I almost missed out on all the fun, though. The night before, I made the silly decision to go out with Rob; I told myself I'd just stay out for a couple hours and I'd be home by 1:00. I forgot, though, that nights with Rob never end before 4:00. However that night I somehow managed to get in bed by 3:30--I considered it a partial victory.
The next morning, though, I found myself jumping out of my slumber and looking at my alarm clock in a panic; it was 9:23, and we were supposed to meet at City Hall to board the bus by 9:30. If you do the math, that left me approximately 420 seconds to get my ass out of bed, get dressed, and cab it there. Not even Ferris Bueller himself could've pulled that off.
I got dressed, skipped out on breakfast and any notion of brushing my teeth, hoping that my booze-drenched breath wouldn't assault anybody's senses, and bolted outside. Now while I live fairly close to new downtown, I also live just far enough out of the way that not many cabs happen to pass by my building.
As usual, I had to walk a good two blocks before finally hailing somebody down. I told my cabbie City Hall, and the race against time was on--and I was losing. Even though I told him to just go straight, he took the first right for some reason, and put me into a panic. "No, no, no, no!" I told him. "Straight!" and I pointed west along Dotjil-ro to explain what I was saying. Apparently he had heard something else when I said City Hall. Just my luck. We lost precious seconds as he did a u-turn and headed right at the intersection to get back onto the right street.
It was already 9:45. I was calling and messaging Kat back and forth to see if the group had left yet, and thankfully they hadn't even boarded; turns out they were leaving at 10:00. I cursed the universe every time we hit a red light, as you can practically watch the leaves change colour by the time that damn light turns green.
At 9:53, we were a block away. I had a fighting chance. At 9:55 we turned the corner and City Hall came into view. The bus was still there! I jumped out of my cab, waited at yet another light, and ran for dear life. Everybody was still standing around in a large group. As I approached the assemblage of foreigners, I realized they were taking a group picture. I breathed a sigh of relief and stopped in my tracks just as I slid up next to Kat and casually greeted her. Piece of cake.
The ladies graciously also fed me a couple of sandwiches once I told them I'd skipped out on breakfast. I am forever in their debts, as I may not have made it through the day without those delicious treats. I might have snuck a taste of clay out of desperation while making my onggi.
Before we could get our hands on some clay, though, we had to learn about the history of onggi. To do so, we went to a museum that was completely dedicated to the tradition. It was essentially a museum of pots. There were big pots, little pots, wide pots, narrow pots, pots with large openings, pots with skinny openings, pots with faces, pots with design, pots with handles, pots without handles, they had everything you could imagine in your wildest dreams.
They even had the world's largest onggi. Legit. There was even a Guiness World Records sign to certify that shit. Oh, and speaking of shit, there was also an onggi that was made for just that. As we walked in the building, we were greeted by a statue of a little boy poised over an onggi and doing his business. Yup, this place had it all.
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| Onggi Face! |
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| That's a huuuuuge onggi! |
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| Our new friend |
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| So...much...onggi... |
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| Tee hee! |
Once we had all become unofficial onggi historians, we then got back on the bus and traveled probably just slightly more than the length of a football field to get to our next destination. I didn't even feel the bus move because it was moving so slowly, so I was confused when we were told to get back off. This would happen two more times throughout the day, as many of our stops were right next to each other.
Regardless, it was now time to create our own onggi. Never did I think that I would answer the question "What did you do this weekend?" with "I made some pottery, yo. I'm expanding my horizons and shit, son."
Zak had gotten us excited by putting the image of Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze's magical scene from Ghost in our minds. I would have to be Demi, since Zak is much bigger than I am, but I was okay with that, as long as he was gentle.
Sadly, the actual process was nothing at all like that. My dream was crushed as we sat and watched an instructional video on what we were expected to do. While making the onggi wasn't particularly difficult, it also wasn't easy. Essentially, you make a flat base, roll out a pinky-thin snake of clay, just like you did countless times with Playdough as a child, wrap it around the base, and repeat, laying each successive snake atop the last.
I was truly impressed by some of the beautifully designed trays, vases, and even star-shaped and heart-shaped pieces of pottery that people came up with. We had some true artisans in the house. My final product, however, was completely utilitarian; it was a cylindrical container. I put some fancy little flower designs along the outside, but that was about as fancy as I got.
