Category: Video

This is another one of my favorite episodes. We did most of this with the new crew, and they were very efficient. This is a good food episode. We travel down the Nakdong River and hit Andong and Busan, two of my favorite towns. Here are some highlights and commentary.

• The shots of me on the train were the last ones we did.
• I don’t know what “Korean Smiles Along 500 Kilometers” means
• We shot the train opening for this episode the same time we shot parts of the Han River episode. We set everything up and waited for a train to show up. While it was transferring passengers, I quickly got on the train, waited for the director to yell, “Cue,” and did my opening bit (lotsa memorization). We did it three times. The one that was kept included my only flub, but it was minor.
• At Hwangji Pond, even though we were supervised by a park official, there were still old men who took it upon themselves to tell us we couldn’t film at the pond. We filmed a lot there, and very little ended up in the final cut. We were also fighting sporadic showers.
• Anyone who follows this blog knows how much I love Andong and Hahoe Village. I was so happy to return there.
• I think this is why the second crew took over in the middle of this episode. The opening and Hwangji Pond were shot by the original crew. But there was a lot of talk about their inefficiency. Or rather, issues with time management. The Hwangji Pond bit took the whole afternoon, shooting a lot of stuff that was really unnecessary. Only two shots made it into the final cut. What really bugged us was that we traveled all the way down there by bus one day to meet the crew and shoot a scene in the mask museum near Hahoe Village. We then went to a place to go fish for catfish. Now, all of us knew that the weather was bad that weekend, but the director insisted. When we got there, the catfish fishing organizers said that they couldn’t do any fishing that weekend, so we cancelled the shoot for that whole weekend and went all the way back up to Seoul. Also I should note that the director was so hardcore in getting all this done that we couldn’t eat the whole time. Just one meal a day and maybe some kimbap. In the end, that entire weekend was a bust. The entire mask museum scene was cut out. I just assumed that was the way that productions worked. But when we worked with the second crew, it was much different. Locations were organized well and shot quickly. And only one scene the entire time I worked with them didn’t make a show.
• It was HOT the day we went to Hahoe Village. I rode the ferry a few times, and we got footage. Then the director and camera guy decided to go up the mountain to get some more shots of Byeongsan Seowon. That was dedication. I stayed behind with the others and got hooked on orange slushies.
• We shot a lot of nice little scenes in the mazelike walkways of Hahoe Village. Since I had just been there a few months ago, I knew some good places to film.
• The mask dance was very cool. Though, yeah, since I was a foreigner and a foreigner on TV, I was the center of every gag and embarrassing bit. Look closely, and you see the bull pee in my face. They had a French guy (who briefly appears) and me go up there and dance. I would do it again, though–without the peeing-in-the-face part.
• Next–FOOD! And we ate most all the stars of Andong cuisine–JjimDalk (braised chicken), Shikhye (red rice punch), Gan Godeung-eo (salted mackerel), Heot Jesatbap (fake ceremonial food), and Andong-style Bibimbap. The cook let me film the entire process for making JjimDalk, which I will edit and post in the future.
• Miryang–home of the scariest love motel room I’ve ever seen. The scene that was cut was one where I made some buckwheat jelly with school kids. It was a dull scene anyway. But the fish catching scene was amusing. As always, we used a stunt fish. The bottom of the pond was made up of slippery round stones, so it was almost impossible to get your footing, and it was very possible to twist an ankle. So I was trying to be careful despite my new friends’ carefree attitude. But those guys said they had been doing this since they were kids. After the fishing scene, we went to the riverbank, where a bunch of families were camped out. One tent had some roasted dog meat, where I got my second taste of this–nah, I wouldn’t call it a delicacy. But the ginger salad was good. My friends cleaned the catfish in the river and skewered them on bamboo spears. They cooked them over a campfire like hot dogs, and they were seriously the best fish I’ve ever tasted in my life. The muddy catfish meat was the perfect sponge for the wood smoke. That was up there in my best meals of 2011 list.
• That night they had me go into this mushroom looking house-slash-hotel-slash-restaurant. It was surreal looking. They had me say some lines after opening the window in just the right way. We had to do that bit a few times because I couldn’t always open the window perfectly.
• We went straight down to Busan, got out on the beach a bit, checked into our motel, and went out for  a few beers. Fun crew.
• I was originally supposed to do some jet skiing. Then I was supposed to swim in an aquarium tank with some sharks. That all got changed. Instead I just wandered around the film festival area eating street food. A crazy old man kept dancing in front of the camera. He then went up and stole my hoddeok. The director chased him off and told us to hide in this building until they were finished filming.
• We went to Jagalchi Fish Market. Stinkier than Noryangjin but still cool. I had a great time there. Check out the surprise on my face when that octopus started clinging to my arm.
• The seafood feast was the other great meal of the trip. I had my fill of raw fish for a long, long time. This was the scene where everyone really scratched their heads on what the writer was thinking. Obviously she had never spent any time outside of Korea, and her concepts of foreigners were based on stereotypes, what is called a “frog in the well” perception of the world. The script called for me to eat the sashimi and mention something like how it tasted like my mom’s food. That was a fun line to rewrite.
• The rest of the trip was a blur. We woke up early, and the camera guy went to the top of a tower to film me on a beach. That was some good coordination in cueing. We then went to some ecological areas and monuments. I just remember how beautiful the Busan cityscape was and the heat.

