Housewarming Party

Last night, Stephen and I had our housewarming party in our new place. Luckily, we do not have 50 rolls of toilet paper now.

Traditionally, a housewarming party in Korea is a stressful time for the host. They are expected to make lots and lots of food and provide drinks in a very formal atmosphere. In return, the guests bring gifts. Gifts such as dish soap, garbage bags and toilet paper... Any household necessity.

Our party was nothing of the sort. We provided snacks and beer/pop, while our guests brought food in a much more informal atmosphere! Two of our co-workers joined ten of Stephen's Korean friends in our large living room, and promptly sat down in a circle with the food in the center. This is a Korean-style Party.

While Steve and I were trying to figure out how to mix things up, Mr. Lee - our landlord - arrived, bearing more food! He stayed for a while and we all had a great time. Once he left, we moved the party down the street to a bar in Shinchon.

Overall, a successful blending of Korean and Western housewarming parties. And a successful kick-off to our social life in Seoul!

Halloween Party at Jenni's

I really thought I was going to miss Halloween this year. Again.

I really did! Last year, as you may recall, I was in England, where they do not celebrate the holiday - even in schools. This year, I was planning to have left Vancouver and be teaching in Korea at this time, missing Halloween again.

Happily, I am here! (As Halloween is one of my FAVORITE holidays!)

To celebrate the event, I was invited to Jenni Ferris' First Annual 29th Birthday/Halloween Party at her and her finance (Derek)'s house. Having planned not to be here, I did not have a Halloween costume. Haste was needed to find one!

I searched the house: thick black cloak, top hat, medical latex gloves, white shirt, black pants and shoes, wig, .... knives, ..... and a name tag reading "Jack Theripper" (aka Jack The Ripper).

Check out these photos from the night (taken by Kim Versteeg, Jen Echols, and Jenni):

Be weary...

Derek (the Beer Keg) and Jenni (the Ladybird)

My fist victims - Dave, Kim (Dr. McLusty) and Jack.
But who is Dave supposed to be?

Here's a hint...

No? He's Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget!

Ladybird, McLusty and Jen Echols (the One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater!)

Jack's next victims...

Jack, Cameron (Bob Marley) and LBird

Dancing to Ghostbusters and Thriller!

Playing with fire and sparklers

Happy Halloween, Blogshere! Have a safe and fun one!!!

Canada Day in the UK!

Pete Bond brings Canada Day to Birmingham!

Sunday brought July 1st - Confederation Day for Canada - and my British friends and I celebrated in style! As the only Canadian, I was in the perfect position to educate the masses:

-Canada is the second largest country in the World.
-Canada loves Hockey (Vancouver Canucks!)
-Canadian Animals
-Canada is NOT American (we are Northern North Americans!)
-Famous Canadians (Micheal J Fox, Brian Adams, etc... but also Lois Maxwell (Mrs. Moneypenny!), Rachel McAdams, William Shatner (Kirk!), Alex Trebec (Jeperody!), James Cameron (Titanic/Terminator!), Kim Cattrall (Sex and the City!), Matthew Perry (Friends!), Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss (the Matrix!), Alexander Graham Bell (telephone!), and Margot Kidder (Lois Lane!) Whew!

We decorated the house with Canadiana (my info posters, map, and my flag!) and Emily cooked some incredibly tasty 'Canadian' food! Canadian Won-Ton, Pizza, and Soup. (Thanks so much, Em!)

And BEER!!! Unfortunately, we could not find Canadian beer (Is Coors Canadian?), so Ian and Lisa put Canadian stickers on Fosters (yeah, they thought Australian was close to Canadian... both colonies?) Karl and Catherine brought maple syrup, Canadian Dry soda, pancakes, and beef jerky! Claire brought Canadian Club whiskey! This is what the British think Canadians consume!

After a failed bonfire, we discovered an artifact from the past! While fanning the fire with a serving tray, it was hit too hard and broke. Within the tray we discovered some old newspaper. As the rain started to fall, we salvaged the old yellowed paper and brought it inside. Increadible, the newspaper was dated August 27th, 1950! I'll post pics soon, because the articles are fascinating! More on it soon...

With such a discovery under our belt, Canada Day couldn't have got better. Yet it did! At the end of the night, we went to the Harborne Legion (2 doors down!). They had an open mic for the regulars ('regulars' being of an average age of 81!), and the dancing began! 6 young fit single 20-somethings dancing with 40 old wrinkled frisky 80-somethings... It was a fantastically fun time!

