Waygooks Wandering

Daegu's Second Annual Chicken and Beer Festival happened last week at Duryu Park. We went with Serena, Max, and Matthew on Friday night. Unfortunately, the free chicken and beer was only from 4 to 6, so we had to pay, but it wasn't too expensive anyway. We say on the bleachers in the baseball stadium at the park and ate our chicken. I got to talk to Niall for a bit, and Serena and Max bought me an awesome glowy light stick! We walked around the festival area, checking out the booths and the other foods, and we even caught a bit of a performance by the Kpop group Orange Caramel. It was really awesome to hear them play some songs in person that I actually knew! Matthew left a bit early to catch the last bus home, but Serena, Max, and Gianni and I walked around outside the stadium a bit more. Max tried his hand at the balloons and darts game and won another glowing thing. There was an animals tent as well with parrots and snakes on display. Gianni decided to pay to take some pictures with the massive snake around his neck! It was a really fun night.

This past weekend we took part in another Enjoy Korea trip and went off to the Boryeong Mud Festival. Apparently, it's one of the biggest mud festivals in the world. Boryeong is about 4 hours from Daegu, so it was quite a long ride. We left at 9 am on Saturday morning and arrive at around 1 pm. This trip wasn't like other Enjoy Korea trips. There were no planned events or anything. Instead, we could just do as we pleased for the entire time we were in Boryeong. We all checked into our hostel to drop our things off. All our friends were in a room together, so there were around 12 of us sharing a room. Our room was kind of small for that amount of people, and it only had one bathroom! Crazy. The mats for sleeping were also not as cushioned as they usually are at hostels like this, so that was a bummer. We were in the basement too, so no balcony like some of the other people. The hostel did have a really nice canopied picnic table area outside of it though. This was definitely a beach town. All the hostels looked like places you might see at home by the beach.

Marie and Ben and us after we went down the slide

Boryeong Mud Festival!

After we got changed, we headed down to the festival area. In the main area, there were some mud fountains where people were coating themselves in mud. There was also a fenced in area that you had to buy tickets to enter. They had blow up obstacle courses, slides, and pools for mud-related activities. We tried to get tickets, but they had sold out! They had a really horrible system for ticket sales. I don't understand how they can sell out since people were going in and out of the fenced area all the time. They could have just continued to admit people. Whatever. There were tons of booths selling mud products and t-shirts (the only festival in Korea that sells    T-shirts with the festival mascot and name on it!). They had a DJ playing music on a large stage right on the beach as well. It was a pretty cool event. After a while, we met up with some of our friends who also didn't have tickets. Ben and I got the brilliant idea to sneak into the fenced area. Tons of people were doing it, so we did. Once we got in, I decided to tell the staff members inside that my bracelet fell off to see if they'd give me a new one. They told me they couldn't, but as long as I stayed in the fenced area, it wouldn't be a problem. I then found a bracelet on the ground, which we used to get everyone else in. We played around in the mud pools and mud games. It was really fun, and I'm

Brown Eyed Girl performing at the Mud Festival

The clouds made the fireworks look kind of cool

glad we got in, but it wasn't something I feel like people would want to spend the whole day doing. There was a small area for children and families, and another part for adults. But there were only so many rides to do. We played a game in a mud pool where you had to chase the tail of another line. The team that lost got covered in mud by the other team, and we were the losers! After that, there was a game where two people competed against another two people. The objective was to do a mud hug and ring the bell in the center. Gianni and I lost to two Korean girls. Womp womp! Gianni and I then competed against each other in a race on a blow up thing. It wasn't like an obstacle course. It was basically just a long slide where you had to slide to the end, touch, and race back. I won, so I got to toss mud all over Gianni! There were a few ways to exit the fenced in area, all by doing fun mud things. One was an obstacle course and then two were big slides. We opted for the slide although I was told that the obstacle course was excellent. Since we didn't have a bracelet, we could only exit once. It was a really fun and awesome time. After we got rinsed off in the ocean with our friends, we headed back to the hostel to get showered. It took about 3 hours for everyone in our group to get showered off because there were 12 of us and one shower. We got some ramen from the convenience store for dinner, and headed back down to the festival area. The front of the stage was packed with audience members. A famous KPop group called Brown Eyed Girls was performing and after another famous Korean singer, Kim Jong Hun, also performed. There was a fireworks display after the performances that was enhanced by the clouds and fog in the sky. We hung out on the beach with friends for a while and headed to bed.

The next day, the plan was for the buses to leave around 3pm. We didn't realize how many hours we had on the beach, so we didn't think we'd need sunscreen. We ended up buying some, but it was too little too late, and Gianni and I both got burned. We didn't swim because we didn't want to get dirty for the bus ride home, but we walked along the beach and bought some mud products that were on sale. I got a t-shirt and some mud soap, and they gave me some mud toothpaste, which I am assured doesn't taste like mud. I collected a few seashells on the beach too. As we were walking around, we got to see an air show! It was spectacular. They were going behind the clouds to change formation and coming out with all kinds of spins and things. They even let out some colored dust in the sky behind them at different points. It was really neat. I don't remember ever having been to an air show before.

