Montreal vs. Toronto meets Asia

A week after his plane took off, I’m finally through all my blogs. Alex spent a few days with me, helping me christen my new home. He booked himself a stop over en route from Tokyo, where he was helping a new music business sink its tentacles into the gaming world.

We flipped the usual Montreal vs. Toronto rhetoric away from Canadian cities, set our sights on discussing Asian nuance. So it became a trip a trip of how does Seoul compare. It started with a Western lunch, followed by a gallery of English-owned works, then an accidental trip to an ancient park, a Buddhist shrine, an aquarium, and lots of shopping.

It was the week of Chuseok, dubbed Korean Thanksgiving, so we partook in round after round of eating, drinking, joy. We ate Korean barbeque in the evenings when all the Japanese and Italian restaurants were shut down, Lotte burgers, and everything off the street. Chased that down with cocktails in plastic bags from Vinyl and cheap Korean beers in graffiti parks.

With all his bags packed up, we hailed a cab towards the mall. Underneath Yawoori we bought a ticket to the airport, and skipped up the steps to the Arario gallery to see the sculptures in its orbit.

Watching over the corner entrance, a blow up by Mr. Hirst. His shining plastic towers over a busy street of people rushing towards the multiplex and Mcdonalds. He calls it “Hymn” and the plaque claims he’s an art world jokester. Perhaps, but staring at the pricey replica of a toy of corporate design, we were not sure who is to laugh.

No time to ponder, we shot back down the steps to wait at the bus’ gate. So it pulled in and he got on with a hug. And off he went back towards the motherland where again some day we shall have another round.