Happy Canada Day!

Bond Family Reunion '07

This weekend I attended a family reunion in Henley-on-Thames, at my Grandmother and Uncle's houses! Cousins, aunts, uncles, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, sisters, and brothers all flooded into Nigel's house and ate Joyce's amazing food.

Here are a few photos of the Bond Reunion Event '07:

John, Granny, and Angie

Lara running from the coming rain storm!

Nigel's Girls: Lara, Angie, and a pregnant Nicky!

Yasmeen, Tim, and Dad

Meena, Angie, Rocheen, and Lara

Joyce, James, Meena, Lara, Rocheen, and John

The Bond Brothers: Dad, Nigel, and Tim

The Bond Cousins: Yasmeen, Nicky, Angie, Me, Rocheen, Lara
(missing are Lisa and Escandar)

The New Parents: Nicky, Rav, and Baby!

Funniest Picture Award: James through binoculars!

O2 Wireless Festival - London

This weekend I partook in another of the traditional English events - the Outdoor Summer Festival. Specifically, the O2 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park, London. In it's second year running, the festival has lined-up quite the musical line-up!


Bands playing over the four days include the Kaiser Chiefs, The White Stripes, the Gotan Project, and Queens of the Stone Age. But I only attended the Saturday, meaning I missed all of the above... but that's alright because Daft Punk headlined Saturday! Daft Punk, LCD Soundsystem, CCS, the Klaxons, Calvin Harris, and Mutemath rocked it out!


And ROCK they did! Daft Punk was amazing - two guys with robot heads began their set with the notes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and the thumping electro music didn't let up until Around the World finished!

Summer Festivals are curious things. Lazing about with thousands of people, some costumed (saw some amazing cross dressing and stilted Batman and Superman!) Cheepish beer and food kiosks, four stages, carnival rides, and an amazing vibe rule the day. Even the weather cooperated - short stints of rain amongst beautiful sunshine!


I went down to London with Roger, Lewis, Emily, and Zoe and had a great time. I stayed with cousin Dave and saw cousin Naomi this morning. They were getting themselves ready for the King of Festivals: Glastonbury. 10 times bigger than O2 makes it the largest festival in the UK! Someday, I'll hit that one. Someday...

Happy Father's Day to all those fathers out there! (Dad!)

Weekend Vote

Boy, it's been a busy weekend!

First off, Patrick left the house, being replaced by our new roommate Andy. Andrew is a nice quiet Mauritian gay guy who works down the road at Marks & Spencer's. With Patrick leaving, we went on the lash (out for a night of drinking) down on Broad Street. I had a great time seeing all the friends I've made here. In the end, I went to bed at 6am!

Secondly, Debbie (the girl I'm seeing) and I went to see a friend of hers who lives in an actual haunted house. Apperently they have seen ghosts, have heard whispers, have felt unexplained cold patches, have had objects move across the room, and have been cut on the arm and stomach. They have had a medium and a priest do exorcisms to rid the house of the ghosts. I left a video camera running during the night, to try to catch some evidence. Did anything happen? Check back later to see that nothing did. I'll post some pictures later...

Thirdly, and much less ghostly but more spirity, St. Patrick's Day/Week began in earnest on Sunday with a huge Irish Parade. After getting a pint at Hennessey's, we watched the parade and all the green and orange colours. I'll post some pictures later showing the craziness.

I hope you enjoyed your weekend! Please vote on which "thing" would be the most fun for you:
a. Going out on the lash with friends until 6am
b. Visiting a real haunted house
c. St. Patty's Day parade

So? Vote!

Houseparty last night

The '13 Albany House Posse' had a party here last night and we are slowly cleaning up. It was a good party with lots of drinking and some dancing. It was over the moon! No, literally. The moon was eclipsed last night! We were so lucky that the sky was clear and the lunar eclipse was spectacular.

Lunar Eclipse
(I didn't take this pic, but I did take some video I'll post later.)

