Amanda Takes Off...

JUMP! Comedic Martial Arts Performance

Go and see the show and take all your family and friends.
They will love you forever.

I don't think I've ever seen a tag line so correct before.

Damn.

That was awesome.

Friday night Good Man and I went and saw JUMP!. I expected it to be good, but I didn't expect my face to actually hurt from laughing and smiling through the whole hour and twenty minute long performance.

The theater was fairly small, about 400 seats. We were in the fourth row, with one seat on Good Man's right free. Normally these would be very bad seats, but they were very good.

The idea behind JUMP! is that a family of martial artists (grandpa, mom, dad, daughter, and drunk uncle). There's also a random old man who "narrates" (though it's mostly non-verbal and you don't need to speak any Korean to understand what's going on). There is also a man who wants to marry the daughter.

The first act is about the family dealing with the drunk uncle. The second act drags some people (foreigners, always foreigners) from the audience to do some martial arts. The third act involved the daughter and her suitor and the mother and father. The two young lovers try to be alone together with the drunk uncle constantly interrupting; the mother tries to seduce the father. "Please just let these couples love!" says the program. The last act is about two buglers who break into the house. The last act was by far the most gymnastic and acrobatic and martialistic.

I am not, generally speaking, a huge fan of physical comedy, especially not Korean style. One of the most popular things here is a "gag show" with skits such as a man just hitting himself on the head. Repeatedly. I don't get it.

But this was physical comedy done well. I can't say enough about it. It was awesome.

One thing the actors did repeatedly was sort of shake their hips, bounce up and down, and then point to another character and say, "Yay!" I've done that at least three times to Good Man since seeing the show.

After the show, the cast members did free signings. I bought a program for 7,000 won and got it signed by all the cast members while Good Man waited patiently. Some of the cast members were impressed my by Korean. You know, "My name is Amanda."

Before the play, we had dinner. After the play we had...ice cream.

Clothing Matters

As a side note, a few funny things happened because of what I was wearing.

I wore a black wrap dress. I knew I'd get some looks, because of my figure. To give you an idea, wearing 3 inch inseam shorts with 3 inch heels is considered fine in Korea, but showing back or shoulders is risqué. This dress had short sleeves, but it was a low V-neck wrap, so I knew it was a little...unusual. Because of said figure, I can't wear the ruffled, high neck things that Korean women wear even if I wanted to. So I went with the dress.

While I was walking to the bathroom a young boy (maybe 8?) looked at me with awe and greeted me in Korean. I laughed. I'm used to being greeted in English by children, not Korean. I think it was the dress.

On the subway platform (Good Man was already on his subway line), I was sitting, waiting. I was holding the program in front of me, covering most of my chest. Still, a man walked by and said, "You are very beautiful!" His girlfriend started beating on him. I think had the program been on my lap, she may have thrown him on the tracks.

Master

When my parents were here, Master's family gave them a gift (clothing) to give to give to my newphew. It's common to give clothing gifts to children and I still think my doing so made Master's Wife really comfortable with me.

Friday I got a call from my sister-in-law asking what size the outfit was. I wasn't sure why she needed to know, but I called Master and asked him. He kept asking me something I couldn't understand so I said, "Master, I'm seeing Good Man in 10 minutes. I'll call you back." He said he'd call me.

During dinner, Master called and I passed him off to Good Man. I watched Good Man's face and that combined with the length of the call told me that Master was talking about something entirely unrelated to what he was supposed to talk about.

When they hung up, I looked at Good Man suspiciously. "What did he say?"

Turns out I had understood what Master was asking. He wanted to know why I needed to know the size and my "I don't know, my sister-in-law wants to know" answer wasn't enough for him.

"No, he said something else."

Good Man shrugged, "Oh, yeah, he said he wants to meet us for dinner together some day."

"What did you say?"

"I said 'yes, of course.'"

I still think Master said more than that...

Nikon D80 Digital SLR

My father gave me my first SLR camera when I was 8 or 9 years old. I love SLR photography. I held off on digital cameras until a now-long-ex boyfriend bought me a point-and-shoot one. I loved the ease of digital (getting the pictures on a screen), but hated that I couldn't control ISO, shutter speed, aperture!

Back in August I got to use Master's Canon 400D digital SLR. I've gotten to use it a few more times since then, each time making me more seriously consider upgrading to a digital SLR.

For the last three weeks I've been researching DSLRs. Yesterday Good Man and I went to Namdaemun. Some time and and 107 man won bills later I had a brand new Nikon D80 digital SLR in my hands.

We went to two places and passed dozens of others in the meantime. Good Man had researched the prices for me, so I knew what I was looking to spend.

