Photography, Slow Walking, and the DMZ!

April turned out to be just like March in one way. I was still insanely busy. Thankfully May has a billion holidays so my life will be slightly less chaotic I hope. School is basically the same. I still love my grade 2 and 3's and still want to strangle my grade 1's. Although, they are getting better so that's a bonus. The weather is so hot some days that I have come to realize that I really truely and going to melt to death this summer. We've had Canadian July weather here. Korean July is triple ours. I'm not looking forward to it! My apartment still hasn't been cleaned well. I did the dishes and laundry today though. I broke my vaccum cleaner again so I can't vaccum. I managed to completely break the flickering light in my bedroom so now it's completely dark. I almost burned my house down baking again. I left myh straightener on too many times during the day. One time I left it too close to my worship book for church and the pages were really hot when I noticed.
So, to the good stuff. Three main events happened in April. One a weekend.

First up is the Photography Awards. I may have mentioned something about this. Or maybe not. I don't remember. Sam, my photographer friend, won a prize in a photo competition (oh wait, I do remember saying something about this. I went bowling with my school and didn't get to go to the competition. Kris and Gab went though and are now being displayed in the Bus Terminal in Gwangju because of Sam's amazing photography work). ok, I just explained it in the parenthesis. Yep so even though I didn't go to the competition, Sam invited me to come along to the awards ceremony with them. It was shown on TV and one of Kris' teacher saw us on TV. Or a student? Or maybe it was my teacher? I'm not sure. Anyway, we were seen on TV. Probably because we were the only foreigners there.
At the awards show. Sam stole some rossettes for us. They were HUGE! Sam getting his award. I'm not exactly sure what place he got. He didn't win (his friend did), but he got a placing, that's all I understood.

Sam, Gab, and Kris with Sam's photo of them at the blossem festival.

The photo that's now displayed in the Bus Terminal.

The free lunch afterwards. We met Lee Byung Woo here. He's the highest guy in the Jangseong brewery. His company was the sponser I think. They were supplying this new kind of plum wine that's just hit a few stores already. It was delicious so we told him and asked for free wine. He gave us each a bottle. It's expensive stuff to apparently. Now we're getting free tours of the soju (A Korean alcohol incase you don't remember) factory. Connections are awesome.

Next up we have the Slow Walk Festival. It was in Wando (beach town in the very south of Korea. I went there two weeks after coming to Korea) and as you can see from the name tag, it's the Cheongsan Island Tour...with Foreigners no less! That made us laugh. It was a free trip for us because they really wanted foreigners there. Bus paid. Ferry paid. all meals included. Oh, and we had cameras in our faces all day. I practiced slow walking before the festival. I was so ready for it.

First glimps of the island.

On the ferry. Notice the Koreans outfits? Hiking is basically a national sport and pasttime in Korea. They are obsessed with it. If you go hiking, you better wear proper gear. Proper gear being hiking shoes, a hat (this may range from a normal hat covering all skin so the sun won't eat you to flashy Adjumma hats), hiking track pants, and of course, the brightest and most colourful hiking jacket you can find. Add into that a picnic lunch of gimbap or in some cases, a full meal of fish soup, coffee, and kimchi.

The minute we landed we saw TV cameras....aimed at us. They didn't leave the entire day. This here was our welcoming band thing.

Our lunch meal of bibimbap. One of my most favourite meals in Korea. Delicious!

Opening ceremonies. They did stretches. For slow walking. hmmmm.

While they were going on and on in Korean, I told Gab that I bet they parade us in front of everyone. Five minutes later, parading in front of everyone we were! A bunch of us made a bit of a scene trying to let them know we were from Canada, not USA. The camera's were really in our faces after that.

We came from somewhere down there in the village. This island was absolutely gorgeous and the day was perfect!

Some house from some Korean drama. The Koreans were all taking pictures. We toured it, it was cool.

