yoohoo,
As our time winds down in Korea, and we head towards the wonderful day when we can cross Canada in a minivan sharing stories and soju with our friends and family along the way, I neglect to blog. Facebook has come along and become my main vehicle of communication, but I still really like this venue. As summer fast approaches, Haeundae beach, which we have the good fortune of calling our front yard, has been hosting several events, some of which start way too early in the morning. It has been generally fun, however, to have stuff to see during our days off. We've also had a few friends visit recently, which shakes up the humdrum admirably. Zak came out the weekend before last, dressed like a cosmopolitan Korean:). We did a lot of drinking, playing guitar, and hanging on the beach. On Saturday night, we put on a little impromptu concert on the boardwalk, attracting an array of fanfare. We rocked the beach! It's always good to jam. Here is Zak, enroute to the subway station and back to Seoul. He was just bitter because he stayed out and drank himself green the night before!
The following day, the beach was swarming with Christians. Now, I sympathize with the Christian message, in most of its varieties, and am even a bit of a closet Christian myself, but this Evangelical Korean brand seemed clamorous and alien to me. A lot of it amounted to swaying and crying, speaking in tongues, and shouting: "Yessu"! The whole emotion-drunk event lasted until 10 at night, when fireworks flooded the sky for Jesus. We only walked around for maybe an hour during the day. The feelings were too heavy, the speakers too cranked, and the Koreans in too great of numbers. This is the second busiest beach in the world, during the summer, and I think that this was the busiest I'd seen yet it. Check it out.
Can you feel it?!!!!
Above: from our apartment window.
The following weekend, our friends Tim and Gina came down from Seoul. We went to a shady little Hof and ate grilled fish and consumed spirits. It was a dark little hole-in-the-wall decorated, incongruously, with African voodoo statuary, toddler pictures, and crayon artwork. There were even little skulls on one of the statues, either human or monkey, I think. We had a great time. Nic, fortunately, had her camera, and took the following pics...
Above: from left to right, Tim, fellow Busannite Chris, Gina, and yours truly.
Above: the night's firestarters, soju and maekju.
Tim became possessed by an African diety for a short while... or perhaps it was just the soju.
Eventually, we took the party to the streets.
Above: adjoshees like us (status that my grey hair affords me) can drink, spit, and piss wherever we want in Korea.
The following day, we went to the beach again, and some Sun and Fun festival was going on. I snapped a few:
Above: that was weird to see.
There seemed to be a big anti-smoking component to the festival, a good thing considering that most adult male Koreans smoke.
Well, I don't know if I'll blog again before we leave. Maybe once or twice more. But alas, the whole experience is coming to a close. I could keep blogging in Canada, but I don't think I'll start hangininthehinterlands.blog.com anytime soon. Instead, I might start a religion/philosophy blog up, and/or a truth movement/Canadian Action Party supporting blog, or something like that. Check C.A.P. out: http://canadianactionparty.ca/ . And if you haven't already, please check out some songs from my forthcoming CD at: http://garageband.com/artist/sonofdelbert . I leave you with these, taken a couple months ago when the yellow dust was peaking in Korea...
Keep it real,
suteebun
