Busan International Film Festival and Spaland

Lately, people have been calling me "the camel." Each weekend, I don my bulging red backpack, which causes me to hunch over at the waist, and I double-fist water bottles like it's happy hour in Gainesville before a home game.

I was particularly bulky on this past weekend's excursion because I was loaded down with bedding (2 blankets and my overstuffed, fuchsia pillow), backpack, a pendulous bag of food, my purse and my camera. As if being a foreigner doesn't draw enough attention, try getting stuck in a subway turnstile entrance because your enormous pink pillow snagged. Ug...

Since everyone was short on money from our blowout Chuseok weekend, we decided to take up the offer from a friend to stay at his apartment. However, with one double-sized bed and 7 people to put up for the night, most of us were sleeping on the floor. It was cramped, but at least the price was right. At around 9 on Saturday morning, I sat up with a crick in my neck and had to laugh at the 6 other bodies splayed out all across the floor. the bare floor. People were sleeping with their jackets rolled up for pillows, still dressed in their clothes from the night before. I am perpetually the early riser, so I had to wait another hour and half before the rest of the group was coherent enough to even form words. Moods brightened once we took a chilly walk to a Starbucks and loaded up on Venti coffees. An item on the Korean Starbuck's menu that I think is worth mentioning is the jelly coffee. Imagine your typical iced coffee loaded down with sugar and cream and big, blobby lumps of grape or strawberry jelly wallowing around in the bottom of the cup. Sound disgusting? I can assure you it's quite delicious. If you just get past the image of bloated red and purple slugs sloshing around the bottom of your drink, it's a great flavor combination, especially when you mix the jelly bits throughout. I wonder if it will ever catch on in America?
Across form our table, a Korean girl was creating these intricate roses out of Starbucks napkins. I have no such skill, so I made a straw wrapper into a cheesy mustache instead.
The idea for the day was to get in line for the 14th International Busan Film Festival for tickets to one of the rave review, independent films. However, by the time we arrived (around 3pm) all of the tickets were sold out except for two movies: "The Enlightenment Film" and "PilgrIMAGE". The "Enlightenment" film analyzed political views in a post modern world. Yuck. So we chose PilgrIMAGE, which was a movie made by a father-daughter duo, which revolved around visiting the homes and filming locations of famous directors. The movie was at 8:30pm on the other side of town, so we decided to go and grab a bite while we were wasting time. Max, the guy whose apartment we were staying at, suggested a place called "The Fuzzy Navel," which is possibly the only Mexican restaurant in the entire country.

The city of Busan is the second largest in Korea, and is very industrial, with factories and sky-rise buildings crammed right up to the beach. In Korea, THE quintessential beach to visit is called Hyundae Beach, which was where "The Fuzzy Navel" was conveniently located. A Mexican restaurant on the beach sounds like a promising combination, right? Well, I was not dissapointed upon first walking up. The restaurant was blasting 90s alternative and rock music (Think Red Hot Chili Peppers, Audioslave, The GooGoo Dolls, etc.) and I could see tortillas on people's plates, not to mention that the place appeared to be a foreigner magnet. We ran into several people from orientation who were there for the film festival, too.

I ordered a taco salad, excited at the prospect of eating guacamole since avocados are so difficult to find in Korea. 20 minutes passed, then 40...then we were up to an hour waiting for our various orders of tacos, burritos and nachos. Now Mexican food is by no means a delicacy or that difficult to throw together, so I'm not sure what on earth took so long. When the server finally started dropping off our food, we were all sorely dissapointed at the limp, tasteless tortillas, the guacamole without a trace of salt or garlic and the salsa that (swear to God) must have been concocted out of ketchup. So much for Mexican food in Korea. And to add insult to injury, it was one of the most expensive meals I have eaten so far in Korea. Lesson learned: Mexican food does not exist in Korea.
The Spanish is soooo wrong on this menu. Word of advice if you have never traveled internationally before: be suspicious of translated menus. English on a menu means the prices are considerably jacked up because the restaurant is catering to foreigners.


