Drug Cocktails and Sea Crossings

The spring festivals continue! Last weekend we went to a sea parting festival is Jindo, a southern island at the end of the Korean peninsula. For two days every year, the sea tides get low enough to expose a land bridge between two islands.  It draws large crowds of foreigners and Koreans! There are two times to cross, one in the morning and one in the evening. We were at the evening crossing, since Jindo is a 4 or 5 hour drive away from Daegu. My friends and I went with Enjoy Korea, our super dooper, handy dandy trip coordinators!

The festival seemed to be 'around the world' themed and had food tents representing different countries… We were a little confused about some of them. The German tent had sausages (fair enough) and coconut drinks… … … do they have coconuts in Germany? I was kinda under the impression that they don't, but I could be wrong.  Sadly, there wasn't a Canadian tent, but the American tent made up for it (not). They had spiral potatoes on a stick and the largest assortment of booze I have ever seen in Korea… This is what they think we do. Eat fried potatoes and booze. Haha.

Sea crossing

On sale at the festival were these awesome, thigh-high plastic boots to avoid getting a drop of water or mud on you. I, of course, opted for the questionable water shoes with wholes in them (think crocs) for my sea parting adventure. I wanted to feel mud between my toes!!!! I quickly realized that my mud aspirations were not to materialize as reality. The sea floor was surprisingly  solid sand and rock.  The Koreans (I'm assuming those who live near by)  immediately began digging in the sand for shell fish or sea crustaceans (or whatever).  It was a little strange but I'm sure they went home and cooked up an awesome meal afterwards.

my choice of shoe 

Diggers! and check out the boots!

Jindo has some sort of legendary grandma figure. I never actually heard to story, but there was a statue or a grandma and a tiger marking the entrance to the sea bridge that had some sort of significance. People could write hopes and wished on a banner that was then carried across to the other island (I think).

Grandma and Tiger

After all that, we hopped back on the bus and went to our spa hotel. Again, we were sleeping on floor mats in a large room. Someone my two friends and I ended up in a room all by ourselves which was nice. I apparently passed out really quickly, which makes sense since I was sick and taking a large amount of (prescription) drugs.

The next day we went to the Boseong Green Tea fields where we partook in a tea drinking ceremony (pretty cool) and walked around the tea fields for hours. It was quite beautiful. The weather was amazing and I came out of it with loose leaf green tea and green tea chocolates!  We ate dinner there as well and, of course, the dished were green tea themed.  Jenna and I shared a pork dish with green tea powder dumped on top (not a favorite) and Tilly had a green tea Bibimbap. Overall it was an enjoyable weekend :)

Tea Fields

Tea Ceremony

Now, back to being sick. I came down with tonsillitis a few weeks ago. The first antibiotic I was on had no effect whatsoever but the one I'm taking now seems to be doing the trick! I've come to realize that Koreans love drugs. They like treating the symptoms of the illness but also like to treat the side effects of the antibiotics. This is what being sick in Korea looks like:

The single pills in the packaging that you would see in Canada is the antibiotic. The intimidating packets of the assorted drugs and what they give you to make you feel better (and sleepy). In those packets, we have cough relief, fever reduction, pain killers, anti-indigestion, decongestants… I think I'm missing something but you get the picture. Then we have the cough syrup (I'm assuming. This one tastes like Banana) in individual tubes, a mouth gargle, and diarrhea gel packs (only to be taken if needed and then to be rded for future travels). Almost everything is taken 3 times a day with good. 

For a few days, the little packets of wonder-pills weren't doing their job.  I have never experienced more drug side effects in my life (really wishing I'd had the diarrhea packs earlier on. She gave them to me a week in)… Dry mouth sucks. I almost chocked on a piece of bread the other day because I couldn't produce enough saliva to swallow the damned thing!

Since throwing up in front of a student on Monday, I've been on a egg and rice diet, the only things I felt like eating and didn't upset my stomach more. I also took Tuesday off work because I barely made it through Monday without fainting. Even after observing me on Monday, the school still tried to make me come in on Tuesday (even though I had a doctor's note) but I refused and stayed in bed. 

Sponge Baths and Blue Snot

The marathon of spring festivals have started!  The cherry blossoms are out and the sun can occasionally be seen through the ever-present smoggy haze.

This weekend I went down to Busan for the Holi Hai festival which was held on Haeundae beach.  It's actually the Indian festival celebrating the coming of Spring.  I'm usually not a 'party on the beach' kinda gal, but who can resist a beach party where you get to throw fists full of coloured powder at strangers?  It was also the largest gathering of foreigners I've seen in the 7 months that I've been here! It's always nice to find surrounded by your own language for a bit when you live in a foreign country. It's funny how you can't help but look up and locate the source of your own language when you're not used to hearing it on the street or in a store.  It's always a treat to be surrounded by it when it's not just your friends talking (not that I don't love hearing my friends talk…). 

