Lanterns and OMG MY LEGS

Hello all! I hope you're all doing well. I'm feeling pretty tired after a weekend full of exciting adventures, so here we go!

First, I must mention a hilarious phenomenon that occurs in Korea. It's called "manner legs." Now, some people have asked me whether I find Korean guys attractive. Short answer? Yes (have you seen my blog???) Long answer? Some are attractive and some are not, just like every culture/groups of guys. But Koreans (and Asians, mostly, though I think Koreans are some of the taller Asians as far as I've noticed) get the reputation for being short. Similar to attractiveness, some are and some aren't. But if you watch any Korean movie or show, the guys don't look particularly tall. Here's why:

This is Thunder from MBLAQ. He is being a gentleman.

Manner legs. Girls here are pretty short, or at least about the same as average American height, I guess. But the stars are usually kind of tall. So having a 6 foot tall actor and a 5' 2'' actress makes for some difficult level shots. interviews, kissing scenes, and whatnot. To keep them in the same shot, or to be polite, the guys stand awkwardly so that they are closer in height to girls. Or other short guys, as the case may be. I find this to be uncomfortable and hilarious, though I suppose it looks more comfortable/natural than them leaning down, or hunching over, and is easier to shoot with than having the girls stand on boxes or something.

For more manner legs, see here: http://www.dramafever.com/news/10-priceless-manner-legs-poses/
Seriously. It will warm your heart and make you laugh.

From manner legs to legs of a different manner, then.

We went to Jinju this weekend!! Yay!! Tina and I wrangled up a few more EPIKers from my intake (Cherie, Hanh, Maria, and Inge) and we managed to book bus tickets and make our way 4 hours south of Seoul to the "countryside" city of Jinju.

You don't realize how clean the air is outside of Seoul until you're outside of Seoul.

The lantern festival is pretty famous in Korea. When I told my coworkers I was going to Jinju, their general response was "Wow, awesome! How did you know about that?" As with most things, when you're a visitor in a country you might do more than the residents. A lot of them have never been, but since I'm only here for a short time, I tend to do more touristy and cultural things.

Anyway, we got up bright and early and packed our day with lanterns. We intended to stay overnight, but we got done with all of the viewing pretty early. We got to Jinju around 2 and were walking until literally 8:30 when we finally sat down for dinner. It was so worth it, but my legs are still sore and my back hurts from sleeping weirdly on the bus (buses here are awesome with plenty of legroom and you can put out a footrest just like on a recliner, but sleeping on buses will always be weird) both there and back.

Overall, the festival was so pretty! Jinju is still a city to me, but it's certainly a different pace than Seoul is. We got a lot more stares than usual (Inge is very tall and blonde and Tina and I are twins) since not as many foreigners inhabit or visit Jinju. Poor Cherie and Hanh kept getting the brunt of the Korean despite being Chinese Canadian and Vietnamese Canadian, respectively. The Koreans just assume the white/Hispanic people in the group don't speak Korean and that the Asians do. They would be wrong. Still, we only go approached a couple of times (several by babies ^_^) during the day.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B, the clinger.

This only became a bit of a problem when one Korean guy wouldn't leave us alone (See exhibit B). He was harmless, for the most part. but he didn't speak English and we don't speak Korean, so it was strange that he was following us/kept finding us whenever we lost him. Eventually Tina used her Korean to tell him to kindly go away after all of us had been giving traditional go away signs, and he continued to badger us. Finally he actually grabbed Maria's glasses and Tina yelled loud enough in Korean and Maria in Spanish that we caught the attention of a bunch of Koreans, and he finally left us alone. It sucked. But thankfully it didn't totally ruin the festival. It's just a reality that we face as strangers in a strange land.

Anyway, back to the fun stuff! There are all sorts of lanterns from around the world, plus lots about Korean History. For more on those, check out my facebook album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153348626029968.1073741837.697649967&type=1&l=0d48b7aa2e

Here are some highlights from the festival:

All the bamboo

Purple silkworms! We tried to ask why/how they were purple, but the language barrier was too much.

Lantern tunnel!

So nice to be out of Seoul!

They had all sorts of food like Kebabs! If you know about my adventures in Italy you know I love kebabs!

TARDIS lantern!!

Disney section!

The cool floating bridge.

Hanh and ET 

Lots of interactive stuff here! 

There was a Buddhist temple in the fortress!

This is a lantern representing the first birthday ceremony where the family puts a bunch of stuff in front of the kid and whatever he picks is a big deal.

View from the fortress down to the river with all the lanterns.

Silk!

The shrine to the Gisaeng (sanctioned female entertainer...) who seduced a Japanese commander from the invading forces and dragged him into the river.

She threw herself from this rock, presumably. Now it's all pretty with lanterns.

Trojan Horse! 

Italian lantern!

Look at how pretty the river and city are!

All the lovely ladies in the tunnel of lanterns!

The dragon lantern!

We decided to call it a night and took the late bus home, then all took taxis since it was well after the subways closed when we got home. I was so tired, but it was such a fun day! And it's always nice to see cultural things here. I'm really glad it worked out that all of us could go!

I'm still getting used to so much here, but having weekends like this to look forward to is certainly a plus. Now, if only I could figure out my garbage sorting, bank stuff, and how the hell to cook for one person with the sizes of things they have here. Seriously, a package of spinach could serve like 11 people, and I'm so in-and-out of my apartment a lot that it's hard to make enough varieties of dishes to use it all! Especially since my cooking utensils consist of a ramen pot, frying pan, and rice cooker. I need to relearn living by myself again!

We finally have a full week of school ahead of us. Blehh. But I know my 6th graders are going to Everland on Wednesday, so as long as that holds up I basically get a day off in the middle of the week again! Yay! I'll still have to be at school, but I can lesson plan ahead and watch kdramas and such. Yay!! Off to another week and another adventure!

I'm off to rest my legs again since they are not used to walking for 6+ hours. See you later!