We had a fun weekend. As spring has sprung, the cherry blossoms are in full bloom in Korea. Japan is famous for Jinhae for the annual Cherry Blossom Festival. All the seats on the train were booked so we took a bus. We prefer to travel by train because it's surprisingly cheaper, you can (usually) reserve seats, you don't have to worry about traffic, it's faster, and generally more comfortable. We figured, however, that since the seats on the train were booked (there is also standing room) we'd have a chance of getting seats on the bus. So we managed to get our asses out of bed (after a night at the bar), scooted to the bus station, and bought tickets for the 9am bus to Masan (from which we would shuttle to Jinhae). Being orderly Canadians and not being used to the pushing and shoving associated with Korea, we only managed to get one seat. Being chivalrous, I let Barb sit most of the way as she nursed her hangover. The trip is normally about two hours, but because of holiday traffic it took around three hours. Koreans (as with most people outside cushy North America, I imagine) are experts at standing on trains. I think most of them can stand on one leg, read, and eat without holding on to anything. Not so much with Toby. Add to this that the train had no handles or railings for holding on to. I cannot fathom why they would not have any handles when they allow people to stand. I don't think I've ever been on a train of that size before without anything to hold on to. So anyway, I spent most of the trip vainly grasping at the overhead baggage compartment doors and the headrests of adjacent seats. I also thought I would cook, but the driver finally turned on the A/C, so the ride wasn't too bad after that.

We had a stroke of luck once we arrived in Masan. As soon as we stepped out of the bus station we were approached by a man in his late 20s / early 30s who asked us if we needed help. His English was good and it turns out he works at LG in Plant 4, where I teach. He recognized us and thought he would give us a hand. He pointed us in the direction of the shuttle bus to Jinhae. We waited for a bus and one arrived. We were not prepared for the pushing and shoving that ensued. Honestly, the concept of the lineup does not exist in this country. A chain of ajumas (Korean women, 45+ years old) rushed the door, yelling. I don't see how any of this helped anyone, because all the pushing and shoving just seemed to prevent anyone from getting onto the bus. Barb and I noticed a second bus arriving and simply left the throng and went to get seats on that one. The traffic leading into Jinhae was awful. We expected it, though. We were fully prepared for the Korean touristy holiday weekend. We probably could have walked to Jinhae at the same speed as the bus, though.

We arrived in Jinhae and began to walk around. The whole town was manned by young volunteers - girl guides, boy scouts, schoolgirls/boys, etc. They were all trained to man the crosswalks, escort people across, and bow to everyone. They were very excited at the opportunity to yell "Welcome to Korea!" at the waegooks (foreigners). We were looking for the festival information booth, so we stopped and talked to one young girl. As she tried giving us directions, her companion, a portly sixteen year-old boy, ran over and yelled "I speak English! A little!" enthusiastically, and he took over giving us directions. He was very proud that he could remember his directional English with phrases such as "turn right."

We arrived at the info booth and a boisterous man, who appeared to be a Korean Navy veteran, began talking to us. We were looking for the way to the naval academy. The Cherry Blossom Festival actually started off as a Korean Naval Festival. It's an annual event where the Jinhae Navy Base and Naval Academy are open to the public. The Korean man hooked us up with a taxi driver to take us to the academy - which we presumed would be cheap according to our Korean taxi experience. The driver, another vet, drove us through the bumper-to-bumper-traffic to the naval base, and waited for us while we were there. It was very nice to see the ocean, it's been awhile. The base was nice looking, although we couldn't go to the best looking places. There were many cherry trees around the perimeter of the base which made it look quite nice. Personally, I didn't think there was a hell of a lot to see down there, but Barb enjoyed it, so perhaps she can elaborate (checking out Korean sailors, most likely).

Once we were done at the base we asked our driver to take us to the top of the hill, from where we could get a nice view of the cherry blossoms. He drove us there, once again through the maddening traffic. We told him we didn't need the full city tour, and that we were finished. He informed us that we owed him 50,000 Won ($59)! Now, this is expensive at home, but it's outrageous in Korea. I mean you could go to Seoul and back for less than that. Hell, you could probably take a taxi to Seoul for that amount. We should have argued with him - he was probably trying to charge us for the whole tour when he had only taken us to two sites. We weren't really in the mood to haggle though, and we didn't want to ruin our trip, so we just paid him and sent him on his way. Trying not to think about being conned, we walked down the hill towards town. It was a pleasant stroll, even with the traffic. The cherry blossoms really were beautiful, I'll try to post a picture.

