stumbling through south korea: We just can't get enough of these awesome weekends!

This time, it’s my turn to write about the weekend events. It's already wednesday night, and it will probably won't be posted until Thursday. Blame rock climbing, mandolin performances, the Korean language, and Robin Hood.

Entrance to Korean Theme Park

I would have to say my weekend started Friday morning. Instead of a normal class day, my school took a field trip to an amusement park! My teachers and I spend the morning there, went to have lunch, then spend the afternoon at a very important temple nearby. I’m unsure of names and locations, but I do have plenty of pictures! The park was smaller than I am used to – a very small area and a lack of rides. It seemed like most of the parks patrons were school field trips. There was our middle school, some elementary schools, maybe a high school, and lots and lots of preschools! The temple in the afternoon was pretty fun – we just walked around looking at things, accidently walked out so we went through it again, then met up with the other teachers and walked through again. My co-teacher joked with me that if any one if I had ever been there I could say “yes, three times!”

An amusement park with a mountain backdrop.

Also a castle backdrop. The best of both worlds.

Instead of a dragon, there is a T-Rex that preys on tiny school children

They go out in style!

Temple

Temple

Temple

The bridge to the temple. Or to a pot of gold.

Tmple

When we got home, all the teachers went out for dinner. After dinner I met up with Sam at the Bus Terminal and we walked downtown to meet all our friends to celebrate Dan’s birthday. The walk was about an hour, but it was nice to talk and catch up on everything that we had missed in each others lives in the past 24 hours. We spent the rest of the night celebrating Dan’s birthday then went home to get ready for the next day.

At this moment you might be wondering what we did on this “next day”. Well, at first Sam and I weren’t sure what to do for this “next day”. It was Monday, and we weren’t sure what to do for the weekend.. Then it was Tuesday and we still didn’t know. I figured I would take matters into my own hands and figure something out. I sent Sam this email:

______________________________________

From: Courtney
To: Sam
Sent: Tue, October 12, 2010 2:26:24 AM
Subject: Festival Website

http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/festival/eng/korea_festival.html

Just found this site - now we can always know exciting things going on!

Below are our choices for this weekend - I'm thinking you will like number 1 best.

http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_2_2.jsp?cat=1&area=&dateStart=10-15-2010&startDate=20101015&dateEnd=10-18-2010&endDate=20101018&keyword=&category=&areaCode=&gotoPage=&stype=1&cid=697382&out_service=

http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_2_2.jsp?cat=1&area=&dateStart=10-15-2010&startDate=20101015&dateEnd=10-18-2010&endDate=20101018&keyword=&category=&areaCode=&gotoPage=2&stype=1&cid=293152&out_service=

http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_2_2.jsp?cat=1&area=&dateStart=02-01-2009&startDate=20090201&dateEnd=&endDate=&keyword=&category=&areaCode=&gotoPage=&stype=&cid=697390

______________________________________

..and she replied….

______________________________________

From: Sam

To: Courtney

Subject: Re: Festival Website

Date: Oct 12, 2010 5:17 PM

I dont know Courtney, I think cows and raw fish sound like alot more fun than making pottery and tightrope walking. Those arent really my thing. Haha Im kidding of course!!! This sounds AWESOME!!! I totally agree with #1.

______________________________________

…and we were set! We had a plan! We sent a message out to all our friends, letting them know that the place to be that weekend was in Ulsan for the Pottery and High Wire festival. Unfortunately for them…they all declined. It was up to Sam and I to have enough fun for everyone!

BUT BEFORE THAT...

[Sam's tidbit]

We spent Friday night with all of our Pohang friends, to celebrate our Irish fellow Dan's birthday. We went to a favorite bar of Dan's called Beethoven's where we took many a silly pictures.

Brandon is famous for his silly faces.

The night was a great success. Dan stayed in bed all next day recovering and Courtney and I were both fully functional in the morning when we got to the bus terminal by 11 for the 10 o'clock bus we were planning to take...

[end of Sam's tidbit]

Us having enough fun for everyone

We woke up that morning at 9…but then went back to bed until 10. We met up at the bus station, bought our tickets to Ulsan and headed away. As we pulled into town we were surprised by the size and the fun things we saw. Before we had left, we each looked into our guide books and there was nothing listed for Ulsan, but at we drove through we noticed lots of activities we should participate in next time we visited.

It's how they do it in Korea

When we arrived, the first thing we did after checking out bus times was to look around outside. And the first thing we saw when we walked outside was a Ferris Wheel on top of a department store. Of course, this is something we had to check out…so we did!

We looked around for about an hour, then rushed to the bus stop to catch the shuttle into Pottery town. This was just one big area full of pottery shops, museums, and festival! We were amazed by all the giant pots, mini pots, bowels, cups, and medium sized pots!

Pottery Festival in Full Swing

One thing that had brought us to this particular festival was Sam’s love for pottery. Another reason – the traditional high wire performance. Yes, there was supposed to be high wire. As soon as I saw an information booth I asked about the performance. Of course, they didn’t understand what I was saying until I was able to draw a picture of a stick figure standing on a line that was raised above the ground. “Ok ok!” she said when she saw my picture, and rushed to get a schedule. “Oh no, oh no!” I said when she showed me the time of the performance – 2:00. It was now 3:00. The performance was over!

“Oh well”, Sam says. “Let’s go make a pot!” So we did. We found the booth that hosted a pottery creation center. There were a bit of communication problems, but I’m proud to say we were able to decorate a cup and hand spin a bowl each!

Our beautiful cups!

A giant red devil

My view in front of the fist

After spending our creative energies for a while, we decided to look around at what the rest of the festival had to offer. We pass some booth where people are making pots, we pass food venders where people are making food, we sort of pass a show that people are watching. When I say sort of, I mean half the group passed the show. Sam passed unmolested through the crowd and went on to stare at something boring for about 10 minutes. As she walked away from me, I was assaulted by a giant brown creature with fists. Yes, that’s right assaulted! He punched me over and over and over again! The whole time people all around are laughing and pointing. What is Sam doing? Coming to my rescue? Laughing along with everyone else? What Sam was doing = watching something boring! She didn’t even notice that her good friend Courtney was being beaten to death.

The boring thing same was watching

Finally the turmoil was over and Mr. Brown Fist and I shook hands as a friendly gesture. And then, a couple minutes later he began wailing on Sam. What did I do? Stand back and take pictures, that’s what I did!

Sam's turn to get pummeled

What you do at a pottery festival if you aren't into pottery

The rest of the pottery show was just walking through museums, then walking through shops, then buying lots of things from the shops. We were both very happy with our decision to attend the festival, and very happy with all our new purchases. We got the next bus back to Pohang, then went home to relax and get some rest.