Let me start today's musings with something that has me at a loss. I have met people in Korea who have been bored. Ummm....HOW? I'm serious. I don't get it. My biggest problem is trying to choose which awesome event or trip to attend or go on. I've lived in some awesome places in my life (and some not so great ones), but I don't think I've ever lived anywhere where there was this much going on. Within an hour or two of my home base, on any given weekend I can find a handful of cool things to do and they're all either cheap or free. I have a feeling that if you're a teacher in Korea and you're bored you'd be bored anywhere in the world.
For example, last weekend, Dawni, Lina, Johnny and I boarded a bus and headed to Busan for the famous Busan International Fireworks Festival. The Festival is a nine-day event that features two huge competitions (on Saturdays) and minor fireworks displays on the rest of the days. The best place to watch them from is Gwangali Beach, an awesome little piece of waterfront with beautiful sand, cute little cafes and restaurants and, the cherry on top, a picturesque bridge in the background. It's hard not to love Busan's waterfront. They really got things right there.
The crowds were crazy on Saturday, despite the weather (raining all day)...wide rivers of people kept pouring toward Gwangali and Haeundae beaches for hours. Thankfully, the weather gods were on our side and just before the fireworks started the rain stopped and the sky began to clear.
And then the fireworks started...first the USA, then Japan, Poland and China. All were excellent, but Poland's display was mindblowing (and the winner of that night's competition). If you have never seen an hour-long (15 minutes per nation) fireworks display, you really have to. It's surreal. Especially because not only was it long, it was jam-packed with visual candy...they never just took it easy. They really went all-out trying to one-up the others. When the smoke settled (literally), Korea decided to add their 20 won's worth as well and provided the official "finale" for the event. The Koreans basically covered the sky with fireworks for about 3 minutes solid. I've never seen anything like it, I swear Korea popped off as many fireworks in a few minutes as Vancouver does in 20 years' worth of Canada Days.
Due to the crowds and the weather, I didn't take the big camera, and the pics out of the G9 aren't the greatest, but here are a few (plus a couple of videos). I apologize, the camera missed focus on the second video and I didn't notice it, so it's slightly blurry, but still well worth watching...it'll give you a great idea of how spectacular these fireworks were.
These were pretty cool too...the top one reminded me of the planet Saturn:
And now for the videos...please take a few mins to watch them, I promise you'll love them :) The first one is more "beautiful" whereas the second one is just jam-packed with explosions, especially the last 40 seconds or so.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r_HEqQjxu4
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac_vv_94sIo
Getting out of Busan was surprisingly easy (despite the literally millions of people - they're expecting 3 million for next weekend's final competition - thanks to the awesome, and of course cheap, subway system). After we got home, it was time for a short sleep and a Sunday morning ride to the bus terminal where Rachael, Raines and I loaded a bus full of our bikes.
And so we headed for Namhae, a little island off the south coast of Korea. It's a sparsely-populated place (by Korean standards) that's home to endless miles of wicked coastline and, as we found out, tons of friendly people. We were waving at and saying hi to anyone and everyone and they waved back, and more than a few times kids and adults alike would smile, wave and say hi to us even before we had a chance to do so. Having adults smile and say hi to you out of nowhere is incredibly rare in Korea, so it was a bit of a treat for three happy-go-lucky people like us.
Speaking of luck...Raines's ran out a few km into the ride when a shard of glass decided to duel with (and win against) his rear tire.
A quick patch later we were on our way to such amazing delights as...a gigantic garlic statue (just down the road from the Garlic Research Institute and Garlic Land) of which I crowned myself king:
We bumped into a roughly 16 km-long designated bike path (one of the extremely few in Korea) that took us along a beautiful coastal road with almost zero traffic. It was amazing to wind our way through little fishing villages, pass mini islands and watch the ajummas (old ladies) at work picking the beach clean of whatever they could find (we were guessing mussels).
This was kinda trippy and cool...they had paved roads on the sea floor. The crazy thing is that they're only accessible during low tide...I've never seen anything like it:
Some of the scenery on our ride:
Cool mini island we found...I swear the bridge they built to it is bigger (square footage-wise) than the island:
To be honest, though, not everything was great on the little island. Our buzz was a little harshed by The Man when we discovered that horn playing was strictly forbidden in Namhae. Wind instrument players beware: your kind ain't welcome in those there parts.
And that's my weekend...this coming weekend, yet again, I could have my pick of the finale for the fireworks festival (tempting) or the Masan Chrysanthemum Festival (they have chrysanthemums out in pots all over the city to promote the event, and no one steals them), but I'm pretty set on the whole Japan trip! The won is strong, the weather is warm and the weekend is long...why not? :)
Sayonara!
T
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