After eating, we headed out to Hyundae Beach. From the various descriptions I've heard of the beach, I was expecting a white shoreline that extended as far as I could see, dotted with families spreading out beach blankets and picnicking and playing frisbee in the waves. Basically, I was thinking of Florida. Something you must grasp about South Korea though: it is a tiny country. North America is a vast and varied continent with a kaleidoscope of geographies ranging from beaches, to mountains, to prairie land, desert, etc. Korea is only as big as some of our larger states, so I was shocked to see that this famous tourist beach was only maybe 3 or 4 miles long. People were packed like sardines along the dunes and no one was in the water because it was just so damn cold. My Korean friends tell me that in the summer it's so crowded that it's risky to leave your beach chair for even a moment at the risk of losing it to some pushy foreigners or desperate Korean family looking for a patch of sand to call their own. With mid 60 degree weather though, the beach crowd was thinning, so we staked out an empty patch of damp sand and watched the moviegoers intermingling with the few Koreans who had picked the wrong day to go beach-combing.
This was a self-portrait of the artist.

We watched the sun dip beneath the horizon and huddled closer and closer as the rays began to fade. Getting to crunch some sand between my toes was a pleasant reminder of beach days back home, and I saw a few die-hard Korean kids rolling around in the tide with purple lips and chattering teeth, building sand castles only to stomp them down moments later, laughing maniacally. Once again, children are the same wherever you go on this planet.

Juxtapose me next to these typical young Korean women and the stark contrast in fashion is laughable. Korean women are always dressed to the nines while I look like an bohemian bum the majority of the time. It was hard not to laugh though as their stilettos aerated the sand, winding tracks of dime-sized heel holes all over the place.
Relaxing and people-watching.
Weird Korea: This is the Korean Squat. From toddlers to 90-year-old ajummas, all Koreans practice the squat. Maybe it's out of habit from the squat toilets that are common all across the country (even in a McDonalds you have the choice between a squat toilet or a "Western" toilet. It's funny to see how long the line is to the Western toilet and all the foreigners and young, trendy Korean ladies waiting eons to go while the squat toilets are always open, always being used by older Koreans.) You see the squat wherever you go. Waiting for the bus in the heart of metropolitan Seoul? Drop a squat. In a fancy department store waiting for the salesperson to bring out your size 245 Manolo Blahnik shoes? Drop a squat. While it's more common for the older Koreans to squat whenever and wherever, the younger generations can't seem to fight the habit. When it's 6 in the morning and the clubs are winding down, when people are exhausted from drinking and dancing and are waiting for a cab to pull up, it's quite a scene to see all these drooping, squatting 20-something Koreans, hunkered up against the buildings, squatting just like their grandmas selling produce on the street corners. I love it!
Eventually, we had to scoop ourselves up form the sand and take a bus to the movie theater where the film festival was being hosted. The theater was only half-filled (like I said, we had to chose from the remaining dregs as far as our film selection went) and the director was actually standing down by the screen, shuffling from foot to foot as the technicians bumbled around with the roll of film up in the projection booth. This guy was memorable too. I'd venture a guess that he weighed in at nearly 400 pounds and was sporting 2 lazy eyes and 3 chins. The film itself was poorly acted, but mildly entertaining because many of the locations they filmed, I have visited (Rome, Lucerne in Switzerland, Alaska...). The father and daughter are from Canada, and set out to visit the home of Charles Chaplin, the filming locale for "The Sound of Music" and even stopped by Kansas to put in a word about "The Wizard of Oz". It was cheesy, but we were all weary from travel and scarfing down shrimp rice chips (the snack food of choice in Korea) and were too tired to care.

On Sunday, I awoke before everyone else again, but decided to let them sleep in until at least 10. The initial plan was to visit a fish market and have a big sashimi lunch before heading back home to Daegu, but we were sidetracked when we decided to head to the Shinsegae department store. Shinsegae is the largest department store in the world. It is directly on a subway stop, so you can actually get on the subway, travel to the 1st floor (which is underground) of Shinsegae, spend all day exploring the stores and attractions and never see the light of day. Shinsegae is a world onto itself with lux food courts (we are talking gourmet food, made to order), restaurants, a Whole Foods grocery store, clothing stores, pet stores, a movie theater, driving range, sky park, ice rink, spa and arcade (to name a FEW things)... We stopped to get coffee, but ended up lingering for 6 hours.

