My Super-packed Sunday

I started coming down with a cold on friday, but I haven't let it slow me down much. I got some rest on friday (which I had off because it was the first of three days of Chuseok, basically the Korean Thanksgiving) and most of Saturday so that I could go out that night to a few bars where we played pool, people watched, I learned a bunch of Korean from friends (I'm not the proud counter of 1-20 in Korean), and played random street games they have all over the place.

The night scene is tons of fun, especially after you discover all there is to do. Heck, I could just play the funny little street games they have all night! Some are arcade-ish, others are sport-related and some are just kind of silly. It's pretty funny to watch the Koreans who've obviously had a little too much to drink try out the punch or kick machines and end up on their rear ends when they completely miss the target. I'm still surprised at how popular drinking is, and that it's that popular for nearly all ages, especially for men. One of my friends told me that it's not that uncommon to see a grown man with a good-paying job passed out on the sidewalk after a long night of drinking, possibly still dressed in their business clothes from earlier that day. Very different. And it's strange how Koreans treat drinking. They hate to be labeled "drunks" and will try to avoid it in any way possible, including temporarily disowning their friends. I've been with a few Korean friends when a friend of theirs comes up to them, obviously drunk, and they say hi, goodbye, and walk away and say how sorry they are to me for him being drunk and not to pay attention to him, despite the fact that all he said was "hello". And in a few hours, they might end up in the same state (seems they really have a hard time holding their liquor compared to Americans....reminds me of a bunch of Korean college freshman running around).

But aaaaanyways, I wanted to write about the super-packed Sunday I had earlier today. So here it is....first, I got up and got picked up by my friend Bok-Young, then swung by to get our friend Sarah, a British english teacher, and headed out to Seogwipo, the only other "city" on the island, located directly south on the other side of the island. We drove for about 45 minutes before stopping to get a bite to eat, then got back in the car (this time with me driving), and drove to some cliffs on the edge of the ocean. Man, are the Koreans bad drivers. They slowly cut you off, seem very unaware, and randomly brake at odd times. Very frustrating to drive with.

The cliffs were really neat....steep, jagged rocks that went down and almost looked like long black crystals because of their shape. Hard to describe, but really neat. Almost all of the other people there were Chinese tourists, but I couldn't really tell....looked the same to me other than a slight difference in clothing style. The Koreans were very surprised, though, that I didn't see the difference and we discussed how the two were different. I guess the Koreans seem to think the Chinese in general are less attractive and "dirtier," but I think they just meant that they aren't as environmentally friendly...their cities are polluted and just not quite as clean.

After driving to the Cliffs, we drove into Seogwipo, looked around, then continued on to this big bay where there was a big bridge built just three days ago for people to cross to walk in a circle around this small island, then come back. A few good pictures, but kind of boring following slow Koreans at a snail's pace for 20 minutes. The bridge was neat, though...really modern-looking, very big, and good to take pictures from. After walking back, we hopped back in the car and headed back towards Jeju City. We dropped off Min-Hee, one of Bok-Young's friends from Seoul, then headed out to do go-carts! They were 2-passenger carts and oddly enough, had 2 steering wheels that both controlled the steering of the car. Luckily Sarah and I had the same driving style - fast - and didn't fight with the wheels much. It was pretty fun flying around the track, passing the Koreans and waving at them as we went. A few times we almost crashed because we really flew around the turns and we'd start to skid out, but we always righted the car just in time. And we lapped our Korean friends....twice. Haha.

After go-carts we went to get Korean barbecue, which actually has no BBQ sauce involved at all. It's just an open grill they put in front of you full of meat. They also give you a TON of little side dishes (this is typical of every korean meal) that you can mix with your meat in this lettuce-like leaves used to wrap the food in and stuff in your mouth whole. It's probably the best food native food I've had - thus why I've had it 8 times now - and it hasn't gotten old at all! Good thing, because some of the other stuff has. I just can't eat rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday! So after eating, we dropped Sarah off and Bok-Young and Q (her korean name is really difficult to pronounce so I decided we'd nickname her Q since it starts with that and she liked the idea) and I went back to the Tap-Dong amusement park, the same place where I saw the hilarious rides earlier. This time, unfortunately, there were no chubby little kids, but teens and the older crowd since it was a bit later. We tried riding this giant pirate ship thing, did some people watching, then went to Sara-bang (or Sara mountain). We looked out over the ocean and could see the coastline for miles, including lighthouses, several ports, cars, people, ships, fishing boats....it was really neat.

We were thinking about ending the day/night there....but it continued! We drove out east to Hamdeok where we went to a beach which had a small bridge out to a small island, then another small bridge to another island. This island was in the center of a large bay that was really pretty....the water was pretty shallow, and with the dim lights put around the edge of the island, I could tell it was a light blue color. Around the bay, there were little stores and bars, and it was neat to see everything around the water all lit up while we were in the center of it all. Sometimes I'm surprised that Korea has such pretty scenes to offer. I had never thought it would be like this prior to seeing a few pictures, but it can be stunning in certain places.

After crossing the bridges back, we dropped off Q at her place and Bok-Young started to drive us back, but took a wrong turn and we ended up on this tiny gravel-ish road that had rock walls on either sides (literally rocks stacked on top of eachother without cement used to hold them together....pretty impressive, but in this case realllllly tricky). Bok-Young made the wrong decision to continue on this tiny road which twisted sharply 2 or 3 times and got smaller and smaller until the rocks were about 8 inches from the car on either side. It wouldn't have been a problem if this strange path led us out, but it continued shrinking until the car would have been scraping rocks on either side. The only way out was to reverse the whole way out. Wayyyy easier said than done as it was going uphill, over both small and large, loose rocks with very close rock walls at night with very little light. I barely managed to get out of the car to help direct Bok-Young's driving, but after about 5 minutes spent moving 6 or 7 feet, we traded places and I did my best to back the car out. A few times I was only an inch or two from the rocks (which was much more nerve-wracking than it sounds because when moving on this road it wasn't smooth and easy to control due to the loose rocks that would shift and the fact that the road was a steep hill and you'd have to be really careful with the clutch/accelerator to move slowly.) But, eventually I did make it out (I think it took almost 15 minutes!) without a scratch on the car. Man, was that scary. Looking at it, I was wondering at first how the heck we'd get the car out of there....but we did! From there, Bok-Young dropped me back off at my place to end the fun-filled day/night and weekend. Quite the day, huh?