I Live In Korea

My name is Ben Gwynne. I USED to teach English in Incheon, South Korea. Here's some photos, stories, videos, etc.

Aug 11, 2010

What Is The Boryeong Mud Festival?

The Boryeong Mud Festival is an annual event which takes place in a city called……Boryeong, which is located on the beach. The festival has been going on since 1998, it’s about 9 days long, and attracts about 2 million visitors each year.

To summarize it quickly, it’s basically a non-stop **** show that involves people getting as muddy as possible and participating in various games/activities. All while being on the beach, wearing bathing suits, drinking, and being around various types of performances. A recipe for fun.

Here’s some pictures and videos, check it out….











My roommates on the trip. Good people.




Trust me, I wasn’t the only person who probably looked like a creep with a camera. Hordes of media, professional and amateur photographers were there. I didn’t mind people taking pictures of Ben Teacher Avatar, so everyone is fair game. Especially that one in the black, you know you saw who I’m talking about in the video.

Mud festival was pretty damn awesome and I highly recommend anyone in Korea at the time goes.

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Feb 18, 2010

Destination: Taipei 101

Let’s just get ‘fire cupping’ out of the way.


BEFORE.......................................... AFTER


Fire Cupping is an ancient for of medicine which originated over 5,000 years ago. The procedure is as follows…

1. Loosen muscles around the back/shoulders by giving a ‘massage’
2. Place glass cup, with the opening on the back, against the skin
3. Attach a suction pump to the nozzle which is on the bottom of the glass
4. Pump until air is sucked out of the cup. This acts like a vacuum, now a lot of air has been released. This is what causes the ‘discoloration.’
5. Remove cups

As you can see that despite the name, there’s no fire involved, but that’s only because of modern technology. Back in the day, from 3,000 B.C.-2000 A.D., the air would be removed from the cups by applying heat from fire.

People believe(d) this can cure illnesses (ranging from minor to major) and is a way to relax, even invigorate your body. I found this to be extremely painful, both the massage part and applying the cups. If the person doing this to me was deaf I would’ve been moaning louder than I was last weekend when I had food poisoning. The only pleasure I felt was when it was over. What a crock of BS, this does nothing at all.

Food ended up being a pretty big part of the trip…



As you can see from the picture, there’s some pretty nasty things I ate at ‘Snake Alley.’ I’m not sure if she said ‘Snake PENIS’ or ‘Snake PISS,’ either way it’s gross. Nothing was that rancid, I’m pretty sure everything was diluted so it wouldn’t be toxic. Way too much cash to make off tourists, however there were loads of Taiwanese people in the place eating and drinking everything like it was a regular thing they did. Weird. This didn’t taste horrible, but not good either. Some other meals I had were phenomenal though…

Modern Toilet was also a rather unique establishment. A restaurant where everything is about toilets. Everything. From the table, the dishes you eat from, the chairs you sit on, the crap shaped ice cream, etc., this place lives up to its name.







Sure it’s a cheesy place which is an obligatory stop for any tourist, but the food wasn’t bad and it brought some humor to the day.


Din Tai Fung is home to the best dumplings I’ve ever eaten in my life. Hands down. I was in heaven at this place and the only communication problem I encountered on the entire trip was telling them I did want 20 dumplings, 8 wontons and soup. There is always a line outside of this place and for just cause. Aside from going up Taipei 101, I’m going to have to say this is the next on the list of things you must do if you ever go to Taipei.



What else did I do besides eat from toilet bowls, nearly vomit from overeating dumplings, get tortured and drink snake bile? Well, there was going to Taipei 101 which is the 2nd tallest building in the world (no pictures available due to it raining everyday), going to the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall (no pictures available due to it raining everyday), the Longshan Temple (no pictures available due to it raining everyday), and Daan Park (no pictures available due to it raining everyday). The weather was horrific. I couldn’t go to the zoo, the National Palace Museum was closed both times I tried to go to it, I was forced to watch a movie (Wolfman was more painful than fire cupping), and rain cut down on the number of fireworks (it was the Chinese New Year). I was most certainly being punished with bad weather by Confucius for reasons I cannot get into.

Going to the top of Taipei 101 was pretty cool because the elevator is the fastest in the world. It goes 60km/hour (37.4 MPH for those who live in America, Burma and Liberia and don’t use the metric system). That means it travels to the top (1,671 feet) in 35 seconds, that’s 55 feet per SECOND. Intense.



I also managed to find a GREAT tea shop and an outdoor thermal hot-spring which was very relaxing even though the weather sucked. As if I didn’t stand out enough being the only non-Taiwanese person there, I got whistled by a 75 year old ‘lifeguard’ for doing something I shouldn’t have been doing. I suck.



Aside from the Taipei 101 elevator, food and the hot spring, the trip was a pretty big failure. Still, I’m glad I went, now there’s only 180 more countries to visit.

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Jan 20, 2010

Destination: Hwacheon Sancheoneo Festival

Hwacheon, located in the Gangwon-do province, is one of the northern most parts of South Korea. Every January it plays host to the Sancheoneo (mountain trout) Festival for three weeks. During this time, over one million people head to Hwacheon to fish and take part in all of the festivities.

