The Weather Is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful

Oh, the manifold adventures.

Here I am as Jesse, with Jamie, my BFF in You're a Star, the current Concert Hall production here at the village of English. The show concerns two girls who want to enter a talent show and Tony Dancer, your classic cartoon villain, who with the help of his bumbling henchman, Mr. Pongu, (which means fart in Korean) will stop at nothing to make sure they don't win.

Here we are auditioning for the talent show...

and learning the talent show finale with some help from the audience and our lovely instructor, Madame Pirouette.

Jesse decides she can be brave and sing alone after an accident that renders Jamie unable to compete in the talent show.

I had a wonderful week performing You're a Star, and am thoroughly psyched to go on again at the end of the run. I honestly don't think I could have been happier. I was battling a tiny bit of a cold for part of the week, but I took good care of myself and it never really materialized or got in the way of my performance. Haha germs, I defy you!

Sunday evening, I went with some of my wehgook (it means foreigner) friends to watch the Lotus Lantern festival, where we saw the giant horse/mountain-thing above. It is basically a parade of lanterns in honor of Buddha's birthday (which was actually yesterday). It kind of reminded me of Fasching in Basil, Switzerland, only without the political and comical aspects (and it also took place at a much more reasonable hour).

There were plenty of opportunities to see people in Hanbok (Korean traditional clothing), like the ladies above.

The Buddhist temple in Insadong was filled with these colorful lanterns.

I decided to stay overnight in Seoul since I had my language exchange with Hee Young the next day. After the festival I headed out with some friends for dinner and drinks and then retired to a quaint little hostel with my friend Mel.

Mel's birthday was Monday and she decided that she wanted to go to Sokcho and Naksan, two areas which are on Korea's eastern coast. She invited me to come with her and I set off to help her find the proper bus terminal, figuring that I might follow her after my language exchange, depending on my mood. After a bit of a debacle trying to find the terminal (one of those, "go to the other terminal." "No, go to the other terminal." "No, go back to the first terminal you went to!" situations), I bid Mel adieu and headed for Hee Young's.

In the end, I did catch the 5:50 pm bus to Sokcho at the very last second. The ride was pretty pleasant, just a little over three hours from the Express Bus Terminal in eastern Seoul. I made it to Sokcho at about 9:15 and Mel met with a new found Korean-American friend.

We had dinner and then went to a Jimjilbang, which is an awesomely cheap and ubiquitous Korean spa. Basically, you lock your stuff in a locker and get naked (the part that really takes getting used to, especially since Koreans tend to stare at people who look differently from them, whether said people happen to be clothed or not), shower, go sit it one or more of the various saunas, soak yourself in one or more of the various crazy pools and hot tubs, and then scrub the hell out of your skin with a rough towel (and of course rinse off). This process is relaxing and amazing and you can go any time, day or night, in any town or city. There are also rooms where you can watch DVDs or use computers and whatnot.

One can also stay overnight at a Jimjilbang, which we did. The sleeping room was pleasant and quiet, but it was kind of like sleeping in a little crib. Each sleeping space was divided by wooden rails. Basically, you sleep on a thin mat which is on a wooden structure, and you get a pretty solid, yet slightly squishy vinyl-covered block on which to rest your head. Not the most comfortable or the best night's sleep of my life, but for $7.00 (which includes all aspects of the spa), I can't really complain.

The next day we took a cab up to Naksan, which is slightly north of Sokcho, where we went to see the oldest Buddhist temple in Korea and catch some rays on the more secluded beach there.


As you can see, there were also a lot of lanterns in Naksan in preparation for Buddha's birthday shindig.

This is the inside of the roof of a little gazebo which featured a great view of the ocean.

Here is Mel on the beach. It was soooooo nice. The sun was warm, but there was a pretty strong breeze, which kept me really comfortable. In spite of our donning sunblock (though perhaps not so thoroughly...) We both got wicked sunburns. Suffice it to say that I could stop traffic with my legs right now, and not because of their length or shape.

Even though I wish I'd had more clean clothing and fewer books in my backpack, it was refreshing to take a random trip on a total whim.