Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Also Happy Children's Day! Children's Day is a public holiday to celebrate . . . you guessed it, children. It's comparable to Mother's Day or Father's Day. It was nice to have the day off. Especially convenient since it coincided with Cinco de Mayo!!!

Okay prepare yourself. There is a lot of updating about to happen. Well, I am apparently doing a bad job of taking enough pictures (dad). Luckily, my friend Nicole has taken over my camera on the last few outings. So like all normal things, we'll start at the beginning. Last Thursday night I went and got pizza with another teacher.

It was delicious. It tasted a lot like American pizza. Also, the only meal I've had so far where I was not served kimchi.

They had Tabasco at Mr. Pizza!

Last Saturday was the Damyang Bamboo Festival. Nicole, Tom and I went down for the day. It was about a 3 hour trek. We took a train to Gwangju first, then a bus for 30 minutes to Damyang. It was a fun day. The festival had booths with games to play, local people selling things made with bamboo, and other bamboo related things. We walked through the bamboo forest, to an area designed to look like a historic Korean village, and just enjoyed the sights and sounds of the Bamboo Festival.

Korean Mullet Sighting - on the bus from Gwangju to Damyang.

Damyang Bamboo Festival

Bamboo Paddle Boats - paddled by the parents, ridden by the children (of course)

Tom and I crossing the water. (see my shirt, representing the Superbowl Champion New Orleans Saints)

Caught a parade full of thousands of adults dressed in strange costumes. I see how Beijing pulled off those opening ceremonies now. These people love to be involved.

This guy's making bamboo fishing nets

a big lookout in the middle of the bamboo forest. they call it "Therapy". i call it "a porch".

the view from "Therapy"

Walking through the bamboo forest

Bambooooooooo

Nice view. See those two mounds on the ground? Those are graves. There aren't cemeteries here. Think of the movie Mulan. Every family has a burial sight where they bury everyone in their family. Then on New Year's they pay homage to their ancestors by bowing to them at their burial grounds. This way, all the ancestors are in one place, and there's one big bow.

that's a lot of seaweed

So, after the Festival, we took the bus home. When I was getting off the bus, the driver hands me something. I looked down, and it's a boiled egg. (They sell already boiled eggs at the grocery) This is not the first time that this happened to me. I have no clue what it means when and older Korean man gives you an egg, but it perplexes me.

On Sunday, we went to a baseball game. The baseball park is 5 minutes away from me. We watched the Hanwha Eagles (our team) play the Samsung Lions. All of the teams here are sponsored by some company. That's why it isn't the Daejeon Eagles.

The game was a lot of fun, even though they lost. Apparently the Eagles aren't the best baseball players. They are second or third to last in the league. The KBO only has 8 teams. The game was a lot more exciting than the games in America. There's chants for the crowd, cheerleaders, and music playing.

Hey kid! Nice hat!

Cinco de Mayo - a bar in Daejeon, JRock, has Mexican food on Tuesdays conveniently. So we headed there to celebrate our Mexican Independence Day. (Me, Tom and Maggie)

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Wouldn't have been complete without our good friend Jose Cuervo.

Today, we went to the Daejeon Modern Art Museum. The exhibit was about humor. It was very interesting. There were a lot of things that I liked. The exhibit changes all the time, so I'll get to go back there often.

This exhibit had a lot of defecation and urination. I'm not kidding, LOTS OF IT. Here is one example.

Then we went and got Japanese food. I had been wanting sushi, but getting it while I was a little hungover might not have been the best idea. It was still delicious!

mmmmmmm fooooood

So, remember we are still in a foreign country. Korean sushi will be different than American sushi. But this looks harmless, right? Wrong. First of all, the bowl at the top, looked like it contained a sneeze. Not to mention how I would have picked that up with chopsticks. Disgusting. Second, the little guy at the bottom was still moving. MOVING! There was food on the plate that was alive. Needless to say, we opted out of those two dishes.

Again, we are in Korea. So they served us a ton of food. Not a metric ton, but probably like 15 different things. This was one of them. It's a fried fish with the head still on. Poor guy was watching us the whole time we were eating him. That was delicious too. It had an orange sauce that tasted like American chinese food.

Okay, so now we're all caught up. Here are a few other things that I have found strange or bewildering in the day to day.

these yellow rubber things line the sidewalks everywhere. apparently they are to help blind people. that's nice and all, but i hope the blind people aren't wearing high heels. let me tell you, it's a pain.

Why am I even here? Clearly they have a handle on the Ehglish language.

hmmm . . .

This guy has been walking around the last few days promoting a new bar in the area. He's on stilts. Nobody in Korea is that tall, let alone the Koreans.

Korean people always try to practice their English on you. Everyday, kids come up like you're a celebrity and say "Hello" and usually try to strike a little conversation with you. A lot of times moms with strollers will get their babies to try and say "Hello" to you. I had one guy come up to me at the mall and ask if I knew where a book store was (he should know, this is his turf). Lately, I've had lots of kids yelling "Hello" from cars driving past. They're reaching new levels.

Oh! I had been under the suspicion that this building on the corner of my street was a dog factory. (I've heard strange noises through my window and this place is big enough and is locked up all the time) Thankfully, it is not. It is a beer brewery.

I've come to really enjoy when the taxi drivers run red lights. The cab fares are dependent on time, not milage. So it makes me feel like the cab driver is doing me a favor when they drive like maniacs.

At this bar Watermelon Sugar, they have an interesting decoration that hangs from the ceiling:

Apparently, the place used to be a gay bar and a famous artist made this sculpture for the bar. It is no longer a gay bar, but the sculpture remains. Aaaand, they cover it in liquor and light it on fire sometimes.

And with that, I bid you adieu.