Punk Trip to Taipei and Kuala Lumpur (Feb,2011) Part 2!!!

Here I come!! Kuala Lumpur!!! I went through immigration. I think most of immigration officers are fucking cunty cunt shit but KL one was different!! I am not being shallow bitch here but fucking my officer was the most handsome officer I’ve ever met in my travel history(maybe just for my taste??). And he was totally smiled at me, winked and asked sort of private questions puhahahhaha!!! I was almost about to ask when do you get off your work kkkk

After the immigration, I took an express train to KL Sentral Station. When I looked outside, it was very exotic and I could feel the hotness through the window. I arrived at Sentral station and waited for Jeo to pick me up. I was very glad that he actually came to the station even though he must be very busy to prepare the gig!!! We took a cab to the venue. KL looked pretty developed city and there are many different races. I knew Malaysia has many Muslims but I was surprised to see the Arabic letter on sign. At this point, I thought I made really smart choice to choose KL over Japan because I love to see and try new things :D

When I get off the cab and entered the venue, there was second culture shock!!!! It was like big restaurant and at the end of it, there is entrance door to the live club. When it comes to the punk venue, I’ve always expected some basement club located in seedy area of the town. WRONG!
Anyways, there was quite a lot of punks were hanging out, eating food. I was introduced to some local& Singaporian punks and chatted little while.. Man..I was very v~~ery tired.. I shouldn’t have drunk that much last night in Taiwan. And the weather!! I don’t want to bitch about the weather (It is stupid) but I am extremely weak at hot weather. And of course it was very hot in Malaysia haha! So I probably drank millions of ice tea (actually I needed beer so much).

Well..I met this girl named Ebit and she knows like everything in Korea!! Hahahah We had chat about Korea and cultural things.. It was very surprised to see foreigner knows about Korea so well even though they live in other part of the world. Maybe K-POP actually is advertising Korea somehow heheh. My Japanese punk friends are asking about KARA and my Taiwanese punk friends mention about Girls Generation’s legs thing hahahahah!! But it is way better than listen the name Kim Jung Ill or do you really eat dog shit whenever I said I am from Korea.

The show was supposed to start at 4PM but it didn’t get started around 6PM. Haha I don’t like punctuality when it comes to gig so it was cool. I looked through some merch table and bought couple of tapes. I wanted to buy some tour t-shirt and records but they sold all their stuff in Japan. There was only XS size of tour t-shirts left. I can’t even put my arm into those tiny shirts.

I respect my Malaysian friend’s life style and would like to do the same when I am staying their country BUT I couldn’t resist drinking beer HAHAHA!!! So I started to drink a beer, before first band geen naam starts to play. Not many people were during the live but I try not to miss any bands when I go to punk gig. They were actually good!! Total metal punk attack!!!! I was overly excited to see a band playing in Malaysia though hahah.

After them, it was Kathgor. They are not really my cup of tea but I have to mention about the female vocal. I usually don’t like female fronted bands because of scratchy high pitched voice. It makes my nails hurt (you know the sounds nail scratching on to the black board shit). But vocal of Kathgor??? She knows what she’s doing!!! Brutal as fuck!!!! I loved her voice so much BAGUS!!!

After Kathror, I drank again..again..and again~ haha. There are couple of people were drinking at the bar (not many!!). They were interested in talking to me cuz I am from different country so we had some funny conversation. Of course they were very nice and friendly. They offered me a drink. Like I said, I even sell my soul for free beer hahahaha!!! If it weren’t for Jeo, I would have been done so much embarrassing shit like I always do.
He saved my skin. Thanks Jeo!!

Anyway, I kinda don’t remember what the next band was. It was either Atomic death or Kahroshi
(Sorry, I have serious memory problem. My brain is kinda like swiss cheese now).
But I will write Atomic Death first haha!!! They played brutal Thrash!! They are sooo sooooooo good!! I was overly excited while their show haha!! I think I heard their split CD will come out next month?
Check them out!!!! Actually Atomic Death was my favorite band of this night.