 

I slept in a jimjilbang (I'll get back to that later) the night before and was on the beach by 8. Registration started at 9. Everyone got a packet of coloured powder and samosas (yumm) when they register.  Extra powder could, of course, be bought throughout the day as needed.  It was essentially a huge beach party with a colour throw every hour when everyone got together for a count down and then went crazy with the colours.  I think the colour throws kept the energy up throughout the day, which is probably why I didn't end up ducking out early as I would normally do at a party.

 

 It was very strange to have strangers throw colours at you.  They also had 'face' paint circulating around and I lost count of the number of times I had people come up to me and rub their hands all over my face, or touch my nose, leave hand prints on my shoulders… etc. Very strange but quiet entertaining all the same.  I'm pretty sure Holii's the only place where a stranger (or friend) could get away with it and have it not feel super inappropriate or intimate (though I did have one ass grab… by an older Korean gentleman… not quiet sure why he was on the beach...). Anyways, fun times were had by all.

 

It WAS interesting to see how different ethnicities acted in that atmosphere though.  The few Koreans who were there were quite timid and threw small pinches of powder at people and then would scurry off.  I mentioned to my Korean teacher that weren't many Koreans there and she said that Koreans don't like getting messy and the thought of being covered in paint and powder was not an appealing prospect.  The American/Canadian crowd were rambunctious but in a 'we're here to drink' sort of way. The Indian/Middle Eastern crowd were much more joyful and celebratory in their partying and dancing. Holi Hai is supposed to be welcoming the coming of spring and the Indians sure do give off that vibe. They certainly believe in the celebratory and playful side of the festival.

After the festival came to an end, we all crammed into the washroom to try to de-colour our faces and bodies. I'm sure the people who went in to use the washroom after us were shocked and very confused by the muddy greyish water that was left behind on just about every surface. Once I got home, I did more thorough scrub down though, despite my best intentions, my snot was still a disconcerting blue colour for a few days afterwards. Hahaha. Gross.

Jimjilbang! I mentioned earlier that I slept in a jimjilbang the night before Holi.  A Jimjilbang a Korean Spa/Sauna, or public bathing house. This was my first jimjilbang experience and it was certainly something that you would not find in North America!

I got there around 8 on Saturday, and once I paid my 15 000 won ($15) for the night, I was issued a key, a shirt, and a pair of shorts. I put my shoes in a small locker on the main floor and was gestured upstairs to the second floor, where the women's bathing area was.  After self-consciously stripping naked by my locker, I walked into the steamy bathing area.  IT was surprisingly empty for a Saturday night but there were enough naked Koreans to make it no feel too intimate a gathering. There were designated scrubbing sinks with handheld shower heads and small stools to sit on.  Koreans really like scrubbing… They're quite thorough in their cleaning.   There were 4 different baths in the room to choose from, varying in temperature. There was also one outside on the balcony where you could breath some fresh air while sweat it out in the hot tub. There was also a water fall muscle-pounding 'bath' so you could work out those pesky knotted back muscles.  I didn't go into the hot and dry saunas, but they were also available for your baking pleasures. 

Once I had had my fill of the baths, I dried off, put on my designated t-shirt and shorts and headed to the sleeping/lounge area the next floor up.  Here, I discovered that there was a restaurant and a snack bar! The locker key also somehow kept tab of the money you spent while you were there… which was convenient because you didn't have to carry cash around with you.  I sat and alternated between reading my book and people watching for a few hours as the rest of the bathers filtered in.  I was surprised at the number of families with young children were there… Just a casual Saturday night visit to the Spa and sleep over!   When I first got to the leisure room, there was a father playing with three young kids. They had gotten their hands on a pile of square cushions/pillows and were happily using them as building blocks.  When the mother came in, she chastised the kids for making a mess and I saw the father discretely disassemble his own pillow creation before she noticed that he had been an active participant in making the mess. Haha. Classic marriage and parenting.

 

Around 11, the staff brought out small quilts that were to be used as sleeping matt and blanket.  I grabbed a few quilts and pillows and staked out a spot of flooring in a small room just off of the main one that was quieter and darker than the larger room.  As you can imagine, it was a little noisy in there and I was happy that I'd remembered to pack my ear plugs! It took some time for me to get comfortable on the floor but I did manage to finally fall asleep, surrounded by strangers.

I woke up uncharacteristically early and decided to go back down to the baths for a bit. I then went back up and ordered some rice and boiled eggs for breakfast.  Koreans boil their eggs in tea, so they're always a strange brown-ish-yellow colour on the inside which is really not overly appetizing looking… but still tastes OK.

As I was sitting enjoying my modest breakfast, I noticed that there were sauna rooms on this floor as well! There was a red-clay sauna, a salt sauna, and two hot rooms as well. I hung out in the salt room for a bit and then cooled off in the ice room (another morning discovery).  I then made my way back to the change rooms to put my Holi attire on (white shirt of course), paid off my key bill, retrieved my shoes and headed down to the beach to wait for Holi to start!

It was an awesome weekend :)