When we arrived in town we were quite hungry. We were still reeling from our taxi overpayment, so we decided to grab dinner at a cheapo restaurant. We each had an order of ramyun (aka Mr. Noodles) at "Green Rameon and Sandwich." We then set out to find a yeogwan, as we had decided to stay the night in Jinhae. We checked pretty much every yeogwan in downtown Jinhae. All of them had vacancies, but our usual response to "how much?" was "cheel man-un" - 70,000 Won! Now 70,000 is a lot, even for nice hotels in Korea. And since yeogwans are the cheapo motels of the Korean hospitality industry, it was obvious we were being gouged. Can't really blame them, since it was in the middle of a national festival. We would have rather gone home than pay 70,000 for a yeogwan, so we decided to let our feet do some more walking. A little ways out of downtown we found another yeogwan in the marketplace. The ajuma informed us it was "sa man-un" - 40 000 Won. A little more expensive than usual, but it was good for us. We settled in and passed out for a two-hour nap.

Following our well deserved rest we went out to paint the town red. We hit the centre of the festival, which was quite the atmosphere. People launching handheld fireworks into the air (incredibly safe), booths with tonnes of crap for sale (think of the Stampede) and a lot of food. We did a few rounds of the festival grounds when we were approached by two Korean men with video cameras. They were from the Korean Broadcasting Corporation (KBS). They asked us if they could talk to us. I thought, "they want a quick interview with the foreigners about the festival," so I was more than happy to oblige. They interviewed us, asking us the standard Korean questions: "What do you think of Korea?," "What's your favourite Korean food?," etc. They then started following us around to get footage of us looking at the booths. They stopped us in front of a booth selling gaudy hair accessories (Korean women love to put those things in their hair, it's like they're all nine years old) and told Barb to "buy something." She bought a bobby pin or something (what do I know? I'm a boy). They didn't stop us to buy some traditional Korean crafts, artwork, or food, no - tacky hair accessories. That'll make for lovely footage. We presumed that they would be finished with us after this, but they kept asking us more questions. They wanted to follow us around for the rest of the night and come back to our yeogwan to get some footage of us there - God knows why they wanted footage of the foreigners in the cheap hotel. As appealing as the thought of spending the rest of our night on camera was, we told them we would prefer otherwise. I don't think they really understood why, but they offered to buy us some food for our troubles. We went to a food tent where we ordered some sort of fried egg and green onion thing and pork bulgogi (marinated meat). The food was Ok. The KBS guys also ordered "mahkali" - cloudy Korean rice wine. This is the stuff most of my students won't even touch. You drink it from a bowl. We managed to get some of it down - it actually wasn't that bad. After some conversation we went our separate ways from the KBS journalists. They were fun to talk to but we were tired of being on camera.

After our media experience we just wanted to go grab a few drinks at a bar. We walked around the streets of downtown Jinhae for a while, and decided to go into a bar labelled as a "music bar," which despite the suspicious name, we were glad to see wasn't a karaoke bar. Once inside, however, we had one of our worst Korean experiences. There was loud Korean music playing in the small bar, and it sounded pretty good. The bar was fairly crowded. A short man in a suit approached us and said to me "Sorry, Korean only." I initially thought he was trying to tell me that they only play Korean music, and that he didn't think I would like it. Barb spoke to him also, but I couldn't hear over the music. I later found out that he said "sorry Korean only, no white" to Barb, to which she replied "You're racist. Go to hell. Screw you." It's hard to believe there are still places where someone can be kicked out of an establishment based on their race.

We were determined not to let that set the tone for the night, so we set off for a different place. We encountered a boisterous group of young Korean men, and they told us we should go to "Chicago." Of course they recommended the bar with the American flag logo for the waegooks. Chicago was nice, but just a quiet pub. Nothing too exciting. Following our consumption of beer and a fruit plate (you are expected to order appetizers in Korean pubs) we headed back to the yeogwan for the night.

Sunday morning we got up bright and early and headed outside. We had Korean street pancakes for breakfast, which are incredibly good. No one does street food like the Koreans. We walked around the festival area for a while, then we walked up a hill to a big observation tower they have. The walk was short but steep. It was pretty crowded at the top, but the view was nice. We took some pictures and also chatted with some people from India. After that we walked back down and did some more cherry blossom sightseeing. We then caught the shuttle back to Masan, where we ate lunch. We had an order of gimchi chige - spicy gimchi soup, with the usual array of Korean side-dishes. We were successful in reserving one seat on the return train, so we took the train home instead of a bus. It was a pleasant ride and we were back in Gumi in the late afternoon. We had an excellent weekend excluding a couple sour points. We took many pictures, so I will try to get them up ASAP.