Chungju Palooza
Saturday
a group of us went to Chungju for a musical evening. 3 hours from little ol' Shiwa, we got to Chungju which was a pretty cool city. some of the streets reminded me of the south side of Wellington city as they snaked around small hills.
before the music night started, Brian and i went for a walk, got lost, and after the subsequent taxi ride, found ourselves here.
we walked back to our hotel and found a restaurant for dinner. with no english menu, no pictures, and us having no clues, a very drunk man came over and translated. having ordered us the spiciest thing on the menu, he sat down and chatted about football, the US - Korean FTA, football, getting married (his wedding is on April 29), football . . .
his friends kept coming over to drag him back to their table, so we said goodbye about 20 times. i kinda wanted him to go away, but at the same time, he was good for a laugh and wasn't hurting anyone. he kept drinking my coke though. yeah, that was it. bastard.
at 9pm-ish we met up with everyone else and went to Chungju Palooza. maybe 80 foreigners (mainly teachers) along with a few Koreans gathered around a campfire with several musicians playing away. i found myself chilling out for the first time in months. 'twas great.
great people, great times until Adam was supposed to play. his guitar wasn't plugged in due to the cops coming to turn off the sound system, and news quickly spread that they were coming back to end the party. so we high-tailed it to a bar and found out later that indeed the cops had come back angrily and wanted to bust some foreign melon (figuratively speaking).
Sunday
Brian, Heidi and i meant to wake up early, but that's when we went to bed. managed to get to Chungju Ho (lake) the next afternoon and took a cruise to the other end and back. i was hoping to see some blossoms. there were a few but not many.
it was quite nice, although a little long for what sights there were to see. H and B taught me how to play gin-rummy(?) which i won twice in a row so we stopped playing that. i was asked a few weeks ago what i love about myself, and one thing is that i seem to have beginners luck a lot. i may not win everything, but when i'm introduced to something, i often have a tendency to pick it up quickly. 'Chance favors the prepared mind.' - Louis Pasteur (don't know who he is, just know the quote).
after the boat trip, we took a pretty bumpy bus trip back to Chungju. with H and B turning greener by the moment, i distracted them by explaining the joys of being a cricket enthusiast. Heidi responded by turning greener.
we headed to Chongju (2hrs from Chungju) that night and found ourselves in a bar area. all we could see of the city was casinos, love motels and bars. Brian quickly branded it a fake city (he's a Simpsons fan).
Monday
woke up early to a very wet day. it was raining heavily as we boarded our bus for Beopjusa Temple and by the time we arrived at the bus station, 30 mins walk from the temple, it looked like this.
it was cold and wet and, well, stink. i was pretty disappointed as i was hoping and expecting the blossoms in the paths around the temple to be in full bloom. Brian and i bought friendship bracelets (it's very difficult to find manly looking beads, i must say) then put that friendship to the test as we debated getting back on the bus or sticking around for the weather to sort itself out. H and B went for a run around the town to see if anything was worth sticking around for, but it was looking pretty glum. back at the fake city, we tried to find something else to do before heading home.
we bought tickets to Suwon (me hoping, still, to see some blossoms). it's near our home town yet none of us had been there. it was quite lovely. there's a fortress wall still surrounding the central city, so we went for a walk around that.
and that was the end of our adventure. i saw a few blooming trees but not to the extent i had hoped. on the bus back to Shiwa, i wondered where this interest in blossoms comes from. i've watched trees blossom over the years and not really care. Christchurch is a great place for such sights. i suppose it's the effect of a long, long winter and maybe realising how i took many things at home for granted. then again, maybe it's because of these pics from Otto. or these.
a group of us went to Chungju for a musical evening. 3 hours from little ol' Shiwa, we got to Chungju which was a pretty cool city. some of the streets reminded me of the south side of Wellington city as they snaked around small hills.
before the music night started, Brian and i went for a walk, got lost, and after the subsequent taxi ride, found ourselves here.
we walked back to our hotel and found a restaurant for dinner. with no english menu, no pictures, and us having no clues, a very drunk man came over and translated. having ordered us the spiciest thing on the menu, he sat down and chatted about football, the US - Korean FTA, football, getting married (his wedding is on April 29), football . . .his friends kept coming over to drag him back to their table, so we said goodbye about 20 times. i kinda wanted him to go away, but at the same time, he was good for a laugh and wasn't hurting anyone. he kept drinking my coke though. yeah, that was it. bastard.
at 9pm-ish we met up with everyone else and went to Chungju Palooza. maybe 80 foreigners (mainly teachers) along with a few Koreans gathered around a campfire with several musicians playing away. i found myself chilling out for the first time in months. 'twas great.
great people, great times until Adam was supposed to play. his guitar wasn't plugged in due to the cops coming to turn off the sound system, and news quickly spread that they were coming back to end the party. so we high-tailed it to a bar and found out later that indeed the cops had come back angrily and wanted to bust some foreign melon (figuratively speaking).
