Some Well Mannered Frivolity.

GREETINGS FROM THE WORLD OF TOMORROW!!!

Korea is 8 hours ahead of Ireland so technically I do live in the future.

Things are good here. The other expats and I went out for some tasty barbequed beef last night followed by a round of soju slushies and a bout of clubbing. I think I had a good time but my memories are vague and filled with gaps…

Today I attended the ‘Jinju Mask and Dance Festival’ in the company of some other foreign folk. We witnessed a bizarre and slightly terrifying rehearsal by a group of interpretive dancers that made little or no sense. 

Then we went for something to eat and returned in time to see a puppet show. The show was all in Korean but I thought that I would be able to get the gist of the story by interpreting the universal language of puppetry. This is what I witnessed: a group of happy puppets were enjoying a wee dance when all of a sudden they were rudely interrupted by the appearance of an anatomically correct devil puppet who decided to relieve himself on the revellers. Then a snake appeared and devoured a small boy. The boy’s mother reprimanded the snake so the snake ate her too. He subsequently ate the elderly narrator of the story and a bunch of other puppets. At the end of the show the snake and the devil hooked up and walked/slithered away into the sunset together. So basically it was a classic tale of boy meets snake, snake kills boy, snake marries the devil and they both live happily ever after. 

After the puppet show we watched a masked play involving giant dogs, prancing men, and a woman with no belly button. 

When we had had our fill of puppeteering we moseyed on down to the musical fountain. The water moves and lights up in time to a selection of songs.  It’s kind of like Disney’s ‘Fantasia’ but without the cartoon mouse.

Well that is all my news. We have a day off next Monday for Memorial Day. We are thinking of attending the ‘Busan Sand Festival’ during the long weekend. It promises to feature gigantic sand sculptures, ‘hot sand baths’ and ‘an exhibition of different types of sand from around the world.’ That last event sounds a tad ridiculous but the other stuff should be good. :)

Mon Cicatrice!

Good morning starshine. The earth says ‘hello.’

We have attended many box socials in Jinju during the last few weeks. Last Thursday we had a ‘fare thee well’ party for the Canadian teacher who worked part time at our school. He is returning to Canada land with his Korean bride and plans to become a doctor. The whole staff went out and we drank vats of beer, ate legs of mutton, and sang sea shanties. Well, we had vats of beer delivered to the table but the rest isn’t strictly true… We are teachers, not pirates. We all became embroiled in an extremely complicated drinking card game that lasted until four in the morning. All the cards in the deck had certain rules attached to them and if you failed to follow said rules you had to fight to the death. Or take a sup of beer, your choice. The Ace was a special card and he or she who got this card could make up their own rules. Unfortunately one of the teachers went quite mad with power and made everyone down entire pints repeatedly for her amusement. As a result some of the teachers were still drunk whilst teaching the next day... Here is a pic of us doing 'cute face.' The man who looks like a chesire cat is Rob's replacement. His name is Don and he hails from Lond-ing town. 

We went out again the next night for Rob’s second leaving party but we retired quite early because we are pansy folk. On Saturday the Jinju expat community went on an excursion to a ‘watering hole’ a few miles outside of the city. There we drank warm beer and swam in the cold river. Twas all in honour of a portly Texan by the name of Oscar who was celebrating his birth. Here is a pic of him diving from a cliff. 

I myself didn’t venture into the river as I don’t care for water, too wet. Later we all went out to a Chinese pub for another farewell party in honour of a South African girl who is returning home after being fired for asking too many impertinent questions at work. Women speaking out of turn are frowned upon here. We must refrain from saying anything that challenges male authority and limit our conversation to delightful remarks about kittens and knitting. Women, KNOW YOUR LIMITS.

The weekend before last we went to Geoje Island on the bike. The journey took over two hours so I was walking like a crab for a while after but it was a fun outing none the less.  There were many fine pebble beaches ripe for admiring and many a leafy tree to be spied with my comically small eye. 

The only downside of the island was a serious shortage of food. There were about 40 seafood restaurants along the promenade. However, they favour live seafood and I only like fish when I can be sure that it will be good and dead by the time it reaches my plate. The prospect of eating a live octopus that might grab on to my tongue for dear life on its way down does not appeal to me. (Apparently they actually do hold on to your tongue with their tentacles!) We also went to a bar called ‘Witches’ with the Korean teachers that weekend. The owner of the establishment foretold our futures with the aid of tarot cards. Thankfully I did not get the grim. I did get a card with a naked chick bathing in a stream though. I’m not sure how well that image represents me…

There is to be a ‘Mask and Dance Festival’ in Jinju this weekend. I look forward to a couple of days of well mannered frivolity. I must dash now as I must away to work soon. A new semester is starting next week and our hours have been increased yet again so I must do battle with our evil overlord once more. Sigh.

