K-Pop and Picnics

Last weekend, I got to experience a K-pop (Korean pop music) concert for free.  There were 7 different bands/artists performing to raise awareness for the upcoming Olympics games.  We had really awesome seats pretty close to the stage.  I don't know too much about Korean bands, but judging by the teenage screaming, some of them were quite popular.

The next day (my birthday!) I went to Murang (that's probably the wrong spelling) Valley with my English Conversation Club.  My friend told me about the club, which is for people who want to practice English.  I was very excited, because I really wanted to make some Korean friends. 

Last weekend was my second time going, and instead of meeting at the library, we went on an excursion to the valley.  We hiked a bit, then had a picnic.

After the picnic, we hiked back down and drove to this...place.  Not exactly a cafe, but this place you can go and make coffee and tea and put money for it in a box.  I think it is near a monastery, because a monk came down and gave us rice cakes.

My friend Joyce:

 Jimmy (our group leader) making tea:

Gwilym and "Kim" enjoying their drinks:

Outside there were some of the weirdest looking chickens I've seen:

"Jennifer," one of the Korean members is a music teacher, and she gave Joyce, Gwilym and me practice versions of the traditional Korean short flute.  I mostly failed miserably at producing sound, but it was still an awesome gift!

So my birthday weekend was pretty amazing.