Ah so it's been a busy week/weekend, hence the lack of updates.

So without further ado....

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Korea's Make-Up Sex/Peace Offering #4 was Children's Day.
That's right. A national holiday to celebrate children. And celebrate they do.



Everyone was off work this beautiful Wednesday, and we saw no option other than to bask in the innocence and fun times of childhood.

So we found ourselves at Duryu Park, Daegu's largest park located across the street from Duryu Tower/Woobang Tower Land. The weather was absolutely beautiful and provided plenty of sunshine.

The Korean park experience was amazing. People ride around on bicycles carrying food and drinks. They will take your orders, ride back to the cafe, and bring back your food. You don't have to move a muscle.

Buy some chicken? Get a free padded picnic mat that you get to keep. Could also be used as a makeshift rain shelter or temporary homeless housing.

The park staff go around giving trash bags... and everyone uses them. Everyone is pretty eco-friendly here, so almost all groups cleaned up after themselves.


After all of our beer bottles, plastic cups and pizza boxes were disposed of in an orderly fashion, we headed for the soccer field - ... ahem... I mean the "football pitch." The boys have gotten into a weekly tradition of renting a pitch each Wednesday night and playin some footie. Since it was located across the street from Duryu Park, the whole lot of us skipped over. There were enough of us to split into 4 teams = 3 footie teams and 1 cheerleader team.


I elected myself as cheerleader captain, and led the teams-in-waiting in cheers. Gavin scored a goal? "When i say Gav! You say In! Gav! In! Gav! In!" Not having team names seriously depleted the numbers of cheers in my arsenal. However, since most of these people either weren't cheerleaders or never had cheerleaders (! I know right?!) I don't think anyone was disappointed.

And as if it weren't perfect enough, suddenly fireworks exploded in the sky behind Duryu Tower. The chill of the night, the lights of the pitch, the chants of my friends, and the cracking of fireworks.


After an amazingly perfect evening of footie playing/watching, drinking beer, and cheering on our boys, a group of us headed to the subway.

Then our stomach's took over and led us to a Korean meat chain-restaurant. Various platters into the meal, we realized some of us were eating fried chicken feet. You'd think they would be crunchy, but they were so chewy and tendon-y (is that even a word?), that it took us a minute to realize what the hell we were eating.

Nonetheless, two pitchers of beer plus the rest of our non-chicken-feet meat made us ready for a night of sleep.

As we stepped outside, it was sprinkling. I've realized that I love it when it rains during the summer. The hot air, the cool rain, the distinctive smell -- something about it is very sensual to me.

Another thing I love about Korea -- NO TORNADOES!!!!! No constant tornado sirens in the spring, no tornado drills, no hiding in the basement or bathtub. A spring/summer rain means exactly that. Rain. I don't think I've even heard thunder since I've been here.

But I digress...... either way, Korea's 4th peace offering of Children's Day was exactly the break most of us needed.


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And now to move on to Korea Make-Up Sex/Peace Offering #5.

#5 would be the Seoul World DJ Festival. From 2pm Saturday to 7am Sunday morning, the festival took place a Nanji Park on the Han River in Seoul. Couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather!

Me, Adam, Brittney, Kyle, Anna, Emily and Emerson hopped on the KTX for Seoul with great excitement. After making our way to the park (FINALLY!), it didn't take us long to jump into the festivities.

Step #1: Face paint.
Step #2: Beer.
Step #3: Dance.
Step #4: Repeat Steps 2 and 3 for the next 12 hours.

And that's how it went.





And there were no drugs. At any similar American festival, the air is rank with marijuana and littered with illegal drug use. There was no such thing here (at least not that we saw). I will give it up to Koreans... they know how to have fun with just alcohol and adrenaline.
At points where I wanted to give up and crawl into a ball on the ground, someone would approach me with this contagious energy.



There were 3 different stages, dozens of beer tents, Jägermeister tents, and food bars. Various retailers were there promoting their products, but most everyone was just there for the dancing. The DJs were an eclectic mix of Korean and international artists. While most were your run-of-the-mill dance/techno/electro-rock, there were some pretty interesting (bizarre?) performances as well.



When the last DJ quit at 7am, despite our calls for encore, it was time to head home.
At this point we were mostly sober and extremely tired, which meant we were absolutely delirious. Getting back was actually quite easy -- thanks to a reluctant but helpful taxi driver. McDonalds/Lotteria breakfast in our stomachs, we got back on the KTX for Daegu.

After quick, sleepy-eyed goodbyes, we were off in taxis to our respective abodes for some much-needed sleep.

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So in conclusion, after a brief depressed phase, Korea has more than made up for its problems. There are still everyday things which are bizarre, frustrating and just plain ridiculous, but for the time being, Korea's all right =)


*** Some photos courtesy of Dyren J. Billups-Adams and Adam McCue.