Westerners here in Korea often comment that finding information on local events is like finding gold because the information is so difficult to come by. I would have to agree, noticed especially when wanting to take in local events with friends and visitors to the country.
Once again I depended on our Korean staff here at TCIS to help me dig for info. Much to my surprise, we struck gold relatively quick when we found a Korean web site advertising a huge flower exhibition called Floritopia on the east coast island of Anmyeong. Luckily for Ginny and I, this exhibit was open (mid-April till mid-May) and we could board a bus in Daejon that would take us directly to the exhibition grounds!
Well, I say directly in loose terms because the bus we boarded stopped off at almost every small town along the way. Sure, it took us directly to the exhibit but it took us awhile to get there. Even so, the journey was a great opportunity to see Korean rural life firsthand including farmers working in the rice fields.
Once we got into the exhibit, we witnessed endless gardens together with a host of displays, food and entertainment. Seemed like everywhere we turned there was another showcase of flowers from outdoor fields to indoor arrangements.As you can imagine, both Ginny and I came back with a copious amount of photos -- too many to include here! I'll try to limit my enthusiasm and provide a sampling of images so you get a good idea of our day.
I think Ginny and I represented about 33% of the westerners in attendance that day -- at least of those we noticed. Besides us, we saw six westerners in an advertised crowd of 100,000. Of course we weren't always on the look-out nor did we go in all parts of the exhibit but we found the lack of foreigners an interesting fact.
There was definitely no shortage of Korean fast food stands. As such, I was able to introduce Ginny to some local favorites such as hodo kwaja which is Korea's answer to satisfying the sweet tooth. Imagine sweetened bean paste and walnuts in the center of small pancake-shaped walnuts. They are really good, although I would still prefer a chocolate center being the chocoholic I am.
I think Ginny was a little less excited about our lunch, another Korean favorite called hwe-mool-pajon. It's very similar to a seafood omelette with scallions, shrimp and oysters. It's good stuff except for the inclusion of octopus -- I just moved the legs to the side =)
Needless to say, our day was filled with a plethora of sights, sounds and smells... something for everybody! If you were tired of smelling fish then simply walk 50 yards to smell the roses or take a walk among the tulips!
