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.