Photos from the episode are here.

Other than Seoul, we don’t visit any super famous towns on this trip, but we do have fun. This is one of my favorite episodes. Here are some highlights, commentary, and trivia.

• This is where our conflicts with the writer start to surface. She wrote some awful stuff that we had to cope and rewrite.
• The episode starts with me “jogging” early in the morning (met the van around 4 a.m.) on the Han River in Seoul. My opening consists of me talking about how pure the water is–after we picked up the trash that was in the shot. We joked that the writer should go for a swim in the Han after writing that.
• Am I doing a good job of pretending I’m out of breath from exercising? ACTING!
• We shot the beginnings of episodes 3 and 4 simultaneously, so I still get them confused.
• This episode took the longest to complete, consisting of many day trips and weekend trips. Many of the delays for this and episode 4 were from one of the rainiest summers in modern Korean history.
• As usual, the extras in the shots are the crew.
• Singing Arirang–yeah, you’re gonna hear me sing. After my final lines in this scene, the rain came pouring in.
• The rail bikes we did on a day trip. One of our four interns, Seonghae, was my partner for this one.
• The rail bikes I’ll do again. We were at the back of the line, so the train engine that collects the bikes and returns them afterward was right on our tail. That’s why it looks like I’m yelling at her to go faster.
• The comment about holding your breath before going into the tunnel was an inside joke for my family.
• We went to Nami Island for a day trip. Famous scenes from “Winter Sonata” were filmed here, and this was a kitschy shrine to the drama. What was cool was that the island was a showcase of environmentalist utopia, with soju bottles recycled into sculptures. Too bad some of the tourists didn’t go along with the environmental spirit of the island and continues to litter on the pathways.
• Nami Island makes a good day trip for people in Seoul. It’s touristy but unique. And being in Chuncheon, there’s a lotta DalkGalbi.
• For fans of the SeoulPodcast, you’ll recognize that we go the burial grounds of our favorite king–Sejong the Great. It was one of the hottest days of the year. But since the show would air in the fall, I had to dress as if it was much cooler.
• When I’m walking through the pottery village, it’s actually drizzling a bit. Can’t tell, huh?
• We spent an afternoon filming a whole segment at this one complex of me making a bowl with a woman, and it was cut.
• The pottery master, Um Gi-hwan, was a super cool guy. We went to his place twice. The first time, he insisted we go to his pavilion in his backyard and have some fruit and makkolli–Icheon makkolli was the best out of all the trips.
• Making pottery the traditional way needs a person with a lot of stamina to turn that wheel by foot. I’m huffing, puffing, and making mistakes because I can’t feel my leg anymore.
• Through the magic of TV, it looked like we went to a kiln, fired the bowl, and looked at it afterward. In actuality, they handed me a bowl and told me to talk to him about it. We went to the kiln on another day. A rainy day. But it was some amazing samgyeopsal.
• I was truly fascinated by the works of art in Mr. Um’s place. I love Korean pottery!
• The slow food village was one of our first days of filming. It was one of many times in the scripts where I did activities designed for children. Besides the usual obnoxious nine-year-old boys yelling, “Waygukin annyeong,” the entire day, the kids were cool.
• One of the few stunt fishes makes an appearance in this show. They wanted me to “catch” a fish with my hands, so a guy came out with an ice chest and a mostly dead fish. I had to grab it, put it in the water, and flail it around as if it was alive and kicking. Not my most humane moment in TV.
• We were yelled at by a guard for filming in a neighborhood of Heyri Art Valley, but we used the footage anyway.
• I like the Freedom Bridge segment. Right after filming, we sat down to eat. They only had two restaurants at this tourist site–an overpriced Korean restaurant and a Popeye’s. So we ate at the Popeye’s while I watched live Al Jazeera coverage on my phone of the rebels taking over Tripoli.