By then, our group had been reduced to just Max, Shaina, Eunice and I. Shaina and Max wanted to go ice skating, but I thought it was a ripoff because you had to rent skates, buy gloves and then pay for two hours of mindless circling around a slushy ice rink inundated with little kids being filmed and hollered at by their parents. Eunice and I decided to go to Spaland: the public bath on the first floor of Shinsegae. Obviously, I could not take photos in a public bath, so I will largely have to depend on my powers of description to express how amazing I find the bathing culture in Korea.

The public bath is one of the few remaining unchanged traditions in Korea. Most Koreans, women and men, go at least once every week to clean, visit with friends and family and just enjoy being together. The public bath is the old time porch-sitting days of America. Just naked...

The Korean word for these bath houses is "JimJil Bang," and is usually recognizable by a picture of a semi-circle bowl with steam wisps curling upward from the rim. These places are very cheap (ranging from 4,000 to 12,000 won depending on the services you buy) and include saunas of varying temperatures, hot and cold bathing pools and body scrub and massage services.

When you first enter a jim jil bang, you take of your shoes and put them in an assigned locker (standard- you never wear shoes indoors in Korea). Then you are sent to your assigned locker in either the men or women's portion of the Jim Jil Bang. The moment you cross through that curtain, it's like being flung into a nudist colony. The spa provides some loose-fitting clothes for the sauna (think what you would wear to get an x-ray), but you are butt-naked when you head to the bathing pools to scrub and wash. The saunas were relaxing. With about 12 different rooms in all, Spaland had sweltering charcoal-heated rooms, rooms with tanks full of jellyfish bobbing around, "magnetized" rooms, sound-therapy rooms which had deep, reverberating bass playing underneath the floorboards and even cold rooms, which were meant to cool you off after the baking hot sauna rooms. Once you have sweated sufficiently, it's time to bathe. You strip down, carrying only a hand towel and whatever necessities (conditioner, lotion, razers) you need and head into one massive room filled with naked girls and women of every age and body type, dipping in and out of various heated-pools before plopping down on a footstool to scrub the dead skin off eachother. As I write this, I can imagine your shock at something like this, but I must press a point here: this is one of the best experiences you can have in Korea if you really want to see how this culture operates. I saw entire family trees from great-grandmothers all the way down to the youngest little girls splashing around in the pools, combing each other's hair and just relaxing. In korea, there is a special rough-tectured towel known as the "Italy" towel that every single Korean uses to bath with. When you soak for long enough in the pools, it makes your skin soggy and pliable. The Italy towel is meant to be used all over, and the harder you scrub, the more skin you will see pilling off your body like an old skin sweater. And it's BLACK. I was so grossed out that I scrubbed until my whole body stung just because I wanted to get as much off as possible. Since it's nearly impossible to scrub your own back, that's why it is good to go with friends and family. I saw many endearing moments between grandmother's and their daughter's, giving each other a scrub down and just chatting away.

After removing a whole layer of skin, we went to the shower stalls and washed and then went into the "powder" rooms to blow dry our hair and toss on our sauna clothes to go get massages. The whole day was simply divine, and I walked out feeling as limber as a wet noodle. unfortunately, Shaina and Max did not have an equally enjoyable day. About 15 minutes into their ice-skating experience, Max crashed to the floor, splitting his chin open on the ice. He was rushed to the emergency room where he had to get multiple stitches and a prescription for penicillin. The bill was about 160,000 won, which was the last of his money for the month. Needless to say, it was like walking into Hell's gaping maw when Eunice and I fluttered out of the spa in a wave of shampoo-smell and smiles. The rest of the evening was a quiet one, and I felt a little guilty for sitting so relaxed and content the whole train ride home while Shaina was sending silent death glares our way.

All in all though, a very enjoyable weekend for me. In fact, I believe I will be returning to Spaland this weekend when I visit Busan again for a different festival. All I know for sure is I am not going anywhere near the ice rink.

Chuseok Weekend

NOTE:

This is a somewhat risque post. Sorry if it offends anyone, but the tale of this past weekend cannot be told any other way!


I just fit a good 20% chunk of my overall most ridiculous and memorable lifetime experiences into one nonstop weekend that centered around a handful of other girls and I traversing Korea from the bottom up.

