Lantern Festival/ Oktoberfest



Digging for Dinosaurs

Wishing Tree

 September 30th- October 2nd

Hanboks (I think?)

My School had a field trip Friday morning with our kindergarteners, which was great becuase it meant we did not have to teach! We boarded three tiny van/busses with kids sitting on Korean teacher's laps and on the floor and anywhere else they would fit, and headed to Okpo to visit the "Geoje Museum". This turned out to be a rather small building, pretty much a two story room, filled with old relics from around the island. I can't tell you what exactly since the entire tour was given in Korean, but following my class around listening to incomprehensible speach is still better than doing math. Every once in a while a Korean teacher would feel bad for us and let us in on some snippet of the conversation, or I would have my kids translate if something looked sort of interesting, but pretty much what I know now is that they tied pieces of paper to rocks and trees for wishes, and something about a boat. Oh and there must have been dinosaur bones here, becuase my kids spent awhile digging in a sandbox for plastic dinosaurs, and I'm guessing that's what that was all about.

During the daytime

Fire Breathing Dragon

At night

Tunnel of Lanterns

 Saturday morning I traveled to Jinju for something called the Lantern Festival. It seems Korea has many festivals taking place all over throughout the year, which is perfect for someone like me trying to absorb as much as possible in 12 short months (the longer I'm here the faster the time seems to go!) The festival is basically made up of a giant floating bridge that you pay a dollar or two to cross through a sea full of blown up floating animals and other characters. The bridge was sort of one long traffic jam but the rest of the festival was pretty cool, especially when it got dark and everything lit up! There was a dragon that spit actual fire, a glowing peacock with flapping wings, and best of all (besides the waffle stands of course) long tunnels full of thousands of hanging lanterns.

I think this picture says it all.. I was struggling

 We had heard from some other foreigners of an Oktoberfest Festival starting the next day in somwhere called Namhae so we decided to check it out. Namhae is a German village about an hour bus ride and half hour taxi ride away from Jinju. It is a small town created by Korean's who had gone to Germany to work, married, and then decided to return to their homeland with their spouses. This is the second year they have had an Oktoberfest and it was a lot of fun. Our taxi ride took us on a windy road that went so far away from what looked like civilization that we started to get worried that the driver had not understood us. But then suddenly we came over a hill and saw both sides of the road lined with parked cars. The taxi dropped us off at the bottom of a mile long steeply inclined hill that we then had to hike up. Once we finally got to the top though it was worth it. There were booths of food, free samples, and of course beer. Morgan and I participated on stage in a beer chugging contest with two other foreigners and a Korean. We thought what a great opportunity for a free beer! But it was not worth it. I truly must have graduated college becuase I only got through about half before the Korean in our round was already done! After that we met up with some other foreigners who were sitting near the stage and throughout the night watched magic shows, kareokee contests, and other performances. It was a lot of fun but we soon had to leave to race back to a taxi in order to make it to the bus station before the last bus left for the evening.

Not sure what this guy was about

Magic Show

 The long weekend was definitely a success but concluded with a bit of a fiasco... On the way home from Jinju Sunday I fell asleep on the bus to be awoken by the bus driver ushering all of the passengers off. We then were quickly boarded onto another waiting bus of people which sped off. I still am not sure WHY we were made to switch busses but about ten minutes into the second bus ride i suddenly realized I had left my backpack with all my belongings underneath the first bus in the storage compartment! I got off the bus at the next stop and began trying to mime what had happened to any bus station worker who would listen. Luckily a very nice Korean guy who spoke English overheard me. The Koreans as a whole are usually very helpful to foreigners, and this was a great example of that: this guy spent the next two hours of his day acting as interpreter for me as the bus holding my backpack traveled all the way back to Jinju and back again. I have never felt more relieved then I was when I finally had it back in my possession and was able to board a bus HOME!