Gwangju Photonics Festival.

May 1st the weather finally let up and gave us a few really nice warm days, so we took the weekend vacation to Gwangju to see the Photonics festival. The trip was lovely and we got to see alot of cool Korean takes on what Light means to them. Very interesting.

Our first stop was to secure a hotel and this place was cheaper than most that we stayed in but it was still pretty posh. I had to get a picture of the bathroom because there was actually a seat warmer ... I had no idea how to use it but you could tell it was on!

They also provided us with toothbrushes, toothpaste, face mask, bubble bath, facial wash, razors and q-tips all in a cool blue pouch. The motels also provide shampoo, hair rinse and body wash but those they store in the bathroom... now if only they would give you something bigger than a hand towel to dry off with.. Luckily we don't take showers if we only stay one night, but we did use the toothbrushes!

After dropping off all our stuff we headed to the subway to make our way to the festival.

Yeah, it was NOT crowded at all.

The park itself was really huge, and totally surrounded by apartment buildings. The fountain would move along with the beats of the music blaring all over the park.

They had lots of exhibits about light and also a rock climbing wall. It was HUGE. We had fun just standing around watching this guy get to the top.

Another side of the park.

This was the huge building we watched a 3d movie in. It was hard to tell what was going on since the movie was in korean... it was also bad because they let in way more people than they actually had space for so joseph and I ended up sitting on the aisle steps with little kids sitting on our feet, and little kids kicking us in the butts...

They had all kinds of tents selling everything from toys, boomerangs, doughnuts and hats... pretty much anything you wanted.

This was one of the cool exhibits we could take a picture of with our camera.

I wish I could own this piece, it was really neat it would change color every few second, but slowly so you felt like the sun was rising and setting... very neat.

Lightbulbs filled with wishes for the future.

I felt like I was walking through a light bright!

Lawn furniture made out of flourecent bulbs.

this structure was called "the eye"

So Happy to see some flowers finally. Yeah Winter is over!

Towers in the park at sunset.

Joseph under the expo sign.

The flag that helped us find our way.

The city was fairly large, and we were one of three other white people we saw that day... Must have been pretty interesting to the Koreans too because we were stopped a few times for people to talk to us and show off their english skills, or to take a picture with us. Kinda weird when all you want is to find a bathroom, and someone is telling you how much they admire Kennedy... "yeah yeah yeah, me too, where is the toilet?" (because they don't say restroom, and have no clue what you are saying if you do)

All in all it was a nice day...

Package materials

I am always constantly amazed at the amount of packing materials Koreans will use for small products... it is a very common thing here to have a ridiculous amount of packing material to cover a very small amount of food. here is a prime example... 6 pieces of chocolate come individually wrapped on a plastic tray so they don't move inside a sealed foil wrapper in a box...

Makes you wonder why they will waste so much packaging materials on something tivial like chcolate but nobody here wants to own a dryer because "they are bad for the enviornment"....

Next post I will get on those pictures from gwangju at the Photonics festival! We had a really good time!

The Lost Amusement Park.

The story goes that there used to be an amazing Amusment park at the very top of the mountain in Okpo, but unfortunately, one day, a child somehow fell off the rollercoaster or one of those dangerous rides and died. The family in their greif sued the crap out of the Amusement park and due to the fact they had no insurance, lost their fortune and their park. The Great thing about this park is that they never bothered to dismantle it. Many if not all the English teachers on the island find their way to the park at least once in their year here, and Joseph and I are no different.

Joseph at the Grand Entrance... you can sort of see the makeshift Mickey Mouse in the left part of the arch...yeah but this tiny park is no Disney!

The random duck head in the bumper car, I wanted to sit with him, but it had just rained the day before so there was a foot of water in the bottom and on the seat... bummer.

The bumpercar ride was further down the hill, not sure why all the cars were up here.


Joseph found a K for Kelly, and then he put it down because it had bugs on it!

We were really in awe of how nature was taking it back! Everything was covered in vines, I felt like I was in an Indiana Jones Movie.

You can't even see the tracks on the bottom because of all the plant life, It was kind of eerie being there knowing at one point it was bustling with people, screams and movement, and now nothing but stillness.

Tickets Anyone?

The carousel of DOOM!!!!! We didn't ride this one. After viewing the rusted out bottom we scheduled tetnus shots!

And this used to be some prize basketball game called "The High Top" and for some reason it was all plastic except for the laces.

