"foot-long lenses"

june 6th -"caribbean bay"

You can't just lay out in your bikini here. I asked. (I was actually told the police would ask you to go put clothes on. I kind of want to try it. Ha!) Unless you have a rooftop or a friend with a rooftop, or are willing to pay money to go to a public pool, there isn't anywhere a girl can go to get some sun. June was quite hot by my standards and I was craving a tan. Some girlfriends and I decided to go to a water park this Saturday. It's the biggest water park I've ever seen or heard about. There was a lazy river you could ride around tirelessly; no one would ever ask you to get out. There was a giant wave pool, tons of water rides, saunas, restaurants, napping huts, beer, snacks, and much, much more. It's funny, some things Koreans do so well, like packaging for instance. And some things they just get so wrong, like their use of peanut butter. They were selling peanut-buttered dried squid as a snack at the water park. *Shudders*


june 20th-21st - "white-water" rafting trip

I went on a rafting trip somewhere in the mountains southeast of Seoul. There were about 35 foreigners on our trip, among them Australians, New Zealanders, British people, a few Irish guys, a French couple, South Africans, Canadians, and Americans. We signed up for this trip quite last minute and didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into. Overall, we all had fun I think, but it rained the whole time. There was no "white-water" to speak of, maybe one or two small sections with rapids which was by far the most exciting part or the journey. We were instructed to paddle every other five minutes for 30 seconds. The rest of the time we just floated down river, which would have been acceptable if it had been sunny and were were drinking and snacking or something, but instead we were just miserable and shivering and hoping it would be over soon.

We spent the night in a pension. (In Korea, they use the definition of pension more popular in Europe, a boarding house rather than a retirement fund.) It's all the rage here. We rented several apartments in this building by the river built just for this purpose and ended up having a pretty wild multi-floored party that night.


observations:

At home, I recall that people dress for the weather, not the season. In the middle of October, if it's still 80 degrees, New Englanders wear shorts. Likewise, we keep some sweaters out for the occasional cold summer day. Koreans dress according to the date. Technically it's not Summer until July 1st. I swear I didn't see one darn Korean person wear a tank-top in June, and it was certainly hot enough. Additionally, I have heard that if you go to Dae-Cheon beach in August, you'll be hard-pressed to find a spot to lay out your towel. But September 1st? Not a soul, at least not a Korean soul. September marks the end of swimming season. However, foreigners like the beach this time of year and have been known to have their pictures taken by aghast natives, shooting with foot-long lenses. This brings me to my next observation.

The cameras people walk around with here... oh man. I can't get over it. It's absolutely preposterous. Moms and dads literally shoot their children playing at the park with a camera lens the length of my arm. I've seen it. Also a common sight: boyfriends doing on-the-spot photo shoots of their girlfriends at the waterpark, subway, curbside, you name it, and also, with gargantuan camera lenses. You think I'm exaggerating. Oh, no.

I added some more pictures to the slide show.