Next band was Kahroshi (sp?). SHIT!! This band plays dark and heavy-moody-crusty 3 combos!! My favorite kind of music hehehe. They covered Hellshock too. Anyway, I didn’t know Malaysian punk scene or music before I came here, so I was very surprised to see a lot of interesting bands. I heard punk scene around SE asia is burning now but to experience is beyond my expectation! I feel so lucky to make this trip.

Finally, it is Nuclear Death Terror! Of course they played great and atmosphere was epic!! It was like a storm you know from start to the end. There was no rest hahaha!! Fucking Brutal!! But I have to tell this, I didn’t go to Malaysia JUST to see NDT. If international band comes to some place, I have better chance to see more awesome local bands and crowd and even band from another country because it is unusual event. That’s all. I was kinda sick and tired of hearing “Are you here for (band name)?”

Last band was Lifelock from Singapore. They play raw d-beat punk! It is always good to listen raw as fuck d-beat!! They were actually pretty awesome. I can’t wait to hear some stuff from their music. What did I do in Singapore?? Haha I doubt I go to Singapore anytime soon but If I have a chance, I will def check out more Singapore bands.

Ok, the show is officially over but there will be after party!!
I was talking to many people outside of the venue, and ran into Hisham from SMG. I’ve never met him in person but my Czech friend gave me his contact. Surprisingly he gave me bunch of split tapes!! How nice he is?? I checked them out when I got back to Korea and they fucking rules!! SMG seems very active band as well. I respect active band!! Pure Brutal Grindcore! Awesome!!!

Picture time..Say good bye time..Then we went to Jalan Allor(sp?). It is basically the street has full of restaurant outside. I love this kind of atmosphere!! I feel more comfortable eating outside then inside kkkkk Our table was full of the nicest local punks(Jeo,Atomic Death members,Tumin). We talk so many thing and eat yummy food. Sambal Sauce in my blood!!!!:D Why Malaysian food is so good?? I will miss this. Malaysian punks are extremely nice and friendly. They first seems to be shy but after we talk little bit more, they are very friendly. They even made fun of my accent hahahha.

Even though I didn’t drink that much as usual, I was extremely tired so I had to crash somewhere. Epiana drove us all to Jery’s record shop and I passed out immediately.. My first day in Kuala Lumpur was very intense and fun..I already started to miss these things while I was writing this diary.

Much Respect to all Malaysian Punks!!!

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!

Punk Trip to Taipei and Kuala Lumpur (Feb,2011)

Punk Trip to Taipei and Kuala Lumpur (Feb,2011)


It is Lunar New Year 2011!! The logest and biggest holiday in Korea!! As you guys may know, Korean people cannot really appreciate the holiday. People forced to work all the time and laziness is not allowed. Luckily, this year I had one week vacation from my work which I was fuck-yeahing over 2 weeks before the holiday.

However, unfortunately, as a low budget traveler like me, this isn’t very good time to go abroad because there is huge price increase in plane ticket due to holiday seasons. I was checking with some travel agency and so desperate. USD 600 for Japan, USD 1,000 for Singapore???!!!FUCK THAT SHIT!! Beside of the price issue, there is no seat available anyway.. Who the fuck said Korean economy is depressed??

Fortunately, I was mindlessly surfing the travel agency web-site and scored THE golden ticket (at least to me). The flight schedule is like this..

Korea -> Taiwan 5th/Feb (Saturday) – 17 hours stop over in Taipei
Taipei -> Kuala Lumpur 6th/Feb (Sunday)
Kuala Lumpur -> Taipei 8th/Feb (Tuesday) – 17 hours stop over in Taipei AGAIN
Taipei -> Korea 9th/Feb (arrive to ICN)

Because of this hardcore flight schedule, no one dare to take this torturous trip except me and the price of ticket was reasonable compared to other flight to KL.