The first place we went wouldn't even show me the lens I wanted. They said I had to decide to buy the lens first, then I could see it. Apparently they had no marked out of stock lenses for me to play with. They had one lens I could look at and the manual focusing (which is what I plan on using most of the time!) felt weird. Turning the focusing ring felt like sandpaper rubbing against sandpaper. They said "Oh, most of the other lenses aren't like that." But then they wouldn't let me try or even look at the other lenses.

So we headed to the second place, which took forever to find. As we know, Good Man is a fan of walking. A lot. Actually, it wasn't Good Man's fault that we couldn't find the place. Numerous buildings in multiple locations having the same name, combined with a not great map was the problem. (In retrospect I think I know why we couldn't get there.) He thought I was upset with him because I was frustrated. I wasn't upset with him, though, I was annoyed that we couldn't find this store and annoyed that the first store wouldn't just let me try some lenses.

Once we finally found the second place, they let me manhandle lenses but wouldn't let me use it until I actually bought the camera.

Both places let me manhandle a body. The body is sweet. A 2.5" LCD display, the body is surprisingly light but solid feeling (about a 1 lb body). It's 10 megapixels!

Poor Good Man. I don't think he knows too much about photography and he was translating questions using a vocabulary that many native English speakers would not know. "What's the biggest possible aperture? The smallest? What are the fastest and slowest shutter speeds? ISOs?" He was very patient.

I ended up comparing a digital only lens with a lens that could be used for digital or regular SLRs. I was comparing the weight and physical length of the lenses as well as the apertures and focal lengths. I was standing there muttering to myself, "3.5 compared to 2.8 f/stop...but this lens is really, really heavy and very large... 135 mm max length to 150 mm... digital only vs compatible, but really, how many times will I need a compatible lens?..."

While I was standing there, muttering away, the sales guy told Good Man I was picky and knew a lot about cameras.

If I'm going to drop that amount of money on a camera, I'm going to be damn happy with it! I am not one of these "more money than brains" Gangnam families that has money to blow and thus just goes and buys a purty DSLR camera!

So 1,070,000 won got me the body, an 18 mm to 135 mm lens (the 3.5 f/stop), a camera bag, 2 GB memory card, and a UV filter. (The filter size is 67 mm. I look like an owl when I use the camera. This is not something you use for sneaking photos of people!) That's cheaper than anything we found online and more than 200,000 won cheaper than the first place that wouldn't even let me see the lens! (And that's comparing the first place selling only the body and lens—not including the memory card, bag, or filter!)

I bought the Japanese import (cheaper than the Korean model, but I have to pay for A/S service if I need it) so I got manuals in Korean and Japanese. Good Man then found the manual online for me in English.

I bought a refurbished SLR in the States when I was in high school (salesperson said then that I was picky and knew a lot) but I was using gift certificates. This is the first camera I've bought purely with my own money and I took a deep breath before counting out my 107 10,000 won bills.

It kind of made me feel like an adult.

After we bought the camera, we met Michael for lunch, then coffee. Then he came down to my apartment to get the DVD player I (will have) bought from him (when I give him the money) working. I couldn't get it to work, Good Man couldn't get it to work. Michael switched some menu item and ta-da! "Glad I could come all the way down here to get your DVD player working with one switch, Amanda!"

He was teasing of course.

Hanoi

I have 14 days vacation at my school. I'm taking two days next week for a taekwondo "camp." I am taking five more days in August.

So. Today Good Man spent about an hour helping me find plane tickets. Per Michael's suggestion, we used Tour Cabin to look for cheap tickets.

I dragged my Asia wall map out of the drawer, spread it out on the floor and flopped down.

I started rattling off cities while he checked prices. I wanted to go to Brunei (on the island of Borneo) but while the ticket wasn't very expensive, the trip itself would be.

I've been to Thailand, and while I want to go back, I wanted something new. "How much is Hanoi [Vietnam] or Phnom Penh [Cambodia]?"

He rattled off prices and I chose Hanoi. Then it was a matter of going down the list of websites until we could find one that would let foreigners register. (Korean websites are a pain in the ass.)

About a half hour later, I had a ticket to Hanoi.

Now to figure out what I'll do there...

Johnny

I talked to Johnny on the phone briefly.

"So. I hear you've got a new boyfriend."

"Yes."

"Did you meet him at taekwondo?"

"No."

"OK. Good. I can beat him up then."

"He has a black belt."

"In taekwondo? Well." Pause. "Then I'll have to shoot him from a distance. They all have black belts, don't they?"

I burst out laughing. My brother has really good comedic timing.