Old fashioned plowing. I didn't mention the point of the Slow Walk Festival is to show the slow way of life these people live here. (that or they ran out of festivals to have so this is what they choice. Korea is FULL of festivals. The butterfly festival was this weekend. I didn't go)

We've walked 6,000 steps so far. Approx.

Around the island.

Circling back to the beginning. The tide is now down and you can see the rock formation. This was built so that when the tide goes down, the fish get caught on shore and they go pick them up easily. I decided Stanley should use this method. Maybe then he'll actually catch enough fish for dinner...

On the way back, we manage to get into the only room on the ferry because it was cold outside. Unfortunately for us, the Koreans thought they could all fit in the room and actually tried. I had a lady sit on my leg and another lady sit on my back. She thought she could fit between me and the lady behind me. She was large. The spot was small. She ended up on top of me. All us foreigners were scarred for life after that experience.

Our dinner of BULGOGI! Only the BEST meat in the world. (well, Galbi is pretty fantastic as well). What we didn't know was that we'd be eating abalone. Seafood a great. But when the abalone starts moving because of the heat from the burners...we found out we were cooking them alive. Talk about a fresh meal eh? They weren't alive long though and they tasted delicious! The abalone are the green shells in the main dish.

Overall though, the day was fantastic and I'm so glad I went. (like I wouldn't go on a free trip!)

Part three of the awesomeness of traveling: The Demilitarized Zone! I don't know how much you've been paying attention to North-South Korea issues, but last time I mentioned about the sinking of a South Korean ship. All of South Korea knows it was torpedo from North Korea, but obviously the North is denying it. Problem. Then I mentioned how the North said the South must stop all tours to the DMZ or something tragic might happen. Kris and I decided to go pronto. If they stopped the tours before I could go... so not cool! So we went this past weekend. Unfortunately, since we booked it the day before, we couldn't find a tour going to both the PSA and the third tunnel. We opted to do the third tunnel tour this time and hopefully soon we're going back for the PSA tour. (The PSA is the only area where N and S Korea coexisted until the axe murders in I think '76 or something. Now the area was split in two. Half of buildings are the N and the other half the S. It sounds excitingly dangerous (even though it's not) so I want to go)

Here we are at the Dorasan Station. It's the only train going into North Korea. It brings supplies.

The Dora observatory. I got in trouble here for taking pictures of things I wasn't supposed to be. I told them I didn't take a picture of the guard posts they were talking about (hey, I was behind the no picture line so how was I supposed to know?) and now I have a picture on my camera that shouldn't be there. A few actually. This isn't one of them in case you're wondering. Most of the soldiers there spoke really good English. They have cool army uniforms. They have some extra stuff on it that the soldiers in Gwangju and Sachung don't have.

Third tunnel. Cindy has pictures from inside and took a video. That was also strickly prohibited. I'll have to get it from her sometime.

The same olf DMZ that everyone else takes a picture with.

Imjingak. A park/amusement park thing. I don't remember the exact reason for it, but something along the lines of the North and South going there together...um yeah. I forget.

From the tower over looking the status that represent the two Koreas eventually coming together.

The whole area leading up to the DMZ has barbed wire along the highways and patrols every 200 feet or so. This was at the park. The ones along the road were blurry pictures.

The freedom bridge where some number of Koreans crossed over at some point to freedom.

A train. There's a story behind it. Here's the two second version. (I'm really tired, sorry) Korean driver man ditches the train when it was bringing supplies because of the fighting (Korean war). He runs to the south. Later they brought it back to restore it. He's now an old man and remembers the day clearly.

So that about sums up my month. It's Grandpa Heeg's birthday tomorrow (well, my time tomorrow). I'm supposed to know by tomorrow if I'm staying or leaving this year or next. I still have no idea. Oh dear.

I think I'm going to Jeju island this week. I teach Monday and Tuesday only and the HOLIDAY! I need time to think, I think. It'll be good for me. I'm going alone.