It ain't too many times when I look back on a weekend and I think that it shaped a period in my life or way of thinking. That's what happened this weekend. It all started with a plan to go and watch some bullfighting. I ain't never went to anything like it before, so I was up for it. Several friends planned to go, but on ditched and another had to work. So, it was just my friend Justin and me. I was hoping that there would be 4-8 people in our group as usual. But, it was what it was. Then it al began!
I met Justin a few subway stops away and we went on our journey. It was a random and fun weekend with lots of turns that couln't be imagined. So weird. This is why we call it 'Dynamic Korea!" There's one thing that ain't a lie, and that is that Korea is just that.. Dynamic!
The final destination was a town called Cheongdo. This is considered a village in Korea and they ain't nothing there except a bull festival and some peaches. There are a several thousand people, but there's a old school feeling. It is not so modern and a bit dirty. So among other things, it is not the best place in the world. We got on the train in Seoul and it goes 200 and some km/hr. Very..very.. very.. very.. fast! We made it to a very large city called Daegu. I'd guess that there are about 2 million people there. This is when the crazy stuff started to happen. We walked out of the train station and tried to take a taxi. We got in 3 taxis and asked if they could take us to one of 3 motels that we had researched near the train station. All 3 of them claimed to either not understand or not know where any of them were. Then we decided that the best thing was to find downtown and get us some food. That was my idea! After that, we needed to find a place to sleep. Well, there are many a motel in Korea, but most of 'em are not exactly that! Finally we talked to many people on the street asking in Korean where we should sleep. Nobody knew what the heck we were saying. It was pretty funny. Then we decided that we were tired so we had to find somewhere to sleep. It shouldn't be that hard in a city of 2 million. We found many 'motels' and we went inside one and paid $30 for the night. Just one heated bed and a nasty bathroom. It was very uncomfortable and very hot on the 3rd floor. We opened the windows and left to go to a bar. On the way back in we noticed a random hooker sitting on a chair next to the road. Random!
In the morning we tried to make it to Cheongdo for the bull festival. Justin was obsessed with getting there. We asked the KTX train worker and she told us to get on tthe 3rd train in English, so we did. The train went to rollin' down the tracks and I looked over at Justin and said, 'This ain't the right train!" We were headed to the other side of the country to a city called Busan. When we got off of the train, there were palm trees! I wore a coat on the train if that tells you anything. LOL! We was there for 8 hours and see an amazing mall, fish market, harbor and many other things. It wasn't enough time, but we give it our best for a mistake. Finally, we went back to Cheongdo by train.
Cheongdo was weird at best. We got there and tried to get some food. We wanted some specific food so we walked around asking people where a good restaurant was. They didn't say! Weird. We finally got to one and we were told to sit on the floor and eat, but as soon as we started to sit down the owner run over and told us that we should leave. He hates foreigners! LOL! We found another place and found some more people who told us where to sleep. We went there and found an empty room with a pile of blankets. We paid $40 for it. Then we went to a bar for some food again and found a very old school place. The service was amazing and we had a great time. Awesome conversation and food followed by wanting to go to a singing room. We went to one, but it was empty. We sit there and sung into the microphone until the lady came and told us a very high price. We left angry! We asked some fast food workers for help and we jumped into their car and they drove us to another one. Same price, so we left! We'z so pissed at all of these rural haters. I was content to just sleep after that!
In the morning, we found the only restaurant that was open on Sunday and then took a packed bus full of old people to the festival. There was an old singing clown just a singin' away as we got off of the bus. Weird. Then we went into this huge stadium and sit right in front down close to the fights. It wasn't bloody or anything. I was expecting it to be nasty. Most of the time, the bulls just run off and lost. It was funny at times too. Then we were greeted by this extreamly kind family in front of us. They wanted take us to this wine tunnel built into a mountain to taste Korean wine. Keep in mind that it was just a random family who decided to give us a tour of the village and the wine production area inside of a mountain. Then they dropped us back off at the train station. We took the train back to Daegu and finally had a standing room only ride the rest of the way back. The worker would bow each and every time she come into our train or left. We laughed pretty hard since most of the passengers were sleeping and she bowed anyway.
1 comment:
Ahh, the adventures of Ray. You gotta love it. peace bro.
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