A not-so-horrorfest..

Cory, Tipton, and I went to the 6th Annual Horrorfest on Sunday night just on the edge of Daegu where they had a "ghost house" that wasn't very frightening to say the least..and one of the zombies stepped on my toe during his attack. Sheesh. But the area where it was is a park just outside the Daegu soccer stadium so it was really nice to relax and walk around amidst all the locals.

There was also a play going on about a household master seeking a second wife. I got footage of the possible bride-to-be strutting her stuff for the master.

Pohang Fireworks

Saturday, I, Tipton, Cory and his friend he introduced us to a month ago, Becky, all took a small trip back to Pohang to catch some summer fireworks performed by a Korean team as well as a French team. Probably the best shows I've seen. I forgot my camera, so these are photos by Cory. I can't upload any video of the shows because the files are too large – so I'll show you next year! haha.. more pix on flickr of course..

MUDFEST

new photos up on flickr from the Boryeong mudfest last week, plus a few more at the beach on the 4th by Cory.

Mudfest was fun. We got really muddy, but not as much as I thought. It would definitely be something I'd go back to in following years. Our trip began 11p on a Saturday night. It was a 3 hour drive to the public bath house where we stayed the night for about 7 bucks, which included massage area, pool, baths, showers, multi-temperature saunas, restaurant, internet. What sucked though, was that we slept on mats on a hard floor with these plastic brick pillows..uggghhhh. Tipton and I were miserable. We did not sleep. Finally, I got up after a couple hours and hung out in the 80ºC sauna (about 180ºF) and felt a million times better, as well as a -3ºC (ice) room. So then it turned out not to be a total loss after that. Once the team woke up, we all stripped down, got to know each other better and took our showers. We ate a nice Korean breakfast and finally headed to the beach and the festival.

First, we found a spot on the beach to stash our junk and then dipped ourselves in a mud pool. Weird at first and we felt like clay pots in the sun. We all tried our hand at an inflatable game with mud smeared all over it. It was fun sliding around and falling a lot. There were a heap of photographers taking photos mainly of foreigners such as Tipton and I. We were celebs basically, and both foreigners and photographers ate it up. There were other events and games that we didn't come around to experience but we did get to ride down the huge mud slide and got mud in our eyes..ugh. So we dowsed ourselves with salt water in the ocean just a few feet away to get "clean". We ate, swam, and relaxed thereafter, but only to go back to at least get "painted" with mud – yep, different colors. I felt like a kid. We got washed off again, swam more, relaxed more, ate more, went home. Can't wait to go back next year..

Headin' to Taiwan..

Nate and I just booked a trip to Taipei, the capital of Taiwan which is an island off the southeastern coast of China, and southwest of Korea. It's about a 2 hour flight, so it's a decently priced trip including hotel. We'll be there from Aug.1 to the 4th. Don't know what we're gonna do there, but we're excited about it anyway! I'll be sure to take a heap of pictures to post. Love you guys.

–Brandon

The 4th & 13th (bday)

{NEW PIX}
I had a good time celebrating my bday basically the whole weekend. Nothing too special, just went out to eat a lot, had a few drinks, relaxed, did some Karaoke (Noraebang – 노래방 – as they call it here, meaning "song room"), shot some pool, met some nice attractive Korean models who I got to sketch, and received some interesting gifts, and played "Billibow" which is a cool game that mixes pool and bowling together – lotta fun... and I suppose that's about it! Thanks everyone for the bday greetings and whatnot. Miss you all.

사 랑 해 (Sa Rang Hae – I love you)

Thing I miss of the week ~ v.III

Nature's carpet. There's nothing like takin' a stroll along a lush patch of the green stuff – like walking in a meadow of the world's pudgiest polar bears who previously all had a vicious brawl in a dye factory who subsequently only manufacture the color green. 99% of the surfaces I walk upon are hard floors or hard rock. However, the only thing like grass is...

...ACTUAL CARPET! Shaggy stuff, flat stuff, fake grass, I don't care. At this point, I love all carpet. The only carpet I find in skorea is at the movie theater...which doesn't make much sense to me when I think about it compared to the places it should be! – like my apartment! They haven't even heard of a rug. If I do find a rug here, it's an absolute luxury!

Here is the rug I currently I have gracing my apartment at the side of my bed that I found in the dumpster:

It doesn't have the same effect as most carpets but it jazzes up the place a bit.

Until next time, HAPPY 4th EVERYONE!