Vagina

This past weekend I made a trip down to a town in the south of Korea called Jinju. A friend of mine lives and works down there and this weekend was in a production of the Vagina Monologues. I had planned on going down to visit her eventually but when this came up I figured why not go see a show while im there and even better she was in it. I left Saturday afternoon on the bus which takes about 4 hours. The bus was nice with big relatively comfortable seats that reclined pretty far back.

When we arrived my friend met us at the bus terminal and took us to a tea room for a little tea before taking a walk through a park where there is a castle (Korean castle not your European fairy tale type).

That night was the second and last night of the performance. The show was great! It was put on by the foreign community in Jinju, mostly teachers as well as some locals. None of the actors in the show had any acting experience but the show was still very good and entertaining. Most of the actors wore black and some had a red accent in their attire but one of the local Korean women in the show, and elderly lady who I found out was my friends co-teacher, went all out with the red, she even wore a wig. It was incredibly entertaining.

The next day we went to another park and went hiking around some trails through the woods as well as a small bamboo forest before stopping at the university area to get some smoothies and relax while sitting in the sun watching the baseball team practice. The weekend was short as always but after getting some lunch I headed back to Seoul to the crappy weather we have had for the past couple days.

Long overdue

Yes, I realize it has been 4 weeks since the last time I wrote something on here but I mostly blame it on The Wire. The 5 seasons of the show consumed my ability and desire to do other things with my free time before and after work therefore no blog posts. So, here is something I did two weekends ago.

On thursday when I arrived at work one of my coworkers asked what I was doing for the weekend and if I wanted to go to Namisam which is an "island on the east coast of the country". He didnt know much about it besides it was an island and there is a French area close by that oui would be going to. I am always willing to take a trip somewhere so I figured why not get out of Seoul for a little bit.

Well after driving 2 hours east we reach our destination. Lots of cars and buses parked in the area where you get on the fairy to take you to the island. The area was next to the river so I figured we would take the fairy down the river and out to the sea to the island but I was wrong. Found out the island is actually an island in the middle of the river and the fairy ride to it consisted of crossing the river to the island which could have been easily walked across if there was a bridge. Turns out the island is just a decent sized park and is famous for some Korean drama that used to film there. Not exactly what I was expecting but it was a nice day outside so it was ok although I didnt need to drive 2 hours for that.

Well next up was the French part of town which I found out was called Petite France. When we arrived I realized this was going to be another Korean fail. Petite France consisted of a bundle of "French style" houses, maybe 15 buildings total in the middle of nowhere. There was an entrance fee and like any other amusement like park it was very fake and fabricated looking. We walked around for a bit but didnt stay long before leaving to go back to Seoul.

While neither event was really all that great it was still a nice day out and I enjoyed myself. I am used to the Korean claim that this or that is "famous" and then ends up being pretty ordinary but it is amusing to see people make a bigger deal out of it than what it is.