Bachata with Jorge Elizondo

It's been another epic weekend. This weekend at You Can Dance studios we were graced with the presence of Jorge Elizondo who put on a three day bachata workshop. I love this dance. When I first started going to salsa bars, I found it a bit sexy to be doing with people I didn't know, or indeed with people I did know. However, the more I learn about this dance, I can't get enough of it. Not to mention that the music is beautiful. Here's a sample of Jorge's dancing:



So for three hours of Friday night I was going back to basics with hip action and the basic steps of bachata. Followed by a late dinner and chatting with Jaideep half the night, we then got up Saturday morning to meet the crew at Jenny's place for lunch. She cooked us Korean food and it was delicious. We then rushed off to the second day of workshop where we took on some bachata sequences, took an hour for dinner, went back for salsa class, and on to Caliente for a hardcore night of sexying up our new moves. Including dinner (who doesn't dance over dinner?) from 3pm to 3am that was 12 hours solid of dancing. No wonder my feet hurt the next day.

But it doesn't stop there - I met David for brunch at the All American Diner on Sunday (check it out for huge ass American portions), followed by a well needed coffee, on to the third and final day of bachata where we continued to learn more moves, try and remember everything from the previous two days, put it all together and not forget to move those hips. To recharge we fit 17 of us into a small Indian restaurant, chucked all the tables together in the Coffee Bean for 17 of us to have coffee, and finally those hardcore enough went on to dance more salsa. As it was hitting 10pm, I went home and thankfully accidently set my alarm an hour late this morning. If I hadn't, I may well have been hiding in a corner from hyper active children all day.

But bachata. It's an easy dance to learn, and it's heaps of fun. Big fan.

The APPT Seoul

This isn't actually a post about poker. But good friend Ed happened to qualify for the tournament so shipped himself over for the weekend. Luckily for me he went out in the first day, but that meant we had all weekend to spend together; clearly that's why he qualified in the first place, right? ;)

Actually, mutual university friend Sun-Ho is also in Korea taking up holiday visiting family. Being a poker fan he spent much of Thursday evening swooning over professional poker players (while I'm sitting there at the open bar going, "Greg who now?"), but also being a fan of the salsa dance, I took the boys out to Caliente on Friday night to check out Sun-Ho's new moves. Speaking of which, it's the 2008 Salsa Congress in Seoul next weekend, but no doubt there will be more on that nearer the time.

So there was Insadong and Changdeokgung and Seoul Tower and the War Museum, but more than anything else there was silliness and geekiness.

Which reminds me of the "Rolling Ball" exhibition. Some geeks got together to present their marble rollers. It was amazing. Not to mention the weekend stay in the Sheraton Walkerhill hotel. So I was late to work on Monday morning, but I did have a good breakfast...

Partying in Itaewon

Last night was Rob's last night in Korea. I guess being the beginning of the western academic year, there's a lot of teacher turn-over at this time of year. Anyway, we went to Itaewon for a final drink and a dance.

In my whole time here I don't think I've ever really talked about Itaewon. Maybe there's a reason for that. When I first arrived in Korea I didn't go there much; the one time I went in the daytime I got really freaked out that a) I could understand people's conversations on the streets, and b) with that in mind, they could probably understand mine too.

Living out in the suburbs of Seoul it's rare that I meet another foreigner on the street in day-to-day life. If I do, we'll probably acknowledge one another, keeping up the united minority front. In Itaewon, the foreign district of Korea, I'm more likely to shy away from all other foreigners. I know I AM one, but en masse I guess we can be intimidating.

Actually it's not probably not that different to being at home. Hoards of drunk people in the evenings are intimidating wherever you go, especially when you're not drunk and by yourself. But getting back to England and understanding EVERYTHING is going to be weird.

Anyway other than this, Itaewon just doesn't seem to have the same standards of cleanliness than the rest of central Seoul. It just seems dirty (possibly with coke bottles and KFC wrappers floating on the streets). I kind of feel I might get a rat across my feet down the side alleys.

Still, these days I come here at least once a week to dance salsa (there's a seedy little salsa bar called Caliente, predominantly full of expats doing their thing on a Saturday night) and to hang out with my Korean and western friends alike without any pressure to speak Korean.

I guess people like coming here because everyone speaks English and you know what you're getting. I guess that's why I (and a lot of other foreigners) don't.