At the beginning of October, we had a 5 day weekend for Chuseok. Chuseok is very similar to our Thanksgiving in that Koreans celebrate it by having a big feast with their family to honor their ancestors as well as to celebrate the harvest. Hilariously enough, we decided to celebrate it by not only not celebrating it the way Koreans do, but by celebrating a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT HOLIDAY. That is, the German holiday known as Oktoberfest.
How in the hell can this be? How did we celebrate a German holiday in South Korea? Well, just stop yelling at me for a second and I'll tell you. Now, I know it sounds pretty insane that there was a gigantic Oktoberfest celebration in South Korea, but South Korea actually has (or had, rather) a special relationship with Germany in the 1960s. South Korea sent nurses and miners to Germany for an international labor contract. Once their contract was fulfilled, many elected to stay in Germany. Some of those that returned built a "German Village" on Namhae island. The houses in this "German Village" are modeled after some German architecture. In addition, there are actually a handful of native Germans that live in the village.
A big group of us from Daejeon (16 in all, 14 from my orientation) decided to join a tour to Namhae through a Korean company. Namhae is an island off the southern coast of South Korea.
Our tour bus picked us up in Daejeon at 11:30 p.m. on the Friday night of the Chuseok weekend, and I had volunteered to be the Daejeon leader and make sure we had everyone accounted for on the bus. We were on the bus an hour or two before we got to the next pick-up in Daegu. When we pulled up to the meeting spot in Daegu, it was quite the bacchanalian scene. There were about 50 or 60 people my age all drinking, shouting, and falling about the place. A far cry from our cool and collected group of Daejonites. For whatever reason, we had to wait for the other bus from Seoul to come to the meeting spot before proceeding, so that meant an hour and a half of waiting. I went out of the bus to mingle only to be met by drunken revelers. As I was talking to the leader of the Daegu group, a girl came up to me and with greatly slurred speech said, "Heeeyyy, what's your naaaame?" Soon afterward, a very drunk Irishman came up to me and put his arm around me. Most of what he said to me made very little sense but I thought it best to entertain the man with the fantasy that I was actively engaged in his abstract train of thought. After he walked away from me (he clearly realized there was no way he could get through to me), a couple of the girls from our group came up to me and said, "Was that guy crazy or something?" I said, "No, just Irish." Little did I know that this would become a common theme throughout the next four days.
The tour was terribly unorganized from the start. First off, they had me in charge of one of the four buses, so that should tell you something. Since I had volunteered to be in charge of the Daejeon group, one of the organizers called me to ask me to be in charge of the entire bus. As I mentioned earlier, we had to stay in Daegu waiting for the Seoul bus. During that time, one of the organizers called me and asked me where were. When I said, "We're still in Daegu waiting for the Seoul" bus he said, "What? The bus drivers were not supposed to wait for the Seoul bus."
We finally got into Namhae around 7:00 a.m. on Saturday morning and immediately went for a hike. Not the greatest activity after only a couple hours of sleep, but it was well worth it. At the end of the hike was a buddhist temple from which one could view one of the most spectacularly breath-taking views I've ever seen (pictures above!). Unfortunately we were rushed for time, and so we didn't stay very long at the temple.
After we got back to the buses, we got checked into our pension. We slept "ondol" style, which means that we were provided blankets to sleep on a heated floor. It was surprisingly comfortable, though I must say my back suffered for it after a few nights.
Once we checked in, we immediately changed and high tailed it to the beach. The water was freezing, but we managed to take a much needed nap in the sun. In fact, I fell into such a deep sleep that when one of my friends woke me up to ask me a question, I for the life of me could not understand what she was saying. She repeated herself two or three times and finally just gave up. I think I went back to sleep. While others decided to play soccer or frisbee, some were setting up tents (electing to camp on the beach rather than sleep in the pensions).
Quite a while later we decided to eat dinner. We were walking around looking for a place (a lot of places were closed as a result of the holiday...one BIG thing that the organizers didn't take into account). We finally found a spot, and lo and behold, there was another group from our tour that was already eating there. Eventually, as we finished our food and soju, the restaurant was absolutely filled with people from our tour group.
After dinnner, everyone congregated on the beach to build a bonfire and shoot off fireworks (a lot of fireworks in fact). It was nice talking to several people and hearing their stories of how they decided to come to Korea. I'm not sure if I've ever been around a bonfire on a beach before, but it was a great experience.
The next morning we ate a delicious breakfast provided by the tour (one thing for which they were well organized). After that we checked out and made our way to a different part of the island for our last three nights. We stopped at some famous rice terraces for about an hour or so. When we were getting back on the bus from the rice terraces, the organizers came to the realization that there were NO restaurants open in the town we were headed towards (how one does not take this into account in prior planning is beyond me). That's not true, though. There was one restaurant that was open and it is basically the McDonalds of South Korea. A fast food chain called Lotteria. As bus leader, I was asked to take the orders for my bus and collect the money. It doesn't sound that bad, but it actually was pretty stressful.
We had an amazing view from our part of the new pension, as well as a big open deck space. Therefore, our are got chosen as the unofficial party spot for the night. I wasn't in a particularly social mood (not a bad mood per se, but my introversive need to re-charge myself by being alone definitely took over at this point). Apparently, the Irish were the last ones up drinking until about 4:00 a.m. From what I know, this happened almost every night, hah!
On Monday we went kayaking in the afternoon. We had the option to choose kayaking, fishing, or hanging out on a yacht. Most people elected to go kayaking. There was a group that went in the morning and our kayaking guide told us that many of them had still been drunk from the night before and couldn't steer their kayaks properly. I thought that was hilarious. We kayaked to a beach on a different island. Luckily the waters weren't too rough at all, so it was pretty easy to navigate.
On our last full day there there was an Oktoberfest celebration. Walking into the German Village itself was a surreal experience. It was almost like wanting into a different country. There were several Oktoberfest-style tents with food and drink booths. Copies of old newspaper clippings documenting the relationship between Germany and Korea were on the walls. They were serving Paulaner beer, which is a pretty wonderful German brewery. A nice change from the cheap lager beer I've been drinking so far in Korea. They had a main stage area where most of the big events were taking place. They had a beer carrying contest and a beer drinking contest, both of which had heavy participation from our ranks. Later on, they had bands play, people sang karaoke, and to top off the night there was a DJ. The first band that played was a Korean Polka band, complete with yodeling. One of my friends commented, "It's absolutely insane that the first live music we're seeing in Korea is a Korean Polka band." I couldn't agree more!
Despite the chaotic organization, this was a great first trip in Korea, and it was spent with some of my favorite people that I have met so far.
