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This Thursday Sept. 24th, the 7th Annual Daegu International Opera Festival will open with Puccini’s Turandot. Tickets are still available and range from w10,000 to w70,000. The show runs again on Friday the 25th at 7:30 and at 3pm on Sat. the 26th. The production pairs the Daegu City Opera Company with Italian director Marco Pucci Catena and conductor Silvano Corsi, deputy conductor of Teatro dell’Opera in Rome.

As soon as we crossed into Laos I looked around, pissed in the bushes, and breathed a sigh of relief. I was back for my third time and purely happy. Laos is my favorite country in Asia, and there I was, with three good friends, soaking in all of its ramshackle laid-back glory. (more…)

Isabel Coixet’s “The Secret Life of Words” will be showing at the Daegu Art Cinema this Saturday (Sept. 19) at 6:30pm and Tuesday (Sept. 22) at 8:30pm. Other new additions to the line-up include Silent Wedding, Chaotic Ana and 5 films from the Spanish Cinema Now Programme. Check the website for showtimes. (more…)

The R-16 returns for the third annual BBoy Championships in Incheon. The Bboy Tournament and Urban Arts Festival will go down on Sept 25-27, 2009 at The Incheon Global Fair and Expo Performance Venue with. The programs include Popping & Locking Competitions, Performance Battles, Crew Battles and a concert featuring Drunken Tiger, Epik High, Rakka from Dilated Peoples and Roscoe. There are also some smaller events leading up to the big weekend: a street market, an open bboy circle, and a graffiti battle on Sept. 19-20th at the Incheon Culture and Art Center Park. (more…)

In a scene rife with cover bands it’s a breath of fresh air to encounter a Westerner band with a sound of their own. Yet Ssighborggggg (that’s not a typo) are more than a breath of fresh air, in fact they’re more like a breath of Martian air: A bizarre sound clash of beautiful earl bleeding synth lines, drum loops of unsettling off beats, and mutant guitar riffs that would give Steve Vai a headache. Their live show is more of an experience that anything else, with two masked individuals almost completely ignoring the audience and refusing to interact in anyway, instead engrossed in working through the intricate songs. (more…)

Korea will no longer be requiring transexuals to submit to group examinations to determine if they are exempt from military service, because the little game of Peek-A-Boo could be potentially embarrassing for those involved. In a completely unrelated story, Kang In of boy band Super Junior was arrested Wednesday in Gangnam. Apparently he was arrested for “violence” in a bar and not for recording “Sorry Sorry” as many had originally believed. On Sept. 22nd, cars will be prohibited from driving on two major Jongno streets to reduce air pollution, while subways and buses on those routes will be free of charge. The city will be increasing the number of buses and subway trains to accommodate. In other environmental news, Seoul City announced that 15 electric buses will begin operating on Mt. Nam in April. Plans are already in the works to expand use of the buses to other parts of Seoul.