Juicy Hartnett, eat your heart out.

Ok. So before you all Internet complain that I haven't updated my blog in what seems like forever, please note that it, in fact, has not been forever ... just 13 days.
I apologize for the delay in posting, which has been due to last week's traveling, the Fulbright fall conference, and my amazing ability to procrastinate when it comes to just about anything.
As I said earlier (in that last sentence) the past week and weekend was filled with traveling, and led to things such as taking a 6+ hour bus tour of one of Korea's most historic cities, being mauled by Korean high school girls, being disappointed once again by Josh Hartnett, and eating an unhealthy amount of tator tots.
If that doesn't clear things up, I don't know what will.
But as it has been established that I'm quite fond of bullet points ... again I will resort to them, as the way to best describe my past experiences. Funny that I'm using bullets now more than ever ... in Korea ... a country that is only familiar with the types of guns that shoot water, not bullets.

Last week my school decided that it was going to have mid-terms. Well, I'm pretty sure the nation of South Korea decided the high schools would have midterms ... something about trying to test the students' learning and stuff. In Korea 3 days of midterms = Lauren gets 3 days of freedom. Which was glorious. I decided to spend my three days not in Hwasun (I think I've explored everything this city has to offer ... so the Dunkin Doughnuts and post office) but instead Busan, which was holding the 14th International Pusan film festival.
(side-note: [Boo-san] is now Romanized and spelled "Busan" but a couple of years ago before Korea decided there was a right and wrong way to Romanize/English-ify all Korean cities it was sometimes written "Pusan" [Poo-san] (which I think is funnier, and thus better) ... so all the pictures I have of banners and whatnot Busan is generally spelled "Pusan", before the official Romanization of all Korean cities). You just learned something.
Anyways, I traveled to Busan on Wednesday morning after frantically throwing everything I thought I would need for 6 days in my bookbag and heading to the bus station. Apparently the things I thought I would need would be only one pair of jeans, and a hairdryer. I traveled over to Busan ... which is a coastal city on the southeast coast of Korea (I'm fairly certain I mentioned this in my last post, hopefully you all have done your reading). I met up with some Fulbright friends and we had a grand time exploring Busan and checking out the city's film festival.

After arriving in Busan we automatically went to check out it's "famous" fish market. I don't know why anyone would actually want to go there, but go there we did. It was filled with fish (duh) both alive and still squirmy, various types of sea creatures, and tons of old Korean ladies. But as gross as it looked, it smelled really nice. False. We went to a fish market. It smelled like a fish market. But I got to check out the insane kind of things Koreans eat ... although to me it looked more like a market that you go to in hopes of stocking your aquarium with creatures that will make all your friends exclaim, "Oh that's interesting". On the up side, I did get to witness a small shark get dragged across the floor and have its insides sprawled out on the floor, compliments of one Korean ajumma who seemed to have a deep seated hatred for Jaws.

After getting my fix of smelly fish for the year we headed to downtown Busan to check out the festival activities and walk around and be touristy. We stumbled upon a lot of people setting up something that seemed pretty important, so we decided to loiter around and see what was going on. I'm still not exactly sure what we watched, in that it was all in Korean and I understood nothing of it, but I'm fairly certain it was the pre-opening ceremony to the film festival ... the opening-opening ceremony, if you will. And you will.
They laid out the red carpet and everything, so it must have been somewhat important. So we stood among other Koreans and watched people who I can only assume to be famous walk down the red carpet, say some stuff in a microphone, then walk back down the red carpet and take a seat. It was exciting. Although I'm not totally sure as to what we watched, or who we watched, I think it's safe to say we saw some famous Korean actors/actresses and some not so famous Korean actors/actresses (based upon the level of applause and wild cheering they evoked from the crowd). I cheered for some and didn't for others ... hoping to convince all the dedicated Korean fans around me that I knew what was going on. I think it worked.
We were then treated to a hip hop performance by a Korean hip hop trio (what, you thought they'd be a jazz group doing hip hop? Come on.) Again I couldn't recognize the song, but they were really flashy and many girls screamed, so I figured them to be the Korean equivalent of Kanye West. I figured 3 people with 3 rather large egos (I mean, they're famous, right) equals one Kanye West.

