Here is a picture of Josh and me with the mascots (who were not even good mascots they just walked around blowing bubbles trying to be cute.. we decided that wouldn't fly for an American sports mascot.)
Sunday, October 16, 2011
ULSAN HYUNDAI!!
So this weekend was pretty low key. Stayed in Ulsan and had a nice relaxing weekend. On Friday night I hung out with a friend, Shaun, and a couple girls he knows. After doing a little bar hopping we decided to go get something to eat. One of the girls challenged me to eat one of the peppers because I said I liked spicy food. So I decided to be dumb and do it. The pepper had no flavor really but the spice was almost unbearable and definitely made me cry hahaha. We all got a good laugh out of that. That was truly painful. Saturday I met back up with Shaun to watch the Liverpool vs. Manchester United game at the bar which Shaun's family owns. which ended up in a 1-1 tie. not a bad result I guess.. On Sunday I went to the Ulsan Hyundai Tigers vs Pohang Steelers K-League professional soccer game! It was a blast. Josh and I went to that and got to see Ulsan win! The goals were even amazing! what a blast! Ulsan scored in the last minute of injury time to win the game 2-1.
Here is a picture of Josh and me with the mascots (who were not even good mascots they just walked around blowing bubbles trying to be cute.. we decided that wouldn't fly for an American sports mascot.)
I even got to pick up one of their official jerseys at the end of the game so I could be a true tigers fan!
Here is a picture of Josh and me with the mascots (who were not even good mascots they just walked around blowing bubbles trying to be cute.. we decided that wouldn't fly for an American sports mascot.)
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Mask festival
This last weekend was awesome! 5 friends and I went to a mask and dance festival in Andong. We woke up at about 7am to take a train for three and a half hours out to this city.
Here is me and my good buddy Josh on the silly little train....
Once we got there we decided to take a bus out to a small traditional very rural village called Hahoe (pronounced Haw-Hway somehow....). This buildings and houses in this village still have grass roofs! it was pretty cool looking place. Anywho... when we were in Hahoe we watched a traditional Korean mask dancing performance. It was a little difficult to understand what was happening since it was all in Han'gul, but it was still a fun time. Then in the middle of it, they kind of decide to pick people from the crowd to get up and dance and of course....they picked me...
Here is a picture of me there....
That was definitely a highlight of the trip. After that we decided that we had to explore the village oh Hohoe. One of the first things we notice when we are in teh village are there a ton of awesome tiki statues it is a garden full of them.
Here is a picture of me doing the Korean man squat (all korean men just do this anywhere they want on street corners with their friends or alone, so I thought i would pay tribute)
But soon we notice that this garden of tiki statues isn't just a normal one... all the tiki statues have penises all over them! it was the weirdest thing to see in a rural village...
Here is also a picture of me and the group I went with on for this trip. so nice!
After going to this traditional village we went back to Andong where we thought we were going to be catching a train back to Ulsan... funny thing is that we missed the train that was leaving... so we thought we would wait for another train to connect in a bigger city to go back to Ulsan. Another funny thing about that is that after going to grab some food to kill some time we missed that train too.... So we thought we were going to have to sleep at a jinju bong (this is a bath house in Korea. Koreans go to bathhouses often to bathe, get scrubbed by another person or even to sleep. It is a cheap $5-7 per night to sleep on the floor) So we decide to just enjoy the later parts of the festival since we are now thinking we are stuck in Andong. It was such a cool experience when we got back to the festival. There were hundreds of tents selling trinkets, food, clothes and whatever you want. We would literally not b able to walk more than 5 feet without people saying hello to us and wanting to take pictures with us like we were famous. We stopped at this stage to watch a dance contest which was a good time. We were dancing to all the songs playing and these five older women probably about sixty years old were dancing next to us and having so much fun, it had to be the highlight of their night if not their year hahaha. Eventually we just keep walking around the festival taking a lot more pictures with random people thinking we are celebrities. Finally we find someone who speaks decent English and he tells us there is a train leaving Andong to Ulsan at 12:40AM. So we have to run for a mile (which ended up being the wrong direction, but we find a cab and we stack all six of us in the cab. The driver didnt want to but we explained we had to be at the train in 5 minutes to get home and he reluctantly let us all in the cab. we got the train station with a minute to spare and got on a train and got back to Ulsan at 4AM.. What a crazy adventure. More pictures from this to come soon once I get them from all the people who were there.
Here is me and my good buddy Josh on the silly little train....
Once we got there we decided to take a bus out to a small traditional very rural village called Hahoe (pronounced Haw-Hway somehow....). This buildings and houses in this village still have grass roofs! it was pretty cool looking place. Anywho... when we were in Hahoe we watched a traditional Korean mask dancing performance. It was a little difficult to understand what was happening since it was all in Han'gul, but it was still a fun time. Then in the middle of it, they kind of decide to pick people from the crowd to get up and dance and of course....they picked me...
Here is a picture of me there....
That was definitely a highlight of the trip. After that we decided that we had to explore the village oh Hohoe. One of the first things we notice when we are in teh village are there a ton of awesome tiki statues it is a garden full of them.
Here is a picture of me doing the Korean man squat (all korean men just do this anywhere they want on street corners with their friends or alone, so I thought i would pay tribute)
But soon we notice that this garden of tiki statues isn't just a normal one... all the tiki statues have penises all over them! it was the weirdest thing to see in a rural village...
Here is also a picture of me and the group I went with on for this trip. so nice!
After going to this traditional village we went back to Andong where we thought we were going to be catching a train back to Ulsan... funny thing is that we missed the train that was leaving... so we thought we would wait for another train to connect in a bigger city to go back to Ulsan. Another funny thing about that is that after going to grab some food to kill some time we missed that train too.... So we thought we were going to have to sleep at a jinju bong (this is a bath house in Korea. Koreans go to bathhouses often to bathe, get scrubbed by another person or even to sleep. It is a cheap $5-7 per night to sleep on the floor) So we decide to just enjoy the later parts of the festival since we are now thinking we are stuck in Andong. It was such a cool experience when we got back to the festival. There were hundreds of tents selling trinkets, food, clothes and whatever you want. We would literally not b able to walk more than 5 feet without people saying hello to us and wanting to take pictures with us like we were famous. We stopped at this stage to watch a dance contest which was a good time. We were dancing to all the songs playing and these five older women probably about sixty years old were dancing next to us and having so much fun, it had to be the highlight of their night if not their year hahaha. Eventually we just keep walking around the festival taking a lot more pictures with random people thinking we are celebrities. Finally we find someone who speaks decent English and he tells us there is a train leaving Andong to Ulsan at 12:40AM. So we have to run for a mile (which ended up being the wrong direction, but we find a cab and we stack all six of us in the cab. The driver didnt want to but we explained we had to be at the train in 5 minutes to get home and he reluctantly let us all in the cab. we got the train station with a minute to spare and got on a train and got back to Ulsan at 4AM.. What a crazy adventure. More pictures from this to come soon once I get them from all the people who were there.
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