Let me begin:

Thursday, all the children in my class were dressed in their traditional Chuseok clothing called "hanbok." Hanbok are very colorful pants and dresses (bright pastels) made out of silk that only appear during the Chuseok (and sometimes New Year) holidays. "Chuseok" is Korean Thanksgiving. It's a large meal with family to celebrate the coming of the harvest season replete with all sorts of traditional food and after-dinner activities (think going for a hike instead of watching football on t.v.). Although SJ invited me to join her family for the holiday, I wanted to make the most out of the extended weekend and travel while Koreans were busy with their families.A little girl who wanted to take a picture with me while we were waiting for our bus. She is wearing a relatively plain hanbok to give you an idea of how ornate they can be.

After finishing my classes on Thursday, I jogged to the subway and hustled to my apartment to fix some dinner and stuff some last minute items into my 20-ton backpack for the road... or train rather. In Korea, if you are traveling to another city, the more refined mode of transportation is the train. The "KTX" is the railroad system in Korea, and they offer a range of ticket choices from straight up standing in the accordionish rubber area that connects train cars to first class, luxury leather seats that lay flat like beds. First class is upward of 100,000 won though, so we cheaped out and opted for the standing tickets. I had a wet butt for a solid hour because I was lucky to get a "seat" on top of the sink in between cars on one train ride. However, our first train ride was to Seoul and we thankfully purchased the tickets in advance and had a little section of 4 seats all to ourselves. Shaina, Eunice, Amanda (from Texas), Nicole (New Zealand) and myself were tuckered out when we arrived in Seoul (at 8:45pm), so a hotel was the biggest priority on our list. We hailed a cab, which took us to a hotel district close to downtown.
One of many train rides. Traveling like true hobos.

So this next sentence won't startle you, let me preface it by saying that Koreans live with their families until they are married. Also, since most Koreans live in apartments or very small, single-room houses, it makes privacy a scarce commodity. So: The gang and I stayed the night in a love hotel. They pepper the narrow streets, wedged in between apartments, behind the businesses that are crowded on the main roads. All of them offer hourly rates and advertise with Las Vegas style neon lights. There are themed love hotels (think jungle room with putt-putt golf course grass instead of carpet, medieval, ocean, dessert, etc.), automated love hotels (no embarrassment when the only witness to your rendezvous is an LCD touch screen), ritzy love hotels that offer expansive flats, Western beds and marble floors...the list goes on and on. We chose to stay at one of the first places we encountered: The Santafe hotel.
See-through window into the bathroom. As Shaina pointed out, there must have been a certain strategy in mind because the beds were always pushed up against the bathroom wall as opposed to the wall you share with your neighbor.
Condom baseball.
Getting cozy. There was a watermelon-sized bottle of lotion and a box of tissues on the bedside stand. When we flipped on the TV, we discovered why.

Too tired to rouse ourselves for clubbing, we had a fun night in laughing at our sleazy accommodations. On Friday morning, we struck out to find some coffee before heading for the subway. However, we soon realized that everything was closed for Chuseok save McDonalds and Burger King. So, we chose McDonalds because it was 5 feet closer, dropped our piles and piles of bags and ate granola bars and drank McCafe coffees.
My crew. From left to right: Shaina, Eunice, Nicole and Amanda.
A rice paddy! These are everywhere in Korea. Any other time you would see old people squatting down low amid the rice, weeding and tending. But because of Chuseok, the rice fields were empty.
No wonder I have an aching back!

Our first destination was a place Shaina found online called "River Land" in Cheongnyangni (very far north). The Web site pitched River Land as the ultimate water sports and thrill-seeking experience in Korea. One man with a red lawn chair perched on an inflatable boat does not a speedboat make, but I will come to that. As it turns out, River Land was situated on the outskirts of a very rural town that was all but abandoned for the holidays. Walking through the empty streets, I got a glimpse of true country bumpkin Korean life. Rice paddies, straw-roofed houses, foreign roots and mushrooms drying on sheets in the sun, laundry strung up between trees and mangy looking dogs tied to posts in the driveway standing on guard as we passed. 4 subway lines, 1 train ride a bus and a taxi later, we found ourselves on the bank of an enormous, pristine river that wound around the mountains like a watery snake and put me in mind of some of the boating I have done in Tennessee, only on a much grander scale. The hotel we stayed in (Hannam Hotel) was right on the water, and we haggled pretty ferociously with the owner to let all 5 of us board in one room. But what a view! Our room overlooked the water and even had a bathtub (quite the rarity in Korea).