Overall, I like this episode. Most each segment was its own day of filming, usually the van meeting me after I finished the radio show at 10 a.m. and going out to some place. I’d say the episode took a month from start to finish. We had some fun times.

This was the first episode we filmed, starting in late May. Most of the time they chose my wardrobe, so don’t think I normally dress in lime sherbert cardigans. Here are some highlights, commentary, and trivia from the shoot:

• Got to experience my first temple stay, and I recommend this particular temple for anyone wanting to try
• CUT SCENE: I got to ring the big bell at the temple
• We really did wake up at three a.m. for the Buddhist temple stay
• We did 108 bows in that room, so that’s why it looks like I’m sweating during the meditation part. I am sweating.
• Intern Seong-eun also did the temple stay and the baru meal. She’s next to me in a lot of shots. She hated it. But I liked the food. We then went for a second breakfast after that.
• Lots of Pyeongchang’s local buckwheat dishes
• Man, I ate so much buckwheat there that I don’t think I can have anymore for a long time.
• Novelist Lee Hyo-suk’s birthplace
• The museum scene took a long time to film because tourists kept wandering into shots
• ATV stunt riding
• During a shot the cameraman jumped on the back of an ATV and barely held on as we went down a bumpy dirt path, shooting my ATV behind him.
• Right before my speech on the ATV, I crashed into a ditch and banged myself up pretty badly. Can’t tell, huh? Bruises took a month to heal.
• Mountain coaster = FUN!
• I think we rode the mountain coaster six times for all the shots. Those other people are the crew.
• Paragliding
• I was actually scared, and my tandem coach was a bit nervous that I was too heavy.
• The scene where the paraglider takes off and I talk to the camera had to be done in one take, obviously. And I improvised that.
• The harness is quite snug in certain gonadial regions.
• Dig that animal print lining in my helmet!
• Notice that we drop off pretty quickly after leaving the ground. I swear we missed the trees by only a few feet.
• A scene about Korea’s traditional heating system, kudeul
• The guy I’m talking to was a hoot. He was also the village chief.
• The food we had was in my top five best meals of the series. Very simple local organic vegetables. Lively flavors.
• I had to sleep in a specially made model one-room cabin. It was already heated for my stay, but they wanted to do a scene where the chief stoked the fire for the room. So I had double the heat that summer evening. I was swimming in my own sweat.
• After the dinner scene, it was late, and I had assumed we were finished. We had been filming since four that morning. So I was very tired and had just brushed my teeth and was heading to bed when they wanted me to come out and do the fire stoking and looking at my laptop scenes. I was not happy.

Finally got my hands on a copy. This is the first of six episodes of G-Korea I did for Arirang this summer, traveling around Korea. This is about Jeju Island. I do some parasailing and go out on a yacht. I hump it up a mountain at four in the morning to watch a sunrise. For comic relief, I try to balance on a surfboard. My bathing suit ripped during my successful attempt, so don’t examine it too closely. The lady at the folk village was a hoot. Unfortunately, I couldn’t be there for the Haenyeo (female divers) segment and gorge on sea urchin. A lot of things got rewired in this episode, but the crew made it come together in the end.

AND IT WAS HOT!!!

We only filmed my parts on a single weekend, but my harried experience there made me want to return. I discovered that I love Jeju cuisine. One of my most decadent breakfasts this year was a briny seaweed soup with chunks of sea urchin roe. I think in Korea, the general public hasn’t yet considered sea urchin roe a delicacy as they do abalone. So missing out!