Why I chose to go to Kuala Lumpur? While I was checking with some touring schedule in Asia, I found out that the Nuclear Death Terror from Denmark is touring Asia region during this time.
I could go to Japan (It is cheaper and closer to Korea), but I just wanted some new experience and meet new people!! I was hesitating between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur but It was easy to make a decision since I’ve been to Singapore for 3 times already haha.

I asked my friends some Malaysian contact and started to contact with some of them couple of weeks before I go to KL. They were very helpful like most punks are. I always so surprised that punk scene is really kinda small. Every punk seems to know each other through mutual friends. If I weren’t into punk music, I really doubt that I am able to have friend from Brasil, Sweden and so on..

So I finally left Korean and fly to Taiwan! Fucking six hundred thousand Korean people made chaos at the AIRPORT to get the fuck outta Korea. It was INSANE!! I was lucky enough to mix with those people.


- 5th.Feb,2011 (Taipei)
I am sure many of you guys are not familiar with the country Taiwan. I have some friends who live in Taiwan (punks and not punks). I visit Taiwan pretty often (like once in a year). Somehow, I really have this ‘thing’ for Taiwan (my Taiwanese friends don’t agree with my opinion though hahaha).

Po Wei picked me up from the Ximen station and we headed to his store called “Liberated Rhythm”. It is basically punk shop that has all the cool stuff (records, t-shirts, accessories..ect). Sometime, I am always jealous that Taiwan has this kind of punk shop even though the punk scene is not so big. Also his girl friend Ishin is very talented artist even though I am very anti-art person. She showed me couple of flyers and art-works she’s worked and it was all amazing. Very unique drawing style!!! She would be the first person I would ask some art-work or flyer if I have chance haha!! We waited Apun and his girl friend Tina and headed to Da-An Park (the biggest park in Taipei) for open-air show. I didn’t expect to catch some gig while I was staying in Taiwan but I was very lucky to catch all my friend’s bands (Selfish Sucker,Bazooka..).

Ok, I am officially on Holiday so I need a drink!! I went to 7eleven and grabbed Taiwan Beer!! First band was Sleaze. This band plays sludge and doom style. I was very surprised that I see this kind of band in Taipei!!! They were far beyond over my expectation!! They were very dark,melodic and heavy. Loved it! I can’t wait for their record release!! After Sleaze played, I met up with Taiwanese punk friend Mob Wang and had some nice conversations. Taiwan people are probably the most similar to Korean people and somehow I got to know the best Taiwanese people HAHA!

Second was Selfish Sucker which my friend Apun is playing, they are more like street punk than crust punk music. Definitely not my cup of tea but I enjoyed to see youth Taiwanese punks are making chaos and support. The funny part is that, the way they look is like 100% crusties hahaha
All the band patches and black stretch jeans..band t-shirts thing!! If someone see the Taiwanese punk kids, people might think all Taiwanese punks are crusties. Is Po Wei’s shop responsible for this? I don’t know haha

The Last band was Bazooka (Thrash!!). Last time I saw them at the club Under World (地下社會) and It was totally awesome. Today’s show was okay but I expected little more from them like last time. Maybe next time will be a lot better with fixed members?

After the show, we went to night market to grab a bite. Man.. Taipei is heaven for food. I love every food in Taiwan! Since I am not a vegetarian, I had more choice to fulfill my tummy. We took out some food and beers and sit at the punk park and chatted for many things cultural thing..gossip (I can even gossip over Taiwanese punk scene…hahaa I know too many informations!! Haha)..laughing.. it is always great to meet friends!

I really don’t get why Taiwanese people don’t like Korean in general. They said it is because of politic issue (diplomatic break between Korea & Taiwan) but I think there is something more complicated issues. Fuck it! I love Taiwan so much!! My favorite city in Asia is Taipei. If you have chance to visit Taiwan, please stop by Liberated Rhythm store and meet Taipei punks! You will love it here so much like I do. Taiwanese punk scene is very small compared to other countries but they are very supportive I guess.

Anyway, it was getting really cold outside so we were back to Po Wei’s shop and chat a lot of funny thing. It goes until 2~3 I guess.. then I was totally wasted by myself (Taiwanese Punks are not really messy drinker like me. They are fucking gentle!) and went to bed.