Wandering through the deserted streets of a tiny town, searching for a bus stop. This was right about the moment when we realized "River Land" was probably not going to meet to our high theme park expectations. Luckily, it turned out to be even better :)

One of the main reasons we decided to venture all the way up to River Land is because of the bungee jumping that is offered on site. The bungee tower is some 100-feet above the water and juts out into the river, giving you a spectacular view of the mountains right before you take that petrifying leap. Anyone who knows me should know that I am no daredevil... but I am also not above peer pressure. Somehow my damnable crew managed to convince me that my trip to Korea would not be complete unless I experienced a jolt of adrenaline by leaping off a building, attached to said building by the ankles. Fast forward: there I am, shivering despite the radiating, setting sun, precariously close to the edge of a steep drop down to the frigid water below. My toes were curled around the metal platform like fingers, my brain screaming at me to "ABORT: CHOOSE LIFE" I was up there for a solid 10 minutes, crying, snotting and begging the bungee operator-man to let me back down. He continued to refuse (bungee jump operators are NOT nice people) until finally he relented when I had reached the point of wailing. He acted all pissy as he began to unhook the bungee cord, and I caught a few VERY impolite words in Korean. Indignant, I told him to put the cord back on immediately, gave him the most scathing look I could muster despite my teary eyes and jumped head first off the platform, screaming bloody murder. The thing about bungee cords: they are incredibly springy. A forceful leap means an even more abrupt snap back upwards, flinging your body like a ragdoll... All the muscles in my neck ache as I write this, and several blood spots have appeared under my eyes from the force of the cord whipping me around. It felt like I was dangling there like bait on a line for an eternity until a little old man on a red lawn chair in an inflatable boat rowed out and steadied me, laying me down on the floor of the boat and paddled me to shore.

Hannam Hotel in Cheongnyangni.


Our room
The view from our room's balcony.
The beastly bungee tower.
I was white as a sheet with a jackhammer pulse. There are two options when bungee jumping: jump with a harness around your hips or attached to your ankles. Jumping with only your ankles tied is more expensive because it's a greater risk. However, many bungee enthusiasts believe that jumping with a waist harness is like getting skin number for a tattoo: you are cheapening the experience. So, I decided to just suck it up and go opt for the ankles.
Supermaaaaan!
Seconds away from bouncing back up.

As you are lowered towards the water, you are in a constant spiral. I was about to throw up, so I kept shouting "faster, Boat Man, faster." It was rude, but a second more and a cyclone of puke would have been raining down upon him. The girls love to make fun of me by shouting "Faster, Boat Man" now whenever they see me.
After bungee jumping, the girls and I were invited to go on a sunset cruise on what can only be described as a yacht. It was glorious, dangerous and freezing cold. Worth every moment!

Look closely and you will see pinpricks of blood under and around my eyes. When the line went fully taught, I saw this explosion of white across my vision, which turned out to be several little blood vessels bursting. Apparently, it's a common occurrence after bungee jumping, and I just hope they fade away with time.


After the sunset cruise, the same group of men took us out to a Galbi restaurant, which is Korean for a "meat" restaurant. These are some of the most expensive places to eat since they serve thick slabs of raw pork and beef that you cook over a metal grill in the center of your table. Luckily, they had seafood bibimbap, so I didn't go hungry. The meal was probably around 200-300 dollars all told after multiple rounds of soju were added to the bill. Since it was only 8pm when we finished eating, we decided to head back to their hotel, which was conveniently next door to the Hannam Hotel. Now I am not in the habit of carousing with middle-aged men, strangers at that. But we outnumbered them 5 to 3, and I was keeping a sharp eye on all of them the whole evening, on the lookout for shady and expectant behavior. Thankfully, I can report that there are still respectable people in the world. We had a great night watching Korean comedy shows on TV, comparing accents, political views, drinking preferences, everything... We ended up leaving without any trouble at around 3 in the morning to walk back to our hotel, pack and get ready for bed. Or maybe I should say get ready for floor?