A Nice Cup Of Tea.

It is I, the great and powerful Oz!

Hi.

Things are fine and dandy over here. We have a day off on Tuesday for Buddha's birthday. We were therefore able to go out on Monday night with some of the other foreign folks to a local bar that served soju slushies. Hard liquor disguised by fruity flavours is a sexy yet dangerous combination as you can quite easily forget that the beverages are alcoholic...

We were a mite hungover the next morning but not drastically so. We managed to go down to our local temple to see what was going on and we were treated to an irredesent display of rainbow coloured lanterns hung in honour of the man himself. It was quite a spectacle. An old lay pinned a bright pink flower to my lapel and an even older lady led us inside the temple to a great food hall and supplied us with bowls of bibimbap and seaweed soup. This was ever so nice of her as we were quite clearly fraudulant worshippers. We didn't exactly blend in with the real Buddhists but everyone was very nice to us with the exception of one young whippersnapper who screamed and then ran in fear when she saw us. No shit like.

We also had a day off last Thursday for Children’s Day. The saucer eyed community of Jinju chose to celebrate our freedom by having a barbecue by the river. The sun had got his hat on so a sizable group of teachers had come out to play. I saw a lot of familiar faces there; some welcome, some not so welcome. Actually as most people were new acquaintances I guess I didn’t harbour any particularly strong feelings towards them one way or the other. A fine time was had by all.

The weather continued to be sunny for the weekend. On Saturday we went to Hadong for the ‘Green Tea Festival.’ There I dined on Green Tea Bibimbap and ‘yachae pajeon’ which translated as a ‘Welsh onion pancake.’ Then we roamed around and had a look at the various tea stalls that were flogging their wares. There were many people at the festival, the majority of whom were participating in a mass tea party (with tea being served on impossibly small tables) whilst being serenaded by Korean opera singers. As you do. There were many children about as well who were being conveyed about in small chariots pulled by animated toys who secretly longed to be real boys.

We also popped in briefly to the ‘Tea Cultural Museum’ so we could learn more about this delicious oriental infusion. According to the museum information placards green tea can be used to eradicate mould, clean clothes, prevent skin cancer, whiten your skin, preserve fish and generally make you more attractive in the eyes of others. It didn’t say you could drink it though…

After we had had our fill of the tea festival we went hiking in Jirisan National Park. The first time we went there it was winter time so there was a shortage of foliage and the big waterfall atop the mountain was frozen. This time around everything was much more verdurous and the icefall was a waterfall once more. When we reached the waterfall Gareth and a bunch of other British boys decided to scale down the mountain a short distance so they could prance about semi-clad in a rock pool.  I didn’t join them though as I am a modest Catholic girl and my angry God would surely smite me if I were to frolic flirtatiously in such a feckless fashion.

I have spoken.

The one with the island.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears for mine are defective.

I trust that everyone had a good weekend watching the Royal wedding. Even I could not avoid catching some of it despite being on a godforsaken island at the other side of the world.

I spent the weekend on the island of Jeju-do. It is full of green trees, black, white and yellow beaches, pink azalea blooms, grey volcanic craters, black lava tube caves and Korean newly-weds sporting matching outfits. It is ever so pretty and though the people of the island were initially stony faced, they welcomed us in time.

On our first night we went to one of Jeju-do's famous barbecued black pork restaurants. It was not until after we had dined on this local delicacy that we found out that the black pork gets its unique taste from its traditional diet of human faeces. Lesson learned.

The next day we rented a scooter so we could go hither and thither as we pleased. On Friday it pleased us to go to Hallim Park, home to lava tubes, hilariously small bonsai trees and some very exotic albino peafowl. We also saw some randy ostriches that kept trying to fornicate with each other while we were taking pictures...

After Hallim Park we went to a nearby theme park by the name of ‘Glass Castle.’ The guide book tricked us into thinking this place would be awesome by boasting of its monumental glass sculptures, all glass labyrinths and famed ‘mirror world.’ Some of the sculptures were cute like the wee glass flowers that circled the stream and some were terrifying like the rapey singing clown but most were just plain daft like the disembodied glass buttocks. The glass labyrinth wasn’t much of a challenge as we could see over the pieces of glass and the way out was therefore clear. Also there were only about 12 pieces of glass and they were all in a row. The mirror world was more of a small room really, though I suppose a mirror will make a room appear larger… I guess we should have paid heed to the sign we saw outside the mirror world warning visitors to ‘please keep away from here.’ At the time I thought it was just a mistranslation but the message seems quite apt now.

