Festivals

Well, today is Thursday and I'll give you a little bit of a recap of my week and how lovely it has been and will continue being.

Monday was, well, not that amazing. It was basically as normal as it gets. Wake up around 9, go to work, play with kids and sing songs, eat tasty delicious lunch for free, play with more kids, come home and lounge. Although, there was one kind of exciting personal event for me. I have started going to the gym more frequently (lets not confuse this with frequently) and I actually ran a whole mile after my half hour on the elliptical. Even though less than two years ago I'd run about 5 times that much in one workout, I'm still proud I did it. Small steps you know? Anyways, on to Tuesday...

Tuesday was Field Trip day! Two Field Trips in almost less than a month = awesome. Tuesday was also "Sponge Day" at our school (derived my schools name, iSponge). Basically, because its the day before the nationally celebrated Children's Day (May 5th) iSponge decided to extend the fun an extra day and so we went to a Bamboo Festival. I was very excited because I knew that Korean's LOVED their festivals but I haven't been able to go see one yet. So, once again we packed into the mini bus, drove out of the city, and enjoyed a half a day of fun in the sun.

Lisa is an Ajumma in training. Look at that ultimate sun protecting shield.

After being at the festival for about 10 minutes I realized that it's the first time my boss or her sisters have been out in public with me, and I think they were a bit amazed at the attention I get. First, they noticed the bit of stares, then they realized that every child that saw me would say "Hi!" and it didn't stop there. We were at a crafts booth when some guy with a microphone comes up to me and started speaking minimal English. He then asks me if I know any Korean, and I reply in Korean, "A little." After this he blabbers in Korean for quite a bit but I only recognize the words, "pretty" and "Do you have a boyfriend?" I looked at my Boss and she looked so surprised. She uttered the words, "Privacy!" in English and tried to ignore him. This got me thinking about how accustomed I've become to the treatment I get here. I know I've written plenty of times that I'm essentially a freak of nature here, and not necessarily in a derogatory way, but I don't think Korean people realize how they isolate us. I then decided to do a little googling and see if Korea was really that homogeneous. I may have not done a super thorough search, but obviously North Korea was #1 in terms of homogeneity but they also said that South Korea was a close second. It's strange because I couldn't imagine growing up and not knowing a single non-white person. Or being so amazed by them that I would literally stare at them and point and say "LOOK ITS A FOREIGNER!"

Luckily, I’m not alone in the non-Korean living in Korea struggle. There are plenty of people to relate to and talk to that speak English and I have been absolutely blessed to have met them and all of the wonderful Korean friends as well (and my little Korean cuties below!)

Back to the Bamboo Festival. It was along a river which was so nice to see because coming from Minnesota I’m accustomed to water EVERYWHERE. Here, its mountains, mountains, giant sky scraping condos, and flashy lights for every kind of store ever imaginable, oh yah, and mountains. But at the Festival there was a river and even a little mini boat trip that we went on. As you can see below we were all strapped up in our life jackets for our 2mph 10 minutes trip around the river, and it was lovely.

It reminded me of the boat trips at home and the fact that I’ll be missing out on something that I really love. But, you gotta give a little to get a little and in the case of moving to Korea, I gave up A LOT to get just as much in return. During this field trip I got to see a bit of the Korean lifestyle I haven’t seen before. The crafts, the beautiful flower displays, and the pride that they take in their countries natural resources. It was a lot of fun, and I even got a little color!

Here we have a Kim Jung Ill in training. Or at least his stylist.

Another good thing about Tuesday was that everyone I knew also had Wednesday off for Children’s Day. Also, as most of you Americans know, May 5th is Cinco De Mayo, aka another excuse to get drunk on Tequila. So Dom and I headed out to a bar appropriately named Tequilaz . It is basically the only Mexican place in Gwangju and as I understand it, mainly frequented by only the foreigner community. It was a lot of fun and now I know where to go to get some tasty Tacos when the urge strikes. But, I had to make it an early night so I could go for another adventure on Wednesday, The Green Tea Festival.

Once again me and my main ladies (minus Felicity) headed to the Bus Terminal to see another side of Korea. Our destination: Boseong. Our mission: Green Tea Festivities. The bus ride was a little over an hour and a half and took us through a side of Korea I haven’t seen before. Normally, we get a nice countryside view on the way to Busan or Seoul but this was deep in the middle of no where. The trees were luscious and green as we headed up mountains and it reminded me a lot of my trip to Maui. When we arrived we got dropped off at a random uninhabited Bus Station and got in a Taxi who knew exactly where the white girls were going, the festival. The down side of middle of no where taxi rides, they’re really expensive. We were in there for like 5 minutes and it was 10,000W. Normally it takes like 30 minutes in a taxi to get that pricey. Anyways, once we got there we saw the sprawl of people and the lovely temple like structures and tents. We also saw the highlight of our trip: GREEN TEA ICE CREAM. Soft serve style I might add. It was DEEElicious.

Then we walked up a quiet calm country side and it was much different than the previous festival. More of a sight seeing festival than a fair and we started to hear some kind of drum noise. We walked a bit farther and realized that we recognized this beat. Finally we came upon an open area with a giant sound stage and discovered that it was the “apple bottom jeans, boots with the fur” song blaring on a stage full of prepubescent Korean girls thrusting their asses. This brought on a roar of laughter from us as we uncovered that this supposed cultural experience was basically being tainted by inappropriate dancing by Koreans who most likely didn’t understand the lyrics to “Baby Got Back.” Needless to say, we were entertained by the Western influence and also a bit let down that the Festival didn’t live up to our expectations. On the plus side, we got out of Gwangju for an afternoon and did something other than sit around our tiny apartments and watch TV. Don’t worry, I made up for lost time later that night by watching about 3 episodes of How I Met Your Mother.

All in all, it was nice to get out, especially that the rain had finally let up for a few days. I have also taken it upon myself to use up some of my 15 vacation days this Thursday and Friday for some Molly time. So, I’m currently sitting on my rooftop with my coffee and I am determined to write a few posts about my last few weeks in Korea and make up for my lack of blogging. I’m also looking forward to hopefully, finally, getting some call time in with some friends back home so if you see a random number calling you, ANSWER IT!