Nonetheless, I can still say I've made pottery. I'm sophisticated and shit now. Maybe next week I'll go on a wine tour or buy me some potpourri to spruce up the place.
Next up was yet another museum. This time it was a Folk Museum. I wish I could tell you something interesting about it, but we spent the entire 15 minutes in that building chatting. Oh, at one point, this lady lay herself down on a large cross with her face down, and two of her friends started paddling her with a pair of gigantic paddles. That was pretty nifty.
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Laying down on the cross...that's a paddlin'. (That one's for you, Perry!)
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After a delicious Korean BBQ lunch, we were off to Ganjeolgot, the place where the sun first rises in all of Korea. Now since we were getting there in the middle of the day, it obviously wasn't going to be quite as impressive, but it was still pretty beautiful. A bunch of us bought a bread treat thing that was covered in cinnamon and seeds and junk (I will never learn the name of anything that I eat here in Korea) and it tasted delicious. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.
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| I was really excited :) |
We decided to join Zak, who had mysteriously disappeared and suddenly reappeared seated on one of the many large rocks that covered the shoreline, listening to the waves crashing mere metres away, and pondering the questions of the universe. People then took turns taking photographs of one another pretending to look off towards the horizon, as if they actually were pondering the questions of the universe. We were essentially doing a DIY photo shoot for what will be our debut album. It's going to be called "Waves of Emotion."
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| "Waves of Emotion" is due for release in early 2014. |
It was at this point that I inadvertently delivered a quasi-racist insult to a Korean child by trying to compliment the ease with which he navigated between the rocks. After he leaped from one rock to another, I said, "Way to go, Jackie Chan!" Now please understand that I did not refer to him as the famed Chinese action hero because he's Asian; I did so because Jackie Chan is known for performing his own stunts, and this kid showed the same amount of fearlessness as he traversed the sharp rocks. I'm not racist, I swear!
His reply, which was delivered with enough sass to slap me halfway to Seoul was, "I'm not Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan is from Hong Kong. I'm from Ulsan." I'd clearly insulted the boy. The thing is, I'd learned the previous night from a professor I met at a random bar that some Koreans seem to have a slight racist streak in them when it comes to other Asian nationalities. They especially look down on Asians who have a darker skin complexion--hence why they tend to walk around with face coverings and gigantic visors to block the sun when they're out and about; they're trying to protect their pristine skin.
By calling the boy Jackie Chan, I was saying he was less than Korean, and that's just not acceptable. Lesson learned. It's okay, though, we were still buddies. He wanted me to climb up on some huge rock with him, but I told him it would most likely lead to my demise. (Though now that I think about it, perhaps that was his plan all along after I had insulted him.)
With only twenty minutes or so to go and a badass lighthouse and gigantic mailbox to still see before we boarded the bus, we left our photo shoot and continued onward. The mailbox is only 7 years old, but it's apparently already been dethroned as the world's largest mailbox by those pesky Japanese. They built their 68 metre tower late last year.
The one in Ganjeolgot is still pretty cool, though, because you can go inside and write little messages on the wall. I wrote Canada loves Korea, but with a maple leaf and a heart. Megan, on the other hand, decided to be much more cheeky and wrote, "Amurrica, f&#$ yeah!" (For the record, she is American. And an Eagles fan, though we won't hold that against her.)
Thankfully, I made up for that disappointment by climbing a tree instead. It was screaming at me, begging me to climb it. Awesome Kat felt the same pull, we were totally on the same wavelength, which just goes to prove exactly why she's Awesome Kat. Though she gave it her all, Kat was unfortunately not rocking the appropriate footwear, and she just couldn't get a good hold of the first branch. I, on the other hand, let my inner monkey out and conquered that tree--though I faced similar struggles at first. I have the battle scars on my arms, legs, and thigh to prove it.
Once back on the bus, the gang was exhausted from having climbed everything in Ganjeolgot--rocks, a tree, and a couple of them even clambered to the top of a lighthouse with a dome-shaped roof. It was an all around solid day. We spent the trip back discussing the details of our Canadian Thanksgiving feast that was to take place the next day. But that's for the next post!
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| She's on top of the world! |
1 comment:
Yeah....that's definitely a paddlin' *grim look*
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