The next day we took a bus tour of Busan and saw some of the more popular, touristy places ... or at least what people of Busan thought was of note. Our tour consisted of checking out the UN cemetery honoring those who fought in and lost their lives during the Korean war, various beaches in and around Busan, and the area that hosted the yachting competition during the Seoul Olympics, which also conveniently was where the opening ceremonies were held for the film festival.
The cemetery was very nice (about as nice as a cemetery can be, I guess) and it was impressive to see the many graves and names of individuals who gave their lives to create what is now the country where I live.
After checking out various beaches ... no need to go into detail ... some sand, some shells, some beach ... we made our way over to the area which was preparing for the night's festival opening.
As we arrived to the staging area / red carpet / yachting place we were hoping to find out where to get tickets for the opening film ... word on the street (and by street, I mean some of the ETAs) said there were 400 or so tickets still on sale that they would release the day of the opening. After wandering around aimlessly for a little while and finding only Koreans and more Koreans and not tickets, we decided to just hang out and watch the celebrities as they entered the screening plaza via red carpet. But, luckily by the grace of the Buddha, a couple of Korean school girls approached us and told us where to go to get tickets (this wasn't as shady as I made it seem). We maneuvered our way around the craziness that was Korea and managed to find and grab a place in a pretty long line in hopes of scoring some tickets for the film. Many hours (4 to be exact) later we finally made it to the front of the line and happily bought our tickets - only 10 US dollars (approximately) and did a little happy dance because we were reassured that our waiting in line for hours on end was not completely wasted. Plus, I got a pretty great sunburn, a gross piece of corn on a stick, and a few pages deep into the book I brought with me.
We were also (maybe) on television. A couple of ladies, whom I took to be television anchors (only because they had a camera and I believe a microphone) came up to us and made us shout "I love you" into the camera and make the standard Korean cutesy hearts. We happily obliged and hopefully got a few seconds of fame on one of Korea's many television networks.
"New story at 10. Americans also watch movies."

After buying our tickets we rushed over to the red carpet area and waited for another hour or so to see some Korean celebrities and Josh Hartnett, the ultimate American beef cake. Josh is currently/already/I'm not sure starring/starred in a Korean film with two other Korean actors that is coming out soon/recently came out/has been out for years (Obviously it shows how much I follow his career. After "She's All That" I pretty much gave up on him.), so he made an appearance in Busan. It's not like he had anywhere else to be. I'm sure he wasn't missing the big premier of his next movie "She Wasn't all That", or something to that effect. Anyways, we pushed our way through the insane crowd of Korean teenage girls and a couple of the older Korean ladies who were desperately fighting to claim the best spot in which to swoon over the latest Korean heartthrobs. I'm a little ashamed to say that I was pretty much dominated (and by that I mean pushed around) by about 50 or so Korean girls (who weigh about half of what I do) and found my way into the outer edges of the mass surrounding the red carpet. However it was fine in that they were all about 5 feet tall and I could easily see over the tops of their little heads. But it was at this time that my camera's battery decided to die, so I gave up all hope of taking pictures to later sell to the trashy magazines and settled to just absorb the experience and try to come out of the mob alive.
It was actually extremely cool, and I got to see many famous Korean movie and television drama stars as the paraded down the red carpet and were the recipients of many girls screaming "I love you! You are so pretty! Marry me please!" (note: this is not a direct translation, only what I figured they were probably saying). We stayed in the mob for about an hour and a half anxiously awaiting the arrival of Josh Hartnett (or as the Korean girls would exclaim "Juicy Hartnett"), and it was rumored that he would arrive at 6:30 pm. I don't exactly know who started this rumor, but it was completely false. At about 7:45 or so we decided to give it up and head over to the outdoor venue where the film would be showed. And wouldn't you know it, that it was then Juicy Hartnett decided to show up and dazzle Korea with his white skin, double eyelids, and high bridged nose. (That sounds a little creepy, but that is exactly what my students tell me is so attractive about my face ... and the faces of everyone else that lives in the West).
So we missed Juicy Hartnett, but I can't say I'm too bummed. We even googled where he originally was from so we (the 5 of us Americans in the crowd ... pretty sure the only Americans) could yell that we came all the way from his hometown (somewhere in Minnesota) to show our support for him. Looking back on it I'm not exactly sure why I/we thought this was a good idea.

