Mom's visit - first weekend

On May 19th, my mom came to visit for nine days.
These have possibly been the busiest nine days of my life. No joke.
Friday, May 18th: Vanessa came to Gwangju. Actually, she came on Thursday, I think... oh man, blurry month. We went to a student art gallery downtown, and then out for some tea. Yeah, it was definitely this date for these activities... it was fun. After work we met for Shabu Shabu with some Munhwa figures, including Jim, the new teacher!
Saturday, May 19th: Said goodbye to Vanessa, hopped on a bus to Incheon, which I almost missed, to go pick up mom. Arrive at Incheon about one hour early. Spend most of the trip back discussing Vanessa, cartoon characters painted on the sides of buildings, and my Uncle Brian's gas problems.
Sunday, May 20th: Head to the Bong Sun Si Jang, the local daily market to pick up some food supplies. Return to the apartment for a meet-and-greet with my friends for my mom. I said it started at 12:00, so I am expecting guests to arrive at around 1:00 or 1:30. Ee MeCha breaks with convention and arrives on time, which means that my ice-run leaves her alone with my mom. Awkward! She was surprisingly shy to speak English to my mom... so my mom played Foose with her son while we prepared snacks. Around 1:30, people started showing up, and it was a great time. I'll try to remember who came:
Ee MeCha and her son, Jim, the new teacher at Munhwa, Vanessa Reid and HangBin, Carol, Mel, Mo and Darren, my young neighbour and his girlfriend, and Vanessa (Sweeney) of course. It was a great little gang! My mom was pretty impressed with everyone, and everyone enjoyed hearing all the blush-worthy stories. We hung out at the apartment untl about 4:00 or so, and then we headed to the North End of Gwangju to a youth festival where Darren and I were scheduled to play. Now, in Canada, youth typically means high-school, teens, maybe young university students... here it means kids. tiny kids.
So... our set was not ideal for the audience, but it was what we had practiced, and it was maybe best for the parents and other volunteers. haha. We wound up playing "Blue" by the JayHawks, and a medley of "Dry the Rain" by the Beta Band and "Take Your Mama Out" by the Scissor Sisters, and Darren even worked in a little "Free Radicals" by the Flaming Lips into the outro. And yes, it sounded just as awesome as you are probably imagining. I did some vocal looping, so we had simultaneous "I need love"-ing, with the super-high falsetto of the Scissor Sisters going under Darren's claims that although you think you are so radical, you are in fact "fanatical", and not really so radical at all, and his reassurances that if there's something inside that you've got to say, you should say it out loud and it will be okay, he will be your light, he will be your light, he will be your light, he will be your light.
After the music, we headed back to the apartment, and then finally downtown for "Shabu Shabu", again, this time with mom, Vanessa, Carol and Mel (and me, of course). It was delicious, and mom fared well with her first introduction to spicy-ish Asian food.