Thankfully, Po Wei woke me up on right time (5AM), I took a cab to the air-port bus terminal. I was still drunk even at the airport gate.

I was a sleep right after I put my fat-ass on the air-plane seat and couldn’t even notice the plane departed. I had good and sweet sleep for about 3 and half hours during the flight to Kuala Lumpur (my second destination).

Varning from Montreal

It was around September when I decided to go to Montreal for the Varning from Montreal fest.
I saw the pre-flyer from someone’s blog and totally thought I must go this show no matter how. I used to studied in Portland and have some very special affection for PDX bands in general. So I usually try to see the bands from Portland at least once in a year and try to buy many new releases from PDX. Anyway, other than Hellshock and Tragedy is playing, there were so many great bands I would be dying to see. So I waited my pay-day (It seemed to take fucking forever) and bought a ticket to Montreal right away!! I was already so excited.
My friend introduced some of MTL punks and I’ve been contact with them before I go to MTL. They’ve been very supportive and kind!!


Finally, the day has become November 3rd (Wednesday). I was at the office and couldn’t concentrate on work at all. Like in my mind I was already in the plane drinking beer like whales.
However, things get fucking screwed up. Ok, my flight was supposed to leave at 18:30 at least my e-ticket itinerary said that. When I was at the airport at 17:30, all ticket counters were shut down. I was so fucking shocked and head to the air-canada’s office right way (you can never imagine how I felt at this moment. I almost peed myself haha). After I had a conversation with them, I found out that the flight schedule was 17:30 and the flight has already left with 200 passengers (oh it should be 199 passengers except me). The reason why this shit happened is that my stupid travel agency failed to notify me the changed schedule and I missed the flight. And there was no flight to Canada next day so I had to wait for another day to fly to MTL. That means.. I was going to miss 2 nights of the fest. To make matters worse, the flight ticket to montreal on Friday was sold out so I might not even fly to Canada. It seemed like there was nothing I could do on that day. So I went to bar and drink too much gin&tonico with rage..fury..ect. I kept saying that ‘ fuck.. I should be in fucking plane watching stupid movie by now!! ‘ I couldn’t sleep until 6AM cause I was so angry and nervous. It is very rare that I cannot sleep with emotional reasons.


Next Morning, I got up with horrible hangover from last night and called to travel agency right away. They said it is totally my fault that I didn’t re-confirm the flight schedule so they are not responsible to do anything for me. Also they said I should pay for no-show penalty if I wanna get a refund. I was so fucking pissed off after hearing this. Every word what they said was so ridiculous and just bullshit. I couldn’t let them fuck around me so I used my annoying customer skill (It includes swearing, yelling, threatening, I want to speak to your manager shit..ect..). I gotta tell you, it wasn’t an easy fight even though I am kinda expert to make phone operator annoyed.
They said, there is no flight ticket to MTL available tomorrow so you will have to choose another date which will be after the fest or you can refund your ticket. I obviously didn’t want to refund my fucking ticket cuz I was eager to see this varning fest soo soooo bad. I almost gave up when they took a firm attitude until 4PM. Hey..7hours.. MG-43 mouth.. ain’t that easy.


I think that the old saying “If you want something really really bad, the wish will be come true is somehow working! When I was exhausted and gave up my travel, I got a phone call from AIR CANADA saying they found a seat on the plane departing tomorrow. I got this call around 5:30PM. So close. I was so happy and relieved even though I was going to miss 2 nights of the show. And I got back my appetite again!! haha I was just so happy.


Actually I am fully aware that I am to blame for this event, because I didn’t go to the airport 2 hours before the flight schedule. I don’t know what is wrong with me but I just can’t do that.
I guess I am natural born slacker. I am overly generous to myself. Shit.. Sometime I really hate myself haha. I still go to the airport only one hour before the flight even after this shitty accident.


Anyway luckily I was able to go to Montreal!!

-Nayoung (November 2010)