Busan Annual Fireworks Festival

My toes are purple and crushed-looking. That's what I get for wearing flip flops to a fireworks show in Korea, where women change heels like underwear.

At 11:30 Saturday morning, my friend Amanda (the red-head from Texas) and I boarded a train for Busan again. We rode on the mugunghwa train, which is the slow and decrepit, nearly-retired albeit cheaper train. I brought a book (my last of 8 that I brought with me- I am out of English books now) but I didn't read because it was so entertaining to watch all the cheapskate ajummas pilfering seats the whole ride long. It would go like this: the train car would be filled to the brim with passengers. Clearly, the ajummas either purchased "standing" tickets or flat out boarded the train without tickets because each time an employee walked past they would slink into the corner, trying to appear busy. The moment a paying passenger left, they would swarm the seat like vultures, flapping and squawking at each other, jostling around until a victorious ajumma would plunk down in her MC Hammer parachute pants with a satisfied grin until she would be shooed out 5 minutes later by the next passenger with the rightful ticket to that seat. On second thought, ever seen the movie "Finding Nemo"? Just think of the flock of seagulls all chanting "mine" over and over again....

Since we enjoyed it so much last time, we decided to spend another day at Spaland, this time bringing Amanda along. It was very relaxing, with only one hiccup: Amanda fainted coming out of the sauna. The moment she closed the door, her pupils began dilating and contracting and I could tell she was going down. She went limp and it was a good thing Eunice and I were on either side of her because we caught her before she smacked into a row of wooden cubbyholes. After some fanning and several bottles of water she was revived, and we decided to grab a bite to eat before heading towards the baths. A traditional Korean Summer food is this concoction called "patbingsu," which is gone from restaurants now because the weather is considered too cold. However, Spaland continues serving it all year long because of the steamy sauna setting. Koreans believe that the temperature of food is just as important as the ingredients, so you often find cold and chilled dishes in the hot months and bubbling, inferno-hot dishes in the chilly months.

Patbingsu is one of the things I will miss most from Korea. It's a bowl full of delicate shaved ice with heaps of sweet red beans (the size of tic-tacs), jellied fruits (pineapple and mango mostly), bananas and strawberries or some combination of fresh fruit, sweetened condensed milk and maybe a scoop of fro-yo or ice cream. Many restaurants will also garnish with cornflakes or some small candies. Sound gross? Trust me- Patbingsu is the ambrosia of Korea. It gets all soupy and intensely sweet when mixed together and, like all Korean food, is meant to be shared. I got my own because I'm a pig... and I ate it all.
This was not the patbingsu we ordered (just a photo from the internet) but it gives you the general idea of what patbingsu looks like.

We ended up lingering until almost 7p.m. at the spa, which was two hours past the original plan. The "spa fog" of warmth and relaxation quickly dissipated once we were outside in the 50ish degree weather, jostling around in crowds of people stretching as far as the eye could see. Busan was inundated with visitors because the Fireworks Festival is ranked as one of the top in the world. Luckily, my mighty Amazon stature (compared to Koreans, at least) saved the day because I was parting the crowd like Moses did the Red Sea. 1 jarring, jostling and mildly combative hour later, we were ocean-side, with a decent view of the water where the fireworks show would be held. The theme this year was "Busan: A love Story," although I never would have guessed from the choice of music.

The soundtrack to the fireworks included "Do-Re-Mi" from he Sound of Music, "Black or White" from Michael Jackson, some old Elvis jams and the battle music from Braveheart. While the music made me laugh, some of the fireworks were truly spectacular. Whereas every fireworks explosion I have seen usually fades after a few moments (maybe with he exception of the golden trails of sparks from the "weeping willow" fireworks), there were bursts that lingered for several minutes in the sky at this show, floating down towards the water and eventually extinguishing with a little "hiss" sound. Then there was the bird. This green, red and blue fireworks bird zoomed around the air for about 2 minutes before igniting into a flaming phoenix, continuing it's circles above the crowd. I have never seen such creative shapes in fireworks either, form daisies to hearts, smiley faces and even the green outline of a squatting frog.

Two instances of "Weird Korea" moments: 1.) You could be at a Baptism in America and SOMEONE is going to let loose a "whoooooo!" of excitement. It can't be helped, we like cheering for everything. But in Korea, during a FIREWORKS show, the most I heard were some stifled "oohs" and "aahs". It was eerily quiet and all the Korean spectators seemed to be transfixed and borderline emotional after the show. Sniffling, smiling like they just watched their kid win the National Spelling Bee or something... it was strange. 2.) I took photos of the gobs of litter blowing about on the streets after the crowd began filtering out. Mid-photo, an elderly Korean man began waving his hand in front of the lens, shaking his head and acting highly indignant and agitated. Eunice explained that he was ordering me not to take photos of the trashed pavement because I would show them to friends and give Korea a poor reputation among foreigners. When I took another picture, I thought he was going to blow up so we had to hightail it outta there before he decided to do more than just yell.
Here is a pic of the streets after the show, moments before old man hand came crashing down over the lens.

Walking to the shore to get a better view
These are blurry because I was taking them while being hustled along by the herd of people pouring through the streets. This is a typical rice/popcorn snack cart. They sell these massive bags full of rice cakes, sweetened puffed corn and fried rice chips.
"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." Chestnuts are a Korean fav for snack food in the chillier months.
Kimbap (Korean version of sushi). Asian fast food.
Whole, dried squid is another popular snack item. It tastes like delicious, salty seafood jerky.



It was a madhouse trying to get to the train station on time to catch my ride back to Daegu. The police closed down several subway stops because of overcrowding (numerous people were trampled) and the streets were clogged with cars are scooters, making a taxi out of the question. So we ran. Far. It took half an hour to run far enough on foot to get to an open subway. Once underground, it was pure pandemonium trying to skirt the ticket lines and jostle and elbow our way into as subway car. Luckily, Eunice's boyfriend was with us and had a genius idea to take the subway to a different stop than Busan Station, which was surely overrun with latecomers trying like Hell to catch their trains. So we went to some small station that was desolate, and like magic, our train pulled in the moment we arrived. We made it back to Daegu at around midnight, which is too late to catch the subway so I ended up paying hefty cab fare to get to my apartment, but it was worth it to see the insanity of the Busan Fireworks Festival.

On Sunday, Amanda and I spent the day leisurely flitting in and out of local stores in Downtown Daegu. It was a riot trying on Korean clothing. Most pants would not come past my knees and my shoulders were apparently too broad for even the "2X" size shirts. In Korea, 90% of the clothing is tagged as "One size fits all". I think there needs to be a disclaimer that reads "Except non-Koreans" directly underneath because none of my fellow TaLKers have had much success with Korean clothing.

As I have mentioned, tattoos and piercings are uncommon in Korea, so when we happened upon a "piercing boutique." we went inside just to see if it was legitimate. Apparently, a professional tattoo and piercing artist in Korea can get by with a crusty jar of petroleum jelly, some medieval piercing needles soaking in tepid tap water and a stack of store brand band-aids. Blood-borne illness-no thanks!