It was a really excellent weekend spent with our lovely friends before we leave for the US to just two weeks!!!

This weekend, Gianni and I had some serious time apart. Not in a bad kind of way, but I had a busy schedule of things he wasn't interested in. So it was the first time we've done different things in a while. I think it worked out better for him that it did for me though! He got to hang out at home, playing video games and sleeping in. I on the other hand got up early both days (extremely early on Saturday) and didn't get to relax very much at all.

Saturday was Serena's black belt test. Serena's husband, Max, is in the military, and they started doing taekwondo at our gym a few months before we started. They're really great, and you've probably already heard a lot about them on this blog. Serena's mom and sister and Max's daughter were visiting from the States, so they got to see her black belt test also. I really wanted to go and support Serena and also see what the black belt test is going to be like for when I take my own, which will probably be in October. The test started at 9, but Master Hwang wanted us to meet at the gym at 8, so I had to get up at 6:30 and catch the 7am bus to get to the gym on time. It was the second earliest day I've had since coming to Korea! Not the most fun thing ever. We got to the stadium where the test was being held and waited around for stuff to get started. The "opening ceremony" was pretty cool. A demonstration team did a taekwondo skit where a mother and son get harassed by some guys at night, so the little son starts taking taekwondo. It was pretty funny, and he did all kinds of cool tricks and broke boards and stuff by the end of it. The belt test itself took a while. It was like being at a swim meet again. The little kids went through their tests first, and then the adult black belts. For the black belt test, you have to know 8 forms. You will always perform the 8th one, but the other two are random. The second on you have to perform is chosen at the start of the event, so everyone ends up doing two of the same. The last one is totally random and changes for each group. In the center of the stadium, there were 4 different blue areas. You move from one area to the next doing all 3 form demonstration and then one minute of sparring where you can only kick. Each blue area was divided in half and each half had one judge, so the judges look at groups of 6 people, but the people in one half are doing the same thing as those in the other half. It seemed really nerve-wracking because you get no feedback as soon as you're finished. You do the belt test, but you only find out 6 weeks later whether you passed or not! It's crazy! Serena did a wonderful job anyway. After their test, we all went out for kal guk su. We had the seafood version of this when we went to seonyudo, but we got the chicken version this time. It was basically Korean chicken noodle soup, and it was delicious. I went back to the gym with Master Hwang where I practiced my forms for a while before testing for my red belt. We were supposed to do it Friday, but we didn't pass, and I didn't feel like thinking about it all weekend. I knew the forms, but there were too many people around Friday, and I couldn't think. I performed the forms Master Hwang wanted me to, and I passed the test! Gianni and I were both given our red  belts on Tuesday (Gianni retook the test Monday), so our next belt test is black! We will be practicing for the next several months, so that's a relief.

On Sunday, I had to wake up a bit earlier than usual to meet a friend in her area of Daegu. She and her other friend had been raving about a salon that does permanent straightening. All the salons in Korea do it, but I didn't want to go somewhere untested for as big a thing as this. Korean hair is stronger than Western hair, and if they did something wrong, I could have lost my hair! So Colette and her friend had said this place was great, and they made me an appointment there. I do like my curly hair, don't get me wrong, but with the summer humidity in Daegu, straightening my hair with a flat iron is out of the question. As soon as I walk outside, my hair goes curly and frizzy again. Getting my hair permanent straightened is basically the only way to make it functional this summer. I took the bus to Colette's neighborhood and waited for her at the stop for a while. I didn't know, but she had gotten really sick the night before with some sort of flu. She felt okay enough to walk me to the salon, Bobo's, and get me set up. Colette's hair took about three hours to get finished, so that's how much time I had planned for. But I found out that my hair is almost as stubborn as I am! I had to get two treatments, and it took almost 5 hours to do! The stylists were really nice and helpful though. I think the stylists are very concerned about being precise here in Korea. Even Gianni's cuts seem to take longer than they do at home. The day basically went: wash, treatment, set, rinse, blow dry, wet, treatment (because it wasn't shiny enough after the first time, I guess), set, rinse, blow dry, super hard core straighten with flat irons (seriously! it took forever for them to finish this part), wash, blow dry, cut dead ends, straighten just a bit more. I got so hungry that my hands were shaking, and I had to ask the staff for food. They were really nice and got me some food in the area to eat while my hair set the second time. When I was done, they gave me a deep conditioner for free also! The were really sweet and definitely knew what they were doing. The woman who did most of the work spoke limited English, and I think she was the only one in the salon with any English at all, but they were still really great. My hair looks fabulous still, and it should stay straight for about 6 months!

So that was my Gianni-less, busy weekend. Not the most fun weekend I've ever had, but good nonetheless. This weekend, Gianni and I are going to finish the English stamp book by going to a place called Herb Hillz. And Happy July 4th to all those back home! We're going to watch the fireworks at Camp Walker on our South African friend's roof and have a BBQ tonight!