sept, but about 90% of the places listed are gone! Itaewon is aimed at foreigners and the bars & shops are aimed at foreigners, but there are Koreans having a good time there, too.

We had dinner at an Italian place "behind" the hotel and it was sublime, probably the best Italian I've ever had - even the espresso at the end kicked ass. The service was great, and they even had blankets to put over your legs if you were getting cold (despite the heat being on, every time the door opened, the arctic came in!). We walked around Itaewon and froze, it was -10C (barely 15F) at night, so we bought Noreen a scarf and sweater. Had a stogie at a bar and then Noreen had ice cream at Baskin Robbins (which are everywhere in Korea) and back to the hotel.

Korea Trip, 29Dec

Had breakfast at Turtle Cove and went into town for a walk. Had coffee at a very nice coffee shop and read. On the walk, I went into a grocery store to check things out; milk was about $8/gal, eggs about $2/doz and a bunch of bananas were $4. The grocery store was "normal" and other than the prices being in won, you wouldn't realize you were in Korea. I picked up train tickets for the trip to Seoul on the 30th. Went back to base and hung out. Noreen and I went for sushi for dinner and it was pretty good; one of the odd things about it was the rainbow roll had sprinkles like you'd find on a christmas cookie or donut...very, very weird! Went to a bar and had a drink and I smoked a stogie and then back to the base to get Noreen packed.

Korea Trip, 28Dec

Noreen had to work, so I was on my own. Watched Monday Night Football (it was Tuesday in Korea), kickoff was 10:30am. Had lunch at Turtle Cove, which is a combination chow hall/restaurant. Military eat there for "free" and everyone else pays. It was fajita day and it was neat to see all of the Koreans there eating fajitas! Noreen got off work and we got my ID card registered in the base system so I could get on the base if I left. We walked into town and had dinner at McDonald's and walked around the open air market; mostly food (fruits, veggies, meat, whole fish, kimchi) for sale. On the walk back, we had Bungeo-ppang which are fish shaped cakes made with waffle batter and red bean paste in the middle, cooked on a fish-shaped waffle iron (see this link) and then back to the base because Noreen had to work.

Korea Trip, 26-27Dec

(San Diego-LAX-Narita-Busan-Jinhae)
Woke up stupidly early (3:30) to drive up to a long term parking lot at LAX. Got up there easily, parked easily, no line to check my suitcase, no line at security...which meant that I had 4 hours to kill before my flight. The flight to Narita was uneventful. I had about 90 min at Narita before the flight to Busan, then a 2 hr flight on JAL (very nice!) to Busan.

The plan was for me to call Noreen or the base taxi to get me at the airport, but I couldn't because all of the pay phones used phone cards. I went to the 7-11 in the airport to get a card and a taxi driver asked me what I needed, I told him and he loaned his phone to me so I could call Noreen. He overheard the conversation and he said he could take me to the base for 50,000W (about $50); so, off we went, and yes, he got me there. It was on this ride that I learned that lane stripes are merely suggestions in Korea. Met Noreen at the gate and she took me to the base hotel. I called Mom with my phone using Skype on the hotel WiFi and crashed.