If Madonna Could See Me Now

            Today was a crazy and exciting day for Yeosu.

First of all, it’s children’s day – a day where children are welcomed to run amuck and dine on chocolate and cotton candy while being showered with gifts and money.  Why don’t we have this holiday in the west?  The point is, there were happy children everywhere today.

             Second of all, today was the opening day of the World Expo rehearsal week.  The official opening is next Saturday.  This week the doors open to Yeosu citizens who somehow managed to snatch special tickets.  The estimated attendance for today was 100,000 people.  Lucky me, I got to be one of those people. 

            I arose at 6.30am after a night of drinking to go to the Expo with the Korean family I adopted (my one student’s family loves me so they take me places.)  By the time we arrived, the Expo site was packed.  I won’t go on about the Expo but I am very impressed with everything; they really pulled it off. 

But Koreans crack me up.  They wait in long lines for things and then they dash through the things they waited in line to see.  We waited for almost three hours to get into the Expo and get to the aquarium.  Once inside the aquarium, everyone in the aquarium was running around at high speeds and I could barely keep up.  It was like “Oh! A Beluga!  Ok, saw it!  And go!  Next!!”    Meanwhile, I’m mesmerized and I start singing “Baby Baluga” at the top of my lungs and no one knows what’s happening.  This is what happens when you rush me.

Sidenote:  I teach an adult class these days and one student (Masashi) is from Japan and is working at the Expo.

Later, Jennifer Student and I went to the Japanese Pavilion to look for Masashi.  We couldn’t find him anywhere, so we stood outside the pavilion and chanted, “we want Masashi!  We want Masashi!” until someone noticed us and told us he was out to lunch.  So we just told her to say to him “Konichiwa!” and then we left.  (I’m trying to show off my lingual skills here, haha)

So we left the Expo and I went home and waited for a call from a friend, whom, very long story short was too tired to hang out, so I decided to go downtown.  This was my best idea so far because turns out on this day Yeosu also celebrates the Goeboksun Festival (a festival for Admiral II Soon Shin and the Turtle Ships that won the war against Japan). 

            There were all of these tents set up downtown and I was so excited to see them all.  The first thing I came across was a recreation of the torture methods of old Korea.  They wanted to demonstrate on someone, and when no one else volunteered I volunteered myself.  I laid down on a wooden cross not knowing what to expect and all of the sudden I’m being spanked with a very large wooden panel.  Spanked.  I was publicly spanked.  Madonna would have been so proud of me.  Only in Korea would this ever happen…and only to me.

            I later ran into Lily student and her two siblings whom I also teach.  We hung out together for a bit.  Lily kept asking me:

 “Teacher!  How are you here?”

And I kept saying:

 “Lily, I LIVE here.” 

“But how you go downtown?” 

“Lily, I took the bus.” 

“Alone?” 

“Yes, Lily.”

I think our students think we just live at E-World and never leave and that May keeps us as slaves.  I honestly think that’s what they believe.

            I hung out downtown for a while meandering trough all the booths and then it began to rain so I tried to take a bus home.  I waited two hours for a bus that wasn’t packed like sardines because today was soooooooo busy.  I finally got one a bus but it was incredibly crammed.  Aside from being short and surrounded by sweaty agimas at the end of my day, today was awesooommeee.