After the Glass Castle we rode down to Jungmun Resort where we paid a visit to the uber kitsch Teddy Bear Museum. This museum features a room where iconic moments from twentieth century history are played out by adorable stuffed toys. My favourite diorama was the one of the dismantlement of the Berlin Wall. You can’t truly appreciate the gravitas and pathos of this monumental event until you’ve seen it re-enacted by teddy bears. I also really liked the teddy bear art museum showcasing the ‘Mona Lisa Bear,’ ‘The Thinker Bear,’ and the scene from Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel fresco where God gives Adam the spark of life.

On Saturday we journeyed to the top of the volcanic crater known as Ilchulbong. The summit is shaped like a punchbowl but it is filled with grass rather than water because it is porous and the rain seeps through. At the base of the volcano we found a black sand beach with a seafood restaurant run by Jeju-do’s famous female divers. The divers are known as ‘Haenyeo’ and they are all terrifically old. Most of these shrunken old women are so decrepit looking that it is difficult to see how they manage to walk about unassisted let alone dive into the sea to gather sea urchins, octopuses and the like without the aid of oxygen tanks. They are pretty feckin’ amazing. A big crowd of people gathered to watch these wrinkled old crones don their wetsuits and gather their diving equipment before making their way to the sea. The mer-grannies were lovin’ all the attention and they did a wee song and dance routine to get the crowd all riled up before they went into the sea. It was pretty surreal watching them but then things got a whole lot weirder when a young lady from Taiwan gingerly approached me and requested that I pose in a picture with her because she mistakenly believed I was some kind of celebrity. How ruthlessly absurd. 

  

After seeing the crater we went to Manjanggul; the world’s longest system of lava-tube caves. The walls are covered with drips of re-solidified rock from where the lava caused the rocks to melt many moons ago. At the end of the cave there is even a 7m pillar made from lava that flowed down from the ceiling and then hardened as the cave cooled. Twas quite impressive. Oh and we also found our way out of a Harry Potter-esque hedge maze that was near the caves! Unlike young Potter all we had to do when we got to the middle was ring a bell as opposed to fighting Lord Voldemort with the aid of our parents' ghosts...

We had a bit of scary incident when we were returning from our day’s travels. We were on the north side of the island but our hostel was on the south. Night was beginning to fall and all of a sudden it began lashing rain and we were fairly exposed to the elements on our wee scooter. I find being on the back of a bike scary at the best of times because Korean drivers have no respect for the safe cross code and know nothing of the law of the lever. They see red lights as a challenge and think it is ok to drive on the footpaths. Apparently in Seoul around 40% of road deaths are pedestrians due to drivers and motorcyclists speeding along pavements. Given the dangerous nature of Korean roads you can imagine that I was a mite alarmed when we had to deal with the added inconvenience of Gareth being blinded by the onslaught of wind and rain. I have never had Botox but I imagine that the experience of having droplets of rain pelt you in the face at full speed is much like being prodded with needles in the facial area. It really did feel like we were being subjected to handfuls of pointy needles being thrown at us by an angry God. Unfortunately we died on the journey home, but we survived! I realise that line makes no sense but I heard it in Ice Age and it made me chuckle. We made it home safely but we were soaked to the bone. We dried off our skeletons and then all was well once more.

The next day we rode up to Mt Hallasan, South Korea’s highest mountain and the island’s focal point. Unfortunately we did not have time to go the whole way up as the hike takes many hours and we were due to fly home that day. Twas a pity as there is rumoured to be a rather splendid volcanic crater lake at the top. Though, maybe it was for the best. Mt. Hallasan is one of those old fashioned mountains that you have to climb up using your legs and I have gotten used to gliding up steep inclines by cable car. A wee roe deer ran out in front of our scooter on the way down the mountain but thankfully there was no collision. After returning from the mountain we had just enough time to take a gander at the very beautiful waterfall Cheonjeyeon Pokpo before returning home. It has a rather lovely footbridge above it featuring seven saucy nymphs.

Well that is all my news. Tomorrow is ‘Children’s Day’ in South Korea; a day where we honour the clay lumps of malleable evil known as children by giving them money. We have a day off though so I won’t have to see the young sprites for a whole day! Yay! :)