Take that sky!!!!!!!!!!

For eons man’s greatest enemy has been the sky. It has looked down on us with its smug blue face by day and has taunted us by adorning itself with billions of sparkling jewels by night, knowing that such riches will always be beyond the grasp of us mere mortals. The crimes of the sky do not end there; it has rained on us in spring, burned our bodies in summer with the aid of its accomplice the sun, deprived our trees of their leaves in autumn by blowing on them with its mighty breath and snowed on us in winter. Its treachery knows no bounds and we have been doomed to weather its caprices with no means of fighting back. Until, last weekend that is…

Last weekend the brave city of Busan launched an attack on the sky by staging a ‘Fireworks Festival.’ Korea joined forces with Japan, Poland, America and China in order to take down our mutual foe. The chosen battleground was Gwangalli beach and the humans gathered there in droves to watch the attack. Each country launched a myriad of fireworks into the sky which then exploded right in the sky’s vainglorious visage. The sky tried in vain to put out the fire by releasing some water but it was all dried out from raining during the morning. Our enemy has not yet been defeated and the sky still envelopes our land but we dealt our nemesis a crushing blow last Saturday that it shall not soon forget! One day, total victory shall indeed be ours!

Please find below pictures of the attack on the sky. :)

When the fireworks display had ended we journeyed out into the night to celebrate! We went to the Irish pub ‘The Wolfhound’ where we danced and made merry into the wee hours of the morning.

The next day, my comrades and I had a hearty breakfast and then journeyed out into the city to look at clothes and fish. Whilst at the fish market I witnessed a shopkeep wrestle an octopus. The unruly creature had attempted to escape while she was weighing it so she crushed it between her hands by way of revenge...

Well that's all my news for now so I shall bid you adieu. :)

P.S. I think I've mentioned before that Korean couples like to dress in matching outfits but this couple that we met in the subway took things to a whole new unnatural level...

The Masked Avenger...

Dear Folk,

It appears to be Festival Season here in South Korea. The Lantern Festival in Jinju was swiftly followed by a Mask Festival in Andong and next up is a Fireworks Fesival in Busan. :)

The Mask festival took place two weekends ago in a town about four hours away from Jinju so we had to get up at the ungodly hour of 6 o'clock to get the bus there. The G-unit and I journeyed thither with 3 of our most prized ex-pats. When we arrived at our destination we weren't sure how to get to the actual festival but luckily a friendly man took pity on our perplexed pale faces and offered us a lift in his car. He did us a boon that day that we shall not soon forget. We arrived at the main festival area and wandered about between the different tents for a while looking at the colourful masks and playing dress-up in some of the traditional garb they had for tourists to play with. (See below)

When we had finished playing dress-up we left the main festival area and travelled to a nearby traditional folk village called Hahoe. The place feels like it has been frozen in time because all of the cottages are centuries old and look just like they would have done during the Joseon dynasty. It was amusing to see big, shiny modern cars parked in the wee vegetable patches outside the quaint thatched-roof cottages. We wanted to get accomodation for the night but we were told that there was no room at the inn because everywhere was booked up for the festivities. However, we managed to persuade one kindly old local lady to let us sleep in one of her rooms for the night. She even provided us with a home cooked meal. :)

After securing accommodation we spent a pleasant few hours meandering around the dusty paths admiring the rustic houses, yellow fields and orange persimmon trees. At one point we arrived at a beach and we spied with our big round eyes a white rope connecting the cliff face beyond the water to the hill behind the shore line. The rope was thin, wobbly and highly precarious looking so naturally we assumed that it was made for the purpose of a zip-line and that it would be a perfectly sound idea to slide along it. We went in search of a friendly local to ask how much it was for a go on the line. We had to communicate via the medium of mime because we didn't share a common language and after much gesturing we managed to get our message across. The man's response was to double up in peels of laughter. We weren't sure why we were being made sport of as we thought our request was a very reasonable one. We stood by indignantly as the man had a hearty chuckle at our expense. He kept saying 'fire rope' between his snorts of mirth but this conveyed little meaning to me. Later that night it became clear why we were mocked so mercilessly when we were treated to a rather unique fireworks display down by the beach. The 'zip line' turned out to be laced with fireworks that went off one by one when the rope was lit. (So it was probably a good thing that we didn't succeed in harnessing ourselves to it.) Orange rain fell from the heavens as the fire spread slowly across the line. The townspeople then began a bizarre ritual where they started to throw flaming rocks off the top of the cliff into a hell pit below while a troupe of gaily glad dancers drifted by in an ornate boat swaying softly to eerie music. I have no idea what the significance of the whole affair was but it was fun to watch. My pictures don't really do it justice though... When the festivities had come to an end we went in search of beer and then made our way back to the beach where the menfolk started a fire to keep us all warm. A fine time was had by all. :)