Asian people love to make strange faces whenever you take a picture. This guy's English nickname was "Leno". He spoke the best English out of the group because he is a Harley Davidson dealer and his primary clientele are American soldiers (go figure). There were two other men: a dentist and then the man who funded our whole evening. The wealthy guy happens to own a hotel on Jeju island, the tiny island off the southern coast of Korea famous for it's beautiful waterfalls and panoramic vistas of the ocean. All of them were relatively unattached with no family to spend time with for the Chuseok holiday, so I think we made it a memorable weekend for them.
Another Korean quirk: This is how they open a bag of chips.
Keep in mind this feast was after our humongous dinner. Whereas you may get a handful of stale peanuts or pretzels in the States, Koreans like to drink in style. This spread included fried chicken, corn salad, fruit, chips, steamed dumplings and to celebrate Chuseok: Pine needle rice cakes, which have been steamed over pine needles and taste like you are eating a forest. Beneath that stack of apples is a large gold-colored fruit. This is a Korean pear. They are just as crispy as an apple but with pear flavor, and they are the pride and joy of Koreans because you can only get them in Korea.
Back in the hotel, gossiping and laughing uncontrollably over the good fortune of our evening.

Saturday was actually Chuseok day, so everything was quiet. We got up early to catch a taxi ride into town to catch a train back to Seoul. Flipping through a guide book, I discovered a national park directly on the outskirts of Seoul called Bhukansan National Park. We were sore from bungee jumping, aching from sleeping on the floor and just damned tired from so little sleep, but the mantra for my stay in Korea is "You may only be here once", so we packed our bags and headed back toward Seoul to hike in the glorious weather.
Example of strange Konglish. Ever seen these options at your local Starbucks?
Shuffling from one mode of transportation to the next is immensely time consuming. One thing I am beginning to miss is the luxury of hopping into my car and taking a direct route to my destination. Subways, buses, taxis and walking are cheap and better for the environment, but it can take a whole day to travel 50 miles. Seoul is one of the most convoluted and imposing subway systems I have ever seen, so we did not reach the national park until around 4:30, meaning we had to book it or we'd be hiking in failing light.

Koreans will take a nap absolutely anywhere.

Being all Buddhist again ;)
Have I mentioned my aching back enough?

It was a beautiful ending to the day with the whole mountain side lit up the color of butter from the setting sun. The trail was also fairly empty because of the holiday, so we were yodeling and making fools of ourselves the entire time because no one was around to give us scolding stares.

Trudging back on to the bus, we headed to Itaewon, which is known as the foreigner's district in Seoul. Now, for over 2 months I have been completely immersed in Korean society. Every person I see in the street, the store, at school... they are all dark-haired, dark-eyed Koreans. So imagine my surprise when upon exiting the subway in Itaewon I was thrust into a crush of fair-haired foreigners, all chattering away in English, Spanish, Dutch, German, etc. I was dumbstruck. With the Chuseok holiday, most Koreans are out of town, add to this the fact that we were already in the foreigner's district and I felt like I was right back in America. Sweaty and exhausted, we made a beeline for the first motel we could find, "The Hilltop Hotel". It's aptly named because it was a steep climb to reach the place and we noticed a lot of...indecently dressed women on the trek upward. 50,000 won a night for a room the size of a broom closet with 1 twin bed (there were 3 of us). But we paid it, left all our bags in the room and headed out for dinner...which turned out to be Coldstone ice cream. Coldstone is the ice cream of the Gods and it rose up out of the street like a shining beacon of hope and comfort. Well, that's dramatic... but the ice cream was delicious, and it was such a treat to sit down and actually be able to eavesdrop on other people's conversations.

Stuffed full of a cup of the Gotta-Have-It sized Verry Berry, we lumbered back to our room to shower and get ready for bed. Shaina happened to flip open her travel guide, and we discovered with a thrill that we were staying on the notorious "Hooker Hill", which explained the nearly-naked women prowling the streets like jungle cats the whole walk up. It would also explain the ghastly red lighting in our room that reminded me of the red light district in Amsterdam.A lot of men hustling the Hell out of there early the next morning...
Two ladies of the night.

We spent Sunday wandering aimlessly around the streets of Itaweon, shopping for souvenirs and soaking up the English. I really enjoy haggling (true car dealer's daughter ;) ) and ended up saving a pile of money just from exasperating the salespeople. We tried on horrendous Korean clothing (Koreans love gaudy outfits with enough sequins and rhinestones to be costumes on a Broadway performance) and ate a delicious lunch of sashimi and greens where I was able to steal 4 sets of nice chopsticks without getting caught!

The trip was a wild one, and I am looking forward to next weekend because I will be traveling again. Look forward to more outrageous stories and photos, and just to end on a great note:
The Gator Nation exists even in South Korea.