Amanda Takes Off...

A Long Time Ago...
Good Man: What do you think you should do before you get engaged?

Me, listing things: ...Travel together. Go on weekend trips, longer if possible. If you can travel together and really enjoy it, that's a good sign....

Yesterday...
Me: Where did you tell your mom you were going this weekend?

Good Man: I told her I was helping out at my university. Well, we're almost there!

Today...
Today was—wait for it!—our third day in a row with blue skies!

And this weekend Good Man and I finally got to go on a weekend trip together.

We went to Anseong for the Anseong Baudeogi Festival. It was mostly a local/regional festival and I'm pretty sure we were some of the very few people who came all the way from Seoul for it!

We had to take the subway to nearly the end of line 1, then take a bus ride 45 mins to get there. It was a city/area of my province that I'd never been to and it was fun to feel like a tourist.

Shortly after we got off the bus, I got grabbed on the arm by a guy I met at the orientation I had to attend last month. Good Man was amused that we ran into someone I (sort of) know.

We ate some lunch, hit the bank, then headed to the festival. Luckily, the guy I ran into had been there and set us on the right path.

While we were waiting to cross the street, we were holding hands (he took mine) and this guy at the stoplight was staring at us. We get double takes in public, but usually the looks see to be out of curiosity. This man was looking at us (and our hands) with malice.

"[Good Man]," I said, "Why is that man staring at us?" Of course I know the answer.

"Because I doubt there are any couples like us here. This town is very small."

"I know, so why are you holding my hand?"

"Because I love you and I want to and I don't care." Oh, Good Man and his scandalous behavior. (Speaking of scandalous, I really hope my parents don't read this entry.)

(Side: We did see a few foreigners, but we only saw two other Korean/white couples, both of them today, both of them Korean male/white female. We were shocked.)

We went to the festival and wandered around a bit. The festival took place on two sides of a little stream. Food (of course), modern dance and music groups, foreign dance troupes and the like were all there. They also had rides for kids and horse-drawn carriage rides for adults. Tradition was strong with traditional musical acts, traditional acrobatic acts, traditional wrestling and, traditional crafts, traditional foods and lots of traditional clothing. Oh, and there were cows, too.

We had a lot of fun wandering around, taking photos, resting by the stream, just relaxing. But the sun was beating down on us (for the first time in how long?) and we were a bit tired from the trip, so when my camera memory card ran out, we headed back to the center of the city for dinner.

We had 닭길비, only after passing the shop then walking around a bit more looking for something else to eat. The city was dead. What looked like it should have been the busiest part was nearly unpopulated. Very different than where either of us live.

After dinner it was 8 pm, so we thought we might finally be able to check into a love motel.

Love motels are hotels where you can rent rooms for about 20 to 30,000 won for three hours. You can also get rooms for the night, like normal hotels, but check in is at night rather than in the afternoon like normal hotels.

These hotels don't feel seedy. Really, they are fairly normal. Except they usually include free internet service (with computers provided) in the room, you can often borrow DVDs (of various ratings) inexpensively or for free, there are very large flat-screen TVs in the room (often with adult channels), some have adult vending machines in the hallway, and you can get "toiletry" packets for free or very inexpensively when you check in. And at this one at least, you could push a button on the phone to call a "dabang girl" (tea room girl) to your room.

Also, unlike regular hotels, you can sometimes check in without seeing the clerk, there are ropes hanging over the entrances so your face isn't seen, and there are placards used to cover license plates so you don't know who's inside.

Because these hotels are so inexpensive, new teachers are often housed in them for a few days until their own housing is ready for them. Heck, if I hadn't've been homeless when my mom and stepdad visited, they would've stayed in one.

Since Korean traditionally live at home until they're married, since adultery of both sexes is rampant here, and since prostitution is technically illegal but entirely ignored, these hotels are very widespread in Korea.

Last night there was a college campus singing contest on TV. We saw most of the acts and criticized the English that they threw in their songs to look cool. Good Man is fond of saying, "Why don't they at least know what they're talking about?"

Why you leave me now
I wanna love you
Doo roo roo roo roo roo
Do you love me baby
One for me but
I wanna leave you
Oh! I wanna forget you

The absolute worst act was the last act, B2, a group of ten women from a women's college who sang those lines over and over again. (You can watch the video!) Their outfits were awful, their voices didn't work well together, their soloists weren't that powerful, their lyrics were horrid.

They won, of course. I swear, they only won because they were the last act and the judges were excited to be done with the whole mess.

이효리 was one of the contest hosts. "I don't like her. And she's old." Good Man said. (Many men love Lee Hyori.)

"How old is she?"

"Older than me," he said.

"I'm older than you."

"Even older than you."

I burst out laughing. (Turns out she's one year older than me.)

I woke up fairly late. Good Man woke up even later. "Love motel rooms are the darkest hotel rooms I've ever seen," I said. The windows were all covered in black plastic, then shuttered over. These rooms were dark.

"That's so people can forget about the outside world."

"And the fact that they're cheating on their spouses at 3 pm?" I said.

Good Man laughed, "Exactly."

This morning we went to 안성향교. Anseong Hanggyo is an old government-run school.

Getting to the school was an adventure. We headed on one direction for breakfast, then another direction when we realized what we thought was there wasn't. Then we headed to the school site but got lost. We ended up asking an ajumma for directions (Good Man fears ajummas), which got us meandering through a neighborhood, across a bridge, and over a very large hill. We then started hiking up a mountain, detoured to a farmed area behind some houses, and were promptly scared by loud barking dogs.

We did, in a rather roundabout way, end up where we wanted to be.

We founded several women and men (bordering the aunt/grandma and uncle/grandpa line) at the site, packing up. Unknown to us, today was Confucius'/공자's birthday and they had had a celebration for him since the school was originally built to help instill Confucian ideas.

We headed down the street to find a Buddhist temple being remodeled. The wood was unpainted and so incredibly gorgeous. There were status (Buddha, the turtle, the lion) out in front and people working inside. We went up there to take pictures and didn't see anyone around. When some people came out of the temple, we greeted them and they greeted us. They didn't seem to mind that we were taking photos and they went on with their work before we could even ask permission.

We meandered through the neighborhood and got back to the main street. (I have no idea how Good Man did that. I was so turned around!) We headed back to the stream for the festival again.

A college group doing a traditional Korean dance passed us a few times. Everyone wanted to ham it up for the foreign girl with the big DSLR. I got some good pictures. Good Man also took hold of the camera for a while. I expect he'll also invest in a big DSLR one way.

We finally left around 4 pm, exhausted. On top of it, I discovered I was sunburnt. Three months of rain and grey clouds can make one forget what the sun does to skin.

Such a nice weekend. It's been a long, long time since I had a real weekend trip in Korea and I needed it.

Oh, and we traveled well together.

Nice.