Sunday
Brian, Heidi and i meant to wake up early, but that's when we went to bed. managed to get to Chungju Ho (lake) the next afternoon and took a cruise to the other end and back. i was hoping to see some blossoms. there were a few but not many.
it was quite nice, although a little long for what sights there were to see. H and B taught me how to play gin-rummy(?) which i won twice in a row so we stopped playing that. i was asked a few weeks ago what i love about myself, and one thing is that i seem to have beginners luck a lot. i may not win everything, but when i'm introduced to something, i often have a tendency to pick it up quickly. 'Chance favors the prepared mind.' - Louis Pasteur (don't know who he is, just know the quote).
after the boat trip, we took a pretty bumpy bus trip back to Chungju. with H and B turning greener by the moment, i distracted them by explaining the joys of being a cricket enthusiast. Heidi responded by turning greener.we headed to Chongju (2hrs from Chungju) that night and found ourselves in a bar area. all we could see of the city was casinos, love motels and bars. Brian quickly branded it a fake city (he's a Simpsons fan).
Monday
woke up early to a very wet day. it was raining heavily as we boarded our bus for Beopjusa Temple and by the time we arrived at the bus station, 30 mins walk from the temple, it looked like this.
it was cold and wet and, well, stink. i was pretty disappointed as i was hoping and expecting the blossoms in the paths around the temple to be in full bloom. Brian and i bought friendship bracelets (it's very difficult to find manly looking beads, i must say) then put that friendship to the test as we debated getting back on the bus or sticking around for the weather to sort itself out. H and B went for a run around the town to see if anything was worth sticking around for, but it was looking pretty glum. back at the fake city, we tried to find something else to do before heading home.
we bought tickets to Suwon (me hoping, still, to see some blossoms). it's near our home town yet none of us had been there. it was quite lovely. there's a fortress wall still surrounding the central city, so we went for a walk around that.
and that was the end of our adventure. i saw a few blooming trees but not to the extent i had hoped. on the bus back to Shiwa, i wondered where this interest in blossoms comes from. i've watched trees blossom over the years and not really care. Christchurch is a great place for such sights. i suppose it's the effect of a long, long winter and maybe realising how i took many things at home for granted. then again, maybe it's because of these pics from Otto. or these.
posted by the Emperor Fabulous at 7:25 PM
4 Comments:
hey! thanks for the link.
I sure did get caught up in the blossoms this year; it's easy in Tokyo though with so many sakura trees; the interest might just be, unfortunately, trying to snap the *perfect picture. Or maybe it's just the air under those trees, like bees to honey.
Sounds like you had a fun adventure. Though, why did the cops end your sing-a-long?
happy to link dude (won't link to the snake-eating pic though ;) a couplee pics of yours are fab.
great party, but too loud. Koreans have a noise issue. any noise in a housing area is bad. be it 2am or 2pm. plus, for some reason, foreigners have a really poor image here. partly due to US military, but foreign teachers too. apparently, a couple of years ago, the media went apesicrappin' on english teachers. illegal documents and social indiscretions were all over the news and Koreans got hit by wave after wave of bad press about us. or so i have read.
meant to write that cops here are pretty tough on foreigners, maybe for above reasons.
secondary info, but i heard a teacher from Seoul got sent home for hitting a Korean guy who attacked his girlfriend (also foreign).
in my hometown, cops attended a bar brawl and watched, laughed as punches and kicks were thrown. double standards, i'm sure there are plenty in NZ too.
Yeah, there's some bad press about foreigners in Japan too, but for the most part there's not much overt hassle, though once we had a barbecue in the park broken up by the cops for no other reason than having been there. It's funny how on occasion what politics or papers say when in fact, most people likely don't share in the words.
http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=228
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