Montreal PART DEUX!

    I think I am hopeless, impossible. I got to the airport an hour before the flight AGAIN (it had been 2 days after I missed my flight to MTL hehe..) But this time, I got on the plane on time and took a sleeping pill and knocked out right away!! First I stopped over Vancouver and went through immigration. The Canadian immigration is harsher than US one I think. at least to me. They brought me into the small depressing room again for hard interview. They always ask same questions over and over.. like why are you here, what are you going to do in Canada, do you have relative in Canada, how much do you have in cash..blah blah fucking blah..I barely felt humiliation in my life but when I am in that fucking interview office, I couldn’t feel more humiliated without reasons. I hate to go through immigration even though I like travel so much. In my experience, the worst immigration experience goes like 1. Russia 2. Canada 3. US

   Ok, I got on the same plane and my second destination was Toronto. I stopped over in Toronto airport like 3 hours and then got on the plane to Montreal. My flight duration was total 17 hours from Korea to Montreal. If it weren’t for my sleeping pill, I wouldn’t have made it this trip hahaha. Anyway, finally I got to Montreal airport!! It was after midnight Friday. If I am lucky, I can catch up the last band AGE but If not, I will have to be at the venue after the show. I have reserved illegal cabbie thing which is ran by Korean ( I didn’t know Montreal has this shit too haha), and he was waiting for me out side of the gate. Thanks to him, I FINALLY arrived at Katacombes!!!! I was so surprised!
1. It has been a quite long time since I saw this many crusties.
2. The biggest punk venue I’ve ever seen (there is even second floor?????)
3. Last but not least, the smell part!! Since I live in Korea, I usually go to Japan to see crust gigs. Surprisingly, Japanese punks have shampoo fragrance rather than stinky smell! It was the biggest culture shock I had in Japan. Even though I love so-called ‘Shampoo Punks’ sometime I always miss crusty smell (something must be wrong with me hehe). But when I entered in to Katacombes, I smelled the crusty!!!! I was like “ohh yeah!! Long time no smell!!!”. This sounds kinda freaky but I actually enjoyed this part so much that I didn’t even need a cup of vodka to stick my nose in.

   I coat-checked my baggage and then first thing I always do?? Grabbing a beer!!! Thankfully the AGE show has not started yet. I met JTA..Meggon…Alex MTL..Alex Cleveland..Cece..Kid..and So many people this night! They were all super nice and kind. I was worried first but they were so funny and nice!! I am so glad that I got to meet these cool people. I think I was very lucky.

  Finally, AGE started to play! Actually, I was really disappointed to miss all those local bands that I really wanted to see on Friday. AGE is def one of my favorite bands in Japan and I went to Japan many times to see their gig. However, I kinda wanted to check out more North American bands than Japanese band for this time because of the travel distance matter. But fuck, it was the best AGE show I’ve ever seen!!!! Maybe I was too excited? I don’t know but I was really really enjoyed their show. Total metal punk assault!! They played so well and the atmosphere was amazing too. People seemed to have loads of fun during their show.

   After the show, I said hi to many friends and have been introduced to new people as well. They were very surprised that I came from so far away to see this festival. Janick seemed to be very surprised that I actually showed up haha!! I was little bit surprised that I actually made this trip kinda impulsively. Hahaha. Anyways, I mostly talked to people from Cleveland and they were probably the nicest people I’ve ever met!! Also very funny too (they said I am funny though..I don’t get it hehehe).
I left so many Nayoung’s quotation during my stay.. the first one started this night.
Usually Korean people aren’t really familiar with drug thing. Believe it or not, so am I. So when I saw my friend doing the hand gesture indicating cocaine, I thought he was fucking sick and have a runny nose. How stupid!! Haha!!! Sorry! 

Anyway, I was so happy to see Portland friends and nice people. I think we had a nice conversation even though my memory is blurred out due to massive amount of alcohol (^_^)V Megon and Alex kindly let me stay their apartment so couple of people headed back to their place! I had hard time sleeping because of jet leg but I couldn’t even fall asleep anyway cause I was super excited! My first night of Montreal!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay!!!

all photos in this post graciously received from CeCe Manning!

she rules!