There was a whole other section of the park, but my lithium batteries failed me when I needed them most... we will however probably go back, because the rest of the park is way more exciting.

Birthdays, Bits and Pieces!

I always feel like I have so much to update, and I can never get around to doing it, so I have many mini blogs about lots of things going on.

But first and most importantly, HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA KELLY!!! ( My grandma, not Joseph's grandma, though that is quite confusing since his last name is Kelly and mine is Parks.... ) Hope you have a wonderful day, and I miss you!

Next up, Joseph has started a cool new project for his teen times class, they are now penpals with his little sister Caroline back in Raleigh... This is the picture they sent to her... Love the peace signs...very typical of a Korean photo.... they always say Kimchi instead of Cheese when there is a picture being taken... it works though!

Speaking of Cheese, I have been working very hard lately to make healthy meals... here youc an see a salad I made with cucumbers, lettuce, tomato, and yes...cheese. we used the low fat italian dressing though... Along with the salad, I made my own version of the KFC famous bowl. Joseph and I used to get them all the time back home, but the KFC here has no mashed potatoes... yeah, for real, no potatoes, gravy or good biscuits.... what is the world coming too... they are really missing out.

I was so proud of myself, I even made "gravy" from scratch... it was not that great but it did the job. Add in some corn, and you got a great dinner.

Joseph also told me I looked pretty when I cooked ( I think that is his way of making me do it more, but I thankfully actually enjoy it!) But he took a picture, since the sun was out I was having a relatively good hair day!

Yeah for good hair!


I also tried my hand at making stuffed peppers, and they turned out great as well, I didn't have onion like the recipe called for but it still turned out great in my toaster oven. And just because I wanted to add it to the post, we found the coolest but most high cholesterol Hagwon in Korea... "Butter English"...


This is one of the top five so far! Right up there with Pass off English.

And because this was the highlight of my week, we finally managed to do the grow a dinosaur that Joseph's mom sent in our easter package! It was really cute to see the thing come to life.

Day 1, Evening.

Day 2, morning

Day 2, night.

Day three, (I think joseph helped him out of his shell)

Day three! SO CUTE!

Well that is all for now, we took a great trip to Okpo, but it is time for Bed!

pictures and funnies.

Short post, but a post all the same. Here is a great shot of a boat under a bridge in Tong Yeong. We went hiking around there a few weekend ago, and I captured this pic right before we spotted....

This old almost burnt to the ground house on the other side of the bridge wer were standing on. It was cool to wonder how long it had been there, what happened to it, and where the person who used to live in it is now? So many questions. It looked like someone had gone through and raided the place, so we just took a few pictures and used our imaginations.

It must have been a really traditional home, and I think it is so sad how Korea has really become an apartment society when they have such beautiful architecture.


Also, a few nights ago Joseph and I stumbled across a website run by a guy named Luke Martin, who does really great comics showing what life in Korea is like for us.... if we can find the humor in it we will be alright at the end of the day. Here is a taste of a few of our favorite posts.

EVERY DAY.

And this one is perfect because we had been keeping a tally of which weird combo items Korea could sell us next.

Enjoy

Who needs Jinhae.

I may have missed the cherry blossom season, but not the cherry blossoms, all I had to do was go out on my street and I was able to capture them.

The cars were covered in the tiny pink petals, it is so pretty.

They make the walk to Home Plus much more enjoyable.

Blossoms.

And just to prove that we don't starve, I took pictures of my awesome BLT's and soup we had for dinner a few nights ago. (the bacon here is really weird, but still pretty good, Bacon is always good!)

Funny to me.

Walking around town in Okpo a few weekends ago, I happen to have my camera on me, and as we were walking we noticed more Hagwons with some great names. I will keep a running log of some of the best names for English Schools in South Korea.

The first one is Insentive English... no no no not incentive English, that would be correctly spelled. (Why do they not let us spell check things before they turn them into signs?.... my school sent out a promotional flyer saying I graduated from Appalacheain University, instead of APPALACHIAN University...sheesh, I would have noticed that guys!)

Maybe they rule with an iron fist, and meant to say Insensitive English... I don't know.

But the one that tops them all, the best I have seen so far, would be Pass-Off English, Spelled correctly and right to the point! (they call it like they see it!)

I hope their slogan is, "We pass off like we can teach you English so you can Pass off that you know English...win win."

Who knows!!?!?!?