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Published: February 8th 2012
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Today it's Friday - and that makes me happy - as it means the weekend is upon us baby. And this weekend we have a long weekend as it's memorial day on Monday. I'm sitting at my desk right now indulging in rice "That's why I put on weight" cakes from Korea. GOD they are delicious. Here's the good and the bad news of it - the good is that my allergies have COMPLETELY gone away as eveey desssert here is literarlly made up of only rice and sugar (goodbye butter/milk etc!) but the bad news is well it's rice...RICE all the time!
However, I am not here to write to you and grumble, so I'll move on as I put the fifth piece of rice cake into my gob!
First things first, I'll start with the weekend just gone - madness. I tell you! We had the Mime Festival on Friday Night - an amazing experience. And really nice to see a big amount of Koreans really kicking back! There were mimes all over the bloody show I tell you...as well as a large group of artists from the local university who had all made up their
own kind of miniture house with everything that was important to them in it...pretty crazy stuff. You can imagine my surprise and delight when I spotted a 'clothes line' devoted made up of condoms. Lol - turns out not everyone has to venture to a Love Motel for some time alone!
Serisouly if these Koreans want some time...there are actual love motels that only cost about $20 for 5 hours/the night sometimes and you just check in - stay the night, then leave in the morning. Something I had never heard about back in good ol' New Zealand.
So we stayed at Mime Festival "sipping on 'gin and juice'...in a bag 😉 until about 5 in the AM. As the sun started coming up we realised it was time to boost...and low and behold after an hour taxi drama we were safe back home tucked up in bed with of course a 'savoury' flavoured rice cake!
Saturday - we hit this awesome Island called Jung Do Island and had a barbecue. Such a slice of home I tell yOU! This Island is cool - great place to camp too. Me and two others decided to
go for a little stroll - with Mokoli (Korean wine) in hand...we stumbled across these cool carts that you can drive around the Island. And I had to laugh when we signed the Insurance form (as if we HAD any idea of a, what we were signing or b, enough money to pay it back if we broke it....ANYWHO...life goes on!) BOOM. and we spent the next half an hour driving it around. Of course, nothing went totally smoothly and at one point (due to misunderstanding/having no idea/ what the signs said, ended up driving straight into a game of Baseball they were NOT impressed, followed by driving this cart (imagine the 'driving karts' at Rainbows End and I swear I was bracing myself for the WHOLE THING to just fall apart in one move!) onto a 'no-go' area, getting in more trouble! And finally bringing the cart back - a little worse for wear.
This island is amazingly popultar in the summer months - and most Korean families will come accross for the weekend. It takes only 15 or 20 minutes to get from Chuncheon to Jung Do Island and the last ferry back leaves at 6pm. You
can stay the night on the island, in pensions (like holiday homes) or of course the most popular option, you can camp for the night. We decided to grab the ferry back this night. But let me tell you...with all the activities to do on this Island we will be back before you know it.
Anywho, that night we did the good old 1-cha,2-cha,3-cha and ended up at a Noreabong with a bunch of awesome Koreans (who we had met earlier when I accousted them because they looked like they were in a band - you know the kind of boys I mean - 😉 and next thing you know we're all dancing to Tiny Dancer by Elton John. And NOW it's time for dream vs reality time.
Sunday - SHOPPING TIME. And there is this amazing UNDERGROUND shopping centre called Myong Dong....and it's just 1,000 of shops underground...And I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. So much crazy. vintage stuff. I couldn't help myself. Although I did have to laugh as I was with my good friend Coco (we have very different dress styles) and I tried on - what I loved -
this crazy light blue coat and she turned to me and said quite simply "Fran...I hate it...BUT I know on you it'll look awesome" BUY IT!
Me personally...I'm getting used to some things - while others are just ridiculous. LIKE getting my hair cut (can you just imagine) what it's like asking for business on the sides, party on top. That's RIGHT impossible! so I 'm basically living in the middle. As every time I get it cut they blowwave into this horrendous "Hi, I'm a mother with THIS haircut and two pairs of Slazenger sneakers" which is ok if you ARE 40, but I'm not!!! So I usually run home and change it!
I also sortof understand how to order SOME food. Although the other night the lady didn't understand I wanted my stirfry to take away - so when she finally cottoned on she just tipped it into a plastic bag! Which can I just say...nearly burnt through by the time I run home!!!!!
Phew. That's me. Happy Two months (and then some in Korea I say!) Next stop - Sokcho Beach -ee-
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