So after the letdown of missing Juicy, the opening ceremony began and we were treated to some opening remarks (that were so meticulously scripted it was almost painful) and several shots of famous celebrities in the crowd, including Juicy, we were able to watch two performances ... one of a folksy band/artist that was pretty lame. I mean, one of his songs was called "annyong". And then a performance by Girls Generation, one of Korea's most popular girl pop bands. They sang one of their more famous songs "Genie", but what I think stole the show was their rendition of "There You'll Be" (in English) - a heartfelt serenade to none other than Juicy Hartnett. As you may remember Juicy gave a stellar performance in the movie "Pearl Harbor" ... a movie which included on the soundtrack, the song "There You'll Be". Girls Generation decided that the best way to impress such an American dream boat would be to sing this song for him. They also dressed in cutesy little navy uniforms. It was fantastic. Throughout their entire performance the camera cut between them and Juicy, who was awkwardly sitting in his chair. I can only imagine the thoughts that were running through his head.
After the musical acts we were finally all treated to the film "Good Morning Mr. President" a comdey/romance/everyday kind of film about the lives of 3 of Korea's fictitious presidents and the things they had to deal with in office (i.e. relationships, emergency surgeries, winning the lottery, accidental farting, you know ... the usual stuff that bothers most presidents). The movie was pretty good however I didn't get the full effect, as I was frantically trying to read the English subtitles. But all in all I think it was pretty good, very entertaining ... and that's what movies are supposed to be, right?

Our last day/morning in Busan was spent visiting Hauendae beach, a fairly famous beach that was the location for the shooting of one of Korea's most recent tsunami disaster movies. I haven't seen the movie, but from what I hear it was disastrous. After checking out the last beach we all headed to the bus station to catch a bus to Gyeongju for the weekend. It was time for the annual Fulbright Korea fall conference ... 4 days of workshops, meetings, hanging out and reconnecting with other ETA friends, enjoying and learning about Gyeongju, and enjoying ourselves. (I kind of sound like a travel brochure right there.)

The conference was really great ... it was super nice to see all the 90 or so ETAs in one room, many of whom I haven't seen or talked to since we all left Chuncheon about two months ago, which now seems like such a long time. The meetings and workshops were very informative and helpful, though a little boring so I'll spare you the details. Just envision lots of people like me, sitting at tables, talking about teacher-y things and eating brownies and cheese.

But during the conference weekend we all (or almost all of us) got out in Gyeongju and toured the entire city. The entire city. It seriously took us about 6 or so hours ... and saw all that it had to offer. Fun history fact: when Korea was first united under the Silla dynasty way back when, Gyeongju was the capital city of Korea at the time. It holds a lot of Korea history and we were able to visit various Buddhist temples, tombs of ancient Korean kings, the Gyeongju national history museum, the oldest observatory tower thing in Korea, and other parks and lakes around the area. It is a beautiful city and it was really cool to see all the historical things. Never have I felt so young.

The conference was really great and way more interesting and helpful than I first imagined it to be. On Monday we all departed and went our separate ways again ... off into the real world of Korea ... you know, where people stop being nice and start being real.
My bus back to little Hwasun decided not to leave until about 4 in the afternoon, so myself and many of the other ETAs that were headed to that area hung out in Gyeongju for the day and visited "Gyeongju World" the biggest and best amusement park in town. There was pretty much no one there besides us, so we rode rides as we pleased, never having to wait in line. It wasn't as fantastic as any American amusement parks I have been to, but it did the job.

The past week/weekend was glorious ... a great way to enjoy the beautiful fall weather in Korea these days. Life is good.
I should try to market that phrase. Like put it on t-shirts or something.