Because the trip started at 8 am in Seoul, I attempted to condition myself during the week to waking up earlier. Before this, I had been staying up until 3 am, following the theory which my fellow teachers prescribe to, which is that if you wake up at noon and go straight to work, you aren’t nearly as exhausted by the end of the day. It’s a sound enough theory, but man, setting my alarm earlier and earlier while my body protested wasn’t the easiest thing in the world.
I actually wasn’t doing very well with my plan – I think by Wednesday, the earliest I’d managed to get up was 11 – until CK called my internet company and supposedly connected my internet. The internet, naturally, did not work, so CK told me he’d be coming over at 11 the next day. Since I didn’t want my apartment to look like a sty in front of my boss, I got up around 9 and cleaned the whole place. He didn’t show – which was a bit on the frustrating side, I’ll admit – but at least I got up earlier than 11!
On Friday he actually did come over, although it was more around 1:30 than the 11 he had intimated the day before. That was another 9 am day – it’s amazing how dirty one’s single-room apartment can get in the course of 24 hours – and CK fiddled around with my internet for a bit before proclaiming that it didn’t work. The reason, he thinks, is that I actually have a different internet modem thingy than the company he called – possibly. Anyway, he said that I should wait until Monday and try again, at which point the internet will hypothetically work.
Long story short, I’m over a month in to Korea and I still don’t have internet, a cell phone, or a bank account. The upside, of course, is that they paid me my salary in the form of a humungous stack of W10,000 bills in a white envelope, which made me feel like some sort of gangster or hitman!
Moving right along to the Apple Festival. So I get up at 5:30 on Saturday morning, so I’ll have time to take a shower and wake up before the 6:20 departure time. I catch a cab with Jenna, Sean, and Sacha to AK, where we hope an express bus up to Seoul. Allow me to explain. Seoul is north of Pyeongtaek, but the apple festival is south, which means we were essentially backtracking about an hour both ways. Frustrating? Yes. But there wasn’t really a way around it.
We all attempted to catch some sleep on the stupidly early bus to Seoul, and I didn’t quite manage, although Jenna gave it her best effort. She hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before, which I’ve encountered before – you know how sometimes, when you really, really want to fall asleep because you have to wake up early, the last thing you can do is sleep, even though you’re exhausted? That’s what happened to Jenna. Luckily we had a three hour bus ride ahead of us for her to get some shut eye.
Arriving a bit early for our tour, we went in to the nearby *possibly* train station and got some Dunkin Donuts. Then we got on the bus, which was pretty cool – purple faux-leather seats, a weird, purple, tassle, fringey thing that went around the top of the windows, etc. The ride started off with our official Adventure Korea tour guide making us introduce ourselves, and there were the usual jokes – “I’m so-and-so, and I like poetry and taking long walks on the beach”, for example. I stuck with, “Hi, I’m Michelle from Canada,” which worked well enough. If I give away my secret identity, after all, they might find me.
After an obscenely long bus ride – we hit traffic coming out of Seoul, so it was closer to 3.5 than the 2 hours it was supposed to be – we finally reached the Sudok-sa Monastery. On the way, however, when I had almost fallen asleep, they started blaring Avatar! Very frustrating, although eventually I gave in and watched bits and pieces.
The temple was absolutely beautiful – a series of really elaborate, carved, and painted gateways leading up this gorgeous, tree-lined path to the temple proper, which had all these serene pools and statutes and stuff. I’m making it sound a lot lamer than it was, because it really was quite extraordinary, especially since the day was really warm, really bright, and basically the perfect fall day to visit a temple.
I think my favorite part had to be in one of the gatehouses. There were these four statues of huge, fanged men – not sure if they were kings or gods – and one of them was stepping on a statue of a woman, who was flailing under his shoe. It was totally bizarre and we all thought it was hilarious, mostly because I was under the impression that Buddhist temples were supposed to be more, you know, peaceful.
From there, it was on to the Apple Festival! It took place at a little apple farm/winery about 20 minutes from the temple. We walked up this long driveway, past long rows of apple trees, which were practically falling over from the weight of the apples, and over to the festival. It was on two levels, and the stage at the far end featured people singing... wait for it... Italian opera. I’d never associated Korean apple festivals with Italian opera, but there you go.
We went on a little tour of the apple winery, which was interesting, and then grabbed plates of pork roast for lunch. Unfortunately the pork was really fatty – and by really, I mean more than half of each piece was fat, and we had to try and eat them with toothpicks. Anyway, it was an alright meal, and following that we went down to the tent where we could make our own apple pies.
This turned out to be quite the adventure, as it seemed that every bee in a thirty mile radius had decided to pop by and terrorize we apple-pie makers. I managed to get through the whole thing without screaming, although there was a minor freak-out incident wherein Jenna had to shoo a bee that had landed on my arm away. Making the pies was really fun though, because you got to roll the dough, decorate the pie, etc. And eating it later was really tasty, although I almost forgot to capture my finished pie on camera because I was so excited to eat it! And it wasn’t half bad, either.
Following the pie adventure, I accompanied Sacha over to the wine-making area, where she got to throw apples in a huge grinding machine, mix up the mush with sugar and yeast, and try to understand the wine man as he explained how to let the apple mush ferment for a month until it turned into wine. Luckily there was an English speaking Korean there, who was of great help, and when the grinding machine broke down we had a lovely chat with a couple from the Osan air base, who had brought their kids along for a day of apple fun.
Then it was up to the top level to watch a bunch of Korean kids perform. I wasn’t terribly excited at the start, at least until they started yodelling, at which point I was completely enthralled. Again, not quite what you’d expect at an apple festival, but wonderful nonetheless. Nick got up on stage at one point to help the kids play their little cow-bell looking instruments, and he got a box of apples for his efforts.
After that things wound down, and we went back to the bus for our trip back. There was free wine and beer, and although I didn’t partake overly, some of the people on the tour did, and we stopped about half an hour later for the entire bus to go empty their bladders. Then it was allllll the way back to Seoul, and then back to Pyeongtaek.
When I got home, I watched Bring It On – not the original, but one of the sequels. It was delightfully awful, and I couldn’t stop laughing. I made myself stay up till 3 am, so I could get back on my usual sleeping schedule, and I managed to wake up at 11 the next morning, so I was pretty successful. All in all a wonderful day, despite the excessive bus time and waking up stupidly early!
That sounds like oodles of fun(except for the bees!) And do we have to start calling you Michelle "The Shark" Proulx now?
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