Festival pictures


This past weekend I went to Hwacheon for the Sancheoneo Festival. Here are the available activities for the festival:

- Ice Fishing
- Riding All Terrain Vehicles on the ice
- Ice Skating
- Sledding
- Ice Soccer
- Jumping into a pool of frozen water for bare-hand fishing

Here’s the activities I did at the festival:

- Drinking and eating ridiculous quantities of alcohol and food with a group of 50 year old Koreans for five hours (this activity is not listed in the festival brochure)

Some of the Koreans I was with and the fish they caught and ate


Koreans, as a whole, are some of the most friendly people I’ve ever met in my life, hands down. I stopped ice fishing after two seconds to look for bait (thousands of people were fishing with no bait, I needed to get a leg up because no one was catching anything). Shortly after my search began I was pulled over by some Koreans and was TOLD to start drinking and eating. It was 11am after all, how could I refuse?

So the booze came out in full force, and the sancheoneo (mountain trout) which they caught earlier that morning was phenomenal, was maybe the best fish I’ve ever had. Then there was sashimi (raw seafood), galbi (barbecued pork ribs), samgyeopsal (fat slices of pork belly), it was a feast. We were barbecuing for the entire time I was there, and washing it down with mekju (beer), soju (Korean liquor made from rice) and some (soju and beer mixed). Impromptu singing and dancing ensued, I was engaging in long-winded tales of me being a father, and one of the other teachers who managed to find the group of people I was with was escorted away in a golf cart by the festival medics (too drunk obviously). Ahhh, good times.

FEED ME NOW and How did I not end up in this water?


So I missed out on everything and have a vague (being quite generous) memory of the day. Some might say I completed ruined the day for myself (or the Koreans who forced me to drink did), but I reckon I had a better time than most of the other people who went.

Some guy with fish head. Maybe Mayor of festival? I bet I was being a wise ass.
I hope I'm as cool as this guy when I'm in my 50s, no joke.

After we left the festival. We headed to our quarters for the night where we ate some more, had a bonfire, and then played some drinking games. Good stuff, and even if I did end up essentially ruining the entire purpose of the festival for myself (or do I blame the Koreans who forced me to drink?) Either way, good times.

Beds, possessed moose, dinner table, bonfire

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Jan 7, 2010

8 days in Vietnam

I actually spent 9 days in Vietnam, but I’m not counting the first day because of a near incident with a guy in a bar we went to. Even though we were minding our own business and just drinking, the guy (must have been a pimp since he was with a group of scantily clad/trashy girls) was looking for trouble because we’re foreigners in “his country” and El Gestapo in the bar was itching to arrest/shake us down but we avoided trouble (this story is true). So yeah, that day doesn’t count…


Day 1 – Cooking Class. Yeah, I can carve tomato's into roses, make great spring rolls and some delicious caramelized pork. No big deal.




Day 2 - Water park. Didn’t think a city like Saigon would have a pretty sweet (and dangerous) waterpark, but it was fun. Loads of little kids all over running up to us to scream "hello" and "what's your name?" then run away. Helps being one of the few white people in the place.




Day 3 – Headed back to the beach in Nha Trang to chill for a few days. Snorkeling: always a blast, especially when mixed with a few beers and so is jumping off boats.

Photobucket


Day 4 – Mopeds and Waterfalls. Nothing beats racing around a city on mopeds, then off-roading it to some isolated waterfalls that only locals were at to do some cliff jumping.



Day 5 – NYE Party. Pshhhh, pretty good party to get ready before the party. 5 bottles of champagne, wine, lots of beer, good company, and an awesome hotel room.

Photobucket


Day 6 – Recovering from the aftermath, chilling at the pool, giving my auto-cyclo driver a break from his job, ridiculous meal that cost $3.50 for 2 beers and 3 plates of chicken/rice and soup…TOTAL




Day 7 – Mopeds, nice white sand beach with not a single tourist in sight. Just locals. Also had the best crabs I’ve ever tasted in my life, lunch later on at the best Pho I’ve ever had as well. Amazing cuisine on this trip, etched in my memory forever.




Day 8 – Left Nha Trang for the Mekong Delta...Ehh, nothing special here really. Got to see how coconut candy and rice paper is made. Also got to hold some damn bees.




3 days after I leave Vietnam

Day 1 – Horrible Snowstorm as I mentioned in my last post below.

Day 2 – (got my first real haircut since August, nice and short as it usually is and I got the following comments) “Now you have Obama head.” Another student said that my “short hair make nose look taller.” A number of other students just pointed at me and screamed when I walked into the classroom. This was all because of a haircut. I can only imagine what would happen if I walked into class with some sort of facial deformity that I suffered. Would the students still ridicule me for the change in my features if I have no control over it? I think they would.

Day 3 – Other students said that my “face looks brown now” and between my short hair and tan I was asked “are you new teacher?” I’m not kidding.

All settled in now. Back to business as usual in a few days on here…

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