Last weekend was spent shopping in Daegu. I also went shopping at a thrift store in Jinju with a friend to try and find some glad rags for Halloween. We didn't get anything appropriate but we did buy matching t-shirts with the lyrics to 'I just died in your arms tonight.' This amused me highly. The clothes were all in huge piles in this warehouse and you had to jump on top of the clothes mountains and just shift through them. The ground floor was an organised chaos; the clothes were all in musty old heaps but they were seperated into piles for men, women and children. The upstairs was just a big barren floor strewn with shoes. There were no shelves or anything and many of the shoes had lost their sole-mates. It was like a place where clothes and shoes come to die...

Well that's all my news, next up will be a special report on the Fireorks Festival! :)

Lanterns Galore!

Happy Lantern Festival!

The tradition of floating lanterns down the river in Jinju has been in place since the Japanese invasion of 1592 when lanterns were used as a military signal and communication tool. Now, once a year the Nam river is illuminated with thousands of colourful lanterns for people to enjoy.

The Lantern Festival kicked-off with a spectacular fireworks display which pleased the child in me exceedingly. We then had a gander at the many glorious lanterns on display around the musical fountain. In this particular area there were mainly superheroes and cartoon characters so there was a surplus of over-stimulated children running around. It was amusing to behold their antics though. For some bizarre reason some of the kids had been provided with stilts and watching a small child fall over never ceases to be funny.



There was a wibbly wobbly wonderful pontoon bridge stretching across the river from which one could admire the many lanterns afloat on the water. The queue to cross said bridge was about a mile long so two of my fellow round-eyes and I hatched a devious plan to skip to the front of the queue. Our initial plan was to try to surreptitiously sneak into the line unbeknownst to those around us. However, we then remembered that as the only white people in the near vicinity we were likely to stand out. We therefore decided to play the ‘dumb foreigner’ card and simply walk to the front of the line. As members of a backward heathen land we could not be expected to be aware of the intricate rules of queueing. Happily, this impertinent plan worked and we walked merrily across the river.



The lanterns on other side were even more impressive; they ranged from dragons, Disney princesses and boxing kangaroos to axe-wielding flying tigers, an orthodox Christian Santa and, my personal favourite, fire-breathing peacocks.























































The trail alongside the river had a wide variety of food stalls so we were able to dine on Japanese food whilst we admired the spectacle (I’m not sure why Japanese food was being served at a festival honouring the downfall of the Japanese but there you go.)



The most amusing part of the festival was the appearance of two Korean boys who stalked me and my golden haired friend along the river. Despite the fact that there were thousands of florescent lanterns everywhere they were more interested in taking pictures of our exotic faces. : D

On Sunday we recovered from the previous night’s festivities by relaxing in a ‘Cat Café.’ Here you are provided with a cat to play with along with your coffee. The cats were very fancy indeed. They came in many exotic breeds and they even had their own king in the form of a very hairy tabby with a majestic mane. The cats were almost too well-bred for my liking though; many of them preferred to be admired from afar rather than petted.

























We attended a screening of a moving picture show at the home of a friend later that evening. The movie on the billing was ‘A Street Car Named Desire’ starring Marlon ‘likes to change his shirt a lot’ Brando. The same people who had attended the play in Daegu were reunited for this showing. Our host was very professional indeed; he had even made out a program with a synopsis of the movie plot and a schedule of events for the evening! I also had my first taste of jambalaya which was nice.

The long weekend has come to an end and we are back at work but the Lantern Festival is not over yet! We went down to Jinju Castle after work last night to have a look at some of the lanterns displayed within the fortress walls. There were lanterns depicting royal processions, duelling warriors, fantastic creatures and market folk selling their wares. We also had a great view of the musical fountain from atop the fortress walls.:)