Some of the highlights from the party include:

-Leon eating an entire onion for 20 pounds on a bet. He did it and smelled like onion after.
-Carl and Roger bet to see who could eat an entire pack of Jaffa Cakes first. Carl won by default as Roger began to choke after the first 5 cakes. He then threw up all the cakes and lost the bet. Roger is fine and doing well.
-Someone slipped on our front steps and was knocked unconscious. Her friends took her to the clinic and she's ok, I think.
-The Lunar Eclipse happened. Resulting in lots of moon jokes and puns. Loony.
-2 glasses smashed (I didn't break any last night. I only broke one while setting up the party and blowing up balloons. Best to not play volleyball around glasses.)
-A shopping cart full of beer and mixer out in the backyard.
-I went to sleep at 6am, woke up today at 12:30pm.
-No neighbours banging on the walls or telling us to turn down the music.
-Police cars slowing down outside our house.
-Random food on the floor: scotch egg, chip, pea (?), sausage roll.
-1am punch made by Roger including gin, rum, cranberry, lee & perins, chili vodka.
-Chili vodka jello: very spicy and jiggly.
-Random person sleeping on four chairs (of different heights) in our living room. I don't know who he was.
-No hangover for me!

All in all a great party. I hope your Saturday night was as fun and lune-y as mine!

One Year Later - One Rockin' Band

As some of you may know, my sister -Lisa- is the lead-singer of the North Vancouver band One Year Later! About a week ago, they played at the Buffalo Club:


Luckily, someone recorded them playing one of their songs, and Lisa has posted the video on her myspace site. Please check it out here! (You'll need to scroll down.) It rocks! I've also put it here, below. I am one proud big brother...



...in other news, I joined my housemates in participating in the "Harborne Mile." This event is a pub crawl which hits most pubs along Harborne High Street: Oneill's, The White Horse, Harborne Stores, The Vine, The Varsity... and some others. After drinking a pint in each, you tend to forget names of pubs! In the immortal words of the other world-famous North Van band, Spirit of the West:

"Well were good old boys, we come from Harborne,
drinkers and carousers, the best you've ever seen,
and this night by God, we'll drink till there was no more,
from Oneill's to the Varsity, and all stops in between!"

Cheers! Bottom's up!

Liquid Nitrogen can be fun!

I am very excited about this post, as I have created another short film called "Mr. Bond's Adventures with Liquid Nitrogen!"

Our story begins during my trip to Munich for New Years. I was staying with Nathalie and Toby for a night to see their beautiful new baby boy, Elias. I was delighted to see that Nathalie's parents and her sister Stephanie (check out her blog on the right) were staying there too. The surprise was that my good friend Dave was there too! And with Marianne in Munich, it really was a "small world after all" for New Years!

What does this have to do with liquid nitrogen, you might ask? Well, it so happened that Nat and Toby wanted to make ice cream for desert that night. Ice cream usually takes hours to make with huge industrial freezers - we had neither time nor freezers. We did have a plan though: Toby works in a physics laboratory which has many chemicals at hand. Ice cream can also be made by mixing the ingredients with liquid nitrogen! With nitrogen boiling at - 200 degrees Celcius, it was certainly cold enough to make ice cream...but why stop there?

After the ice cream was made, we still had quite a bit of the chemical left, so we thought we would do some experiments! What happens to leeks, pennies, and twigs when they are put in liquid nitrogen for a while? They freeze and shatter! Well...the penny didn't...it just got cold. We saved the best for last - but you will need to watch the film to find out!

The film takes you on a rollercoaster adventure through Munich, as Toby, Dave, and I collect, bring back, and experiment on liquid nitrogen!



My favortite part of the adventure was where Dave had to sit in the backseat of the car with the cylinder of liquid nitrogen between his legs! Good thing we didn't spill, or there might never have been any little Daves in the future!

My New Year's Celebrations in Munich!

Photos from New Year's Eve 2006 in Munich, Germany, with Marianne and her friends!!!

International Vodka Party

We had our first party last Saturday night in our flat. The theme was International Vodka and Czech Food!

Kate and Renata and her friend (all Czech) cooked us classic Czech food (dumplings, soup, goulash - all fantastic!) while we drank shots of Czech and Polish vodka. And beer.

Soon our flat was filled with people talking, drinking, and dancing. There were over 25 intentional friends from Poland, France, Czech, Finland, Germany, and India - as well as us British and Canadians!



You can see us all squished into our living room area (yes - that's Van Gogh on the wall). This room ended up becoming a dance hall as we turned off the lights, while the party continued in the kitchen and hallway.


Arjun and Kate having a laugh!

roommates: Me, Renata, and Roger!


We all had a great time during the party, but were feeling sore the next morning! But that's what indicates a good party!



Leon, Roger and Renata.


As you can see, I am making a few friends here in Harborne! Patrick, Renata, Leon, and Roger are great roommates and we go out quite often. We will be having a sixth and final roommate join us on the 18th of December: Emily - a jewelry designer - Just in time for Christmas!

Until then, keep on partying...