Today was very fun, because we went up to Seoul for the annual lantern festival. First we went to AK to catch the train, which didn’t go all that well. There was a mix-up with the trains, and Sean and Jade ended up getting on the wrong train, while Sacha, Jenna and I took the correct one. We only had “standing room” tickets, which means we didn’t have seats. Luckily the wrong train ended up going to the right place, so it all worked out.
At the Seoul metro station, I had my first close encounter with a crazed Korean camera enthusiast. Allow me to explain. I was standing outside Paris Baguette with Sacha when a Korean guy wandered over, gave his camera to Sacha, and mimed her taking a picture of me and him. Apparently this is an actual thing, that some Koreans like to take pictures with foreigners – possibly because there are so few of us in Korea? Anyway, the guy sidles right up to me and wraps his arms around my waist, then slides them a little higher... at which point Sacha shoves the phone back into his hands and shooes him away. Our best guess is he wanted the picture to look like he had a foreigner girlfriend! Very bizarre.
From Seoul Station we took the subway one stop over to City Hall, which isn’t actually next to City Hall. It is next to a huge intersection, as well as a big, open plaza that is possibly one of the sights of the upcoming Seoul G20 Summit. I was confused by this, since I was sure that we had just had a G20 this summer in Toronto, but apparently I just don’t understand what’s going on. Anyway, after figuring out where the lantern festival was, we stopped for dinner at an Italian place. It was over-priced, but the pizza was really good, the carbonara pasta was good, and the salad was... strange. Supposedly it was caesar, but it just didn’t taste like Caesar to me. It was still delicious, though.
We met up with Nick and Jodie, who were exhausted from football earlier that day – I think they play every Saturday, apparently against a bunch of huge Russian guys. After trekking down a very large, very loud, very brightly-lit street, we found the lantern festival! Basically, they took a narrow-ish river and built little podiums, onto which they put hundreds of lantern sculptures. The lanterns were amazing – they had everything from the Statue of Liberty to Chinese dragons. Nothing overtly Canadian, which was unfortunate, but there were a few Canadian flags scattered around, which both confused and amused me.
The downside was the “crushing crowds of death”, as Sacha termed it. It seemed like the entire population of Korea decided to pop up to Seoul that evening. To get at the lanterns, you had to go down this long ramp that turned into a walkway beside the river. However, not only were there a gazillion people, there were no railings by the river! I saw at least one guy step into the river. It all seemed horribly unsafe to me, but I guess the festival coordinators weren’t concerned about people taking a dunking!
One very funny part was that, just as we reached the stairs to get back up, we saw a ladder on the far side of the bank, with people climbing up, kind of like an escape route. That brought to mind the question of – what happens if someone actually gets trampled byt eh crowd, which was entirely plausible, and needed medical attention? We were about twenty feet down from the main road, and there was only access via the ramp, stairs, and ladder.
I had been hoping to make a lantern myself, but the line was far too long, according to Jade and Jenna. I did get a picture with a demon-looking character, which may or may not be posted on Facebook, since it wasn’t my camera. Considering that I don’t have a camera, this makes sense. I also got a picture with the mascot of Seoul – Hae-something, I can’t remember the name – which is a cute cartoon character that is possibly yellow.
Following the festival, which wasn’t everything I’d hoped it would be, but was still very entertaining, we trekked back to the train station, where we found an anti G20 rally! They all had signs, and were wearing running shoes, which we think meant that they were planning on doing some sort of marathon protest. Deciding that it would probably be a little safer inside the train station, in case the rally people got into an altercation with the 50+ cops hanging around, we proceeded into the McDonalds.
After a burger or two, we had a beer at a sketchy little place across the street with twinkly lights, Christmas bulbs, a huge picture of a semi-naked woman straddling a cowboy, and an odor rather akin to eggs mixed with a sewer. Nevertheless, great fun was had by all, especially when Nick lost W50,000, only to discover later that Jenna had found it on the floor, at which point the money was promptly returned.
Following a long train ride back to Pyeongtaek, Sacha, Jenna, Sean and I participated in what I have decided to term the “foggy cab ride from hell”. As soon as we turned onto the main road that skirts the city, there was so much fog that we literally couldn’t see more than a foot in front of the cab. This didn’t stop the taxi driver from pumping the gas, shooting down the road without a care in the world. Alright, possibly an exaggeration there – he did slow down, but it was still a terrifying experience!
Having survived this latest encounter, we proceeded to our rooms. I had intended to go straight to bed, but having downloaded the movie Tekken, I started to watch it while I edited my Flip video of the day’s adventures. Since it was actually a really interesting movie, I ended up watching the whole thing. Over the summer I watched the Street Fighter movie, and it continues to amaze me how filmmakers can turn these fighting-tournament video games into not-half-bad movies.
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