A Place I Called Home - Thursday Oct. 4, 2007

At around 9:30 AM I woke up to nobody in the house. Soon my host sis came back with a friend and we played a Korean game similar to Jacks that I'm slowly getting better at. I headed out to catch a taxi to meet Lauren at the bus station around 11:00 AM. We took a bus to Chuncheon to visit Hwi Kyun (our former RA during orientation who became a good friend). There is the KNU (Kongwan National University) Festival going on this Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Apparently we missed a famous K-pop (Korean pop) group last night. There is another performer tonight, but we missed her too because we had to leave so early. We walked around for a bit to see the small zoo and a few tents that were set up before we headed to get some lunch. We went to a 김밥나라 (Kimbap Nara) and I had 떡국 again. I think I'm obsessed! It's so delicious! After lunch we met up with Wany (a KEY Club friend) and kept walking around. I was talked into throwing waterballoons at a few college students! It was a lot of fun and they guys were hilarious!

This was at a soju booth. So as much as it looks like these students are planning to protest in the form of a riot, in reality, they are raising their hands to ready themselves to play rock, paper, scissors to win soju!^^

These were the final two players. She made it to the last round, because she did a little dance when asked to; the boys didn't want to dance. Unfortunately, she lost! ^^;

This is actually one of the grossest things ever! It was a milk drinking competition. Hwi really wanted to do this, but his friend who was supposed to be his partner was still in bed with a hangover from the night before!^^ This is a picture of the aftermath when most people in the competition had started throwing up.

I love Chuncheon! This is Lauren and me on a bench near the square!

Ha! Funny story! So after our five minute break sitting on the benches, Hwi drug me back over to the soju competition (there were several small competitions going on). He pulled me up to the front, the whole time I'm laughing hysterically, and kind of pushed me into the center. Hence, I was volunteered to try to hacky sack a Korean object of ribbons and sparkles. LOL! I did horribly, as I knew I would do, but it was a ton of fun! Luckily making a fool of myself is not at the bottom of my to-do-list. While I am an incredibly incompetent Korean hacky sacker, they decided to give me a big prize anyway. Apparently the translation goes something like this, "Audience, you don't mind if we give her a big prize do you?" "NO!!" So, there you have it! That is how I became the proud owner of 6 bottles of soju, a soju mixer container, and a funky pair of slippers that quite possibly could have the main purpose of cleaning the floor. We drank a bottle of soju and a bottle of Makkoli over dinner. We had a potato pancake thing that I can never remember the name of even though it is one of my favorite Korean foods.

Earlier, we had run into one of my favorite Korean guys EVER! This is Jin/Jonas (in the black); I call him Jin, but his nickname somehow became Jonas. We headed back to the stage area, because he was practicing with his dance group for a later performance that I couldn't make. He was performing at 8:00PM, and Lauren and I had to leave around 6:30PM. 1) She had to get back for choir rehearsal, and 2)The latest bus was only at 8:00PM anyway. It was so great to see Jin though. I didn't have his number, so I had no idea how I was going to get ahold of him. Randomly, he just appeared out of nowhere!^^

This was at the very end of the night before Lauren and I left. I gave Hwi Kyun all but one bottle of soju. He had been carrying it around like it was a baby ever since I won it.^^ I gave one bottle to Wany. I don't really like soju nor does my host family.

This is a random picture of Chuncheon's beautiful night sky!!

Lauren and I had a good talk all the way back to Chuncheon. It isn't too far of a trip for us, maybe about an hour. I think we are going to take a few more day trips there to visit friends. I didn't realize how much I missed Jin and Wany. I have seen Hwi Kyun a few times, but it is just as great each time I get to see him!! Weird experience when we got back to Wonju; we got out of the bus and headed to the taxi line-up. One guy asked us where we were going and then started announcing it to taxi drivers across the street until I think they decided which taxi I was going to take. I had never had that happen, but maybe they were working on their taxi driver communication skills... Anyway, it is about 10:30PM, I'm exhausted, I haven't really lesson planned for tomorrow, I haven't packed for Pusan tomorrow (nor have I completely decided if I'm going), and instead of paying attention to all of that I think I'm going to watch a few episodes of Prison Break. Ok, I decided that I had to get hooked into the Korean world and Prison Break is one of their number one faves. Now, I'm mildly obsessed and watched 6 episodes last night. Hmmm....this could become an issue...