I snapped this one while visiting Daewonsa temple outside of Gwangju in South Korea. For the most part the adage that: “If you’ve seen one Korean temple, you’ve seen them all” holds true – but Daewonsa is a pleasant exception to the rule. A Tibetan Buddhist monastery set in lavish gardens, it is serviced by a pretty interesting museum as well.
Got a bachelor’s degree and find yourself working at a dead-end job you’re not particularly enjoying?
Thirsting for a chance to see the world and have some fun?
Just feeling a tad bored with the same old people at the same old bars?
Ten years ago I was a little bit of all three. I’d graduated from university with my Bachelors, had a short-lived life in Newcastle working at a supermarket, and then inexplicably found myself back in my hometown working at the very same Bi-Lo I used to make fun of my friends for working at.
It became a weekly occurrence to have some former teacher ask me if I was still studying or what I was doing in town. I enjoyed my job and liked my life, but it was a little humiliating to tell people that my fourteen hours a week at Bi-Lo and the occasional night out at the Glen Innes RSL was my life.
“…it was a little humiliating to tell people that my fourteen hours a week in retail and the occasional night out at the RSL was my life”.
I kind of fell into the whole Korean experiment. The older brother of a close friend of mine had been bugging me to get out a travel for a while, and when a friend of his was looking for somebody to work at a hogwan (private academy) in Gwangju – he put my name forward.
I’d had a particularly crappy day at work when I submitted my application and had mostly forgotten about it by the time I received a firm job offer three weeks later.
It was all a whirlwind. While it took some nudging from friends and family to get me to seize the opportunity, I barely had time to second guess myself as I hurriedly arranged passports and said my goodbyes.
Before I knew it, I was standing alone in my Korean apartment with a carton of milk in one hand and my suitcase in the other. It was a Saturday morning and I had no idea where I was or how to speak a word of Korean, and I was terrified.
And it was the best thing I’ve ever done.
Why teach in Korea? There are dozens of reasons why it’s something I recommend to anybody who will listen, but I’ve chosen the choicest ten.
Sure, Korea might not be near the top of most people’s travel lists – but I’m of the belief that no corner of the world should be left unexplored. I’ll be honest and say that I had zero interest in exploring South Korea prior to taking up the job, but I found it to be every bit as exciting and intriguing as the other countries I’ve had the pleasure of visiting.
Paid travel? You heard that right. Most reputable employers will pay for your flight to South Korea – so the only expense that’s left to you is arranging your visa. If you see out your twelve-month contract, they’ll also fly you home. You won’t find many holidays where your return trip is paid for.
There aren’t any samurai or ninja here, but that doesn’t mean Korea isn’t a nation full of history and fascinating cultural experiences.
With a history stretching back 2333BC and beyond, there’s a wealth of stories to hear and sites to uncover. And while the temples scattered throughout Korea may not be as aesthetically beautiful as the ones you’ll find nestled in Japanese cities, there’s still a sense of supreme calm when you’re standing in an ancient temple with only the wind and the whistling of birds for company.
A great many ex-pats in Korea are of the belief that ‘if you’ve seen one temple, you’ve seen them all’, and there is some truth to this. But that’s not to say there aren’t a few exceptions to the rule. Check out the idyllic Daewonsa or seaside Yonggungsa in Busan for a truly remarkable twist on the cultural norm.
Seoul’s tourist friendly Insadong district is full of manufactured brushes with ‘old Korea’ and Kyongju/Gweongju isn’t known as the museum without walls for no reason. Busan, the last bastion of South Korea during the infamous Korean War, is the nation’s largest port city and has a history all of its own – and there’s plenty of geological history on display on the volcanic island of Jejudo in the very south.
What makes the history and culture so accessible is that some customs and some of the older traditions persist today. People might have kimchi drawers in their fridge to prepare the nation’s signature dish – but for every high tech fridge, there are a dozen ajummas on the sidewalk with vegetables for sale. For every sky rise there’s a farmer’s tiny house built in the traditional style. It’s a place of living history, and that’s becoming a hard thing to come across.
Interested in learning more about kimchi? I attended to Gwangju Kimchi Festival.
Part of the whole adventure for me was not only experiencing a new culture – but experiencing one I’d known very little about prior to arriving. Everybody knows that sushi is Japanese and that you can have a siesta in Mexico – but very few people know much or anything about the Land of the Morning Calm.
Just stepping out of my apartment that first cool morning in November 2007 was a learning experience for me. The neon crosses vying for control of the skyline, the erratic driving, the nocturnal children, and the enchanting inquisitiveness of its people were all complete surprises to me.
Whether I was eating delicious Bibimbap (rice, vegetables, and meat in a hot pot) after a hangover or devouring spicy ddeok galbi (chicken, noodles, and vegetables) – I learned that there was an entire world of food I’d never even heard of to fall in love with.
It’s a nation that offers everything from breathtaking hikes to the dizzying sight of a kitted out PC room full of kids playing StarCraft as if it were life or death.
It’s a nation of scary ajummas (old ladies), drunk ajoshis (old men), and kids who split their curiosity between the distant Western world and their own unique hobbies and games. Learn to play Go-Stop with a bunch of ajoshi over a bottle of soju, and you’ll never want to stop playing the addictive and fast paced gambling game.
It’s a proud country that is struggling to maintain its rich history while also rushing to join the Western world. The kind of place where you’ll see a tent restaurant wedged between two towering buildings packed full of chain restaurants and bars. The kind of place where you’ll step out of a smoky night club and grab a quick bite to eat from an old lady pushing a
The kind of place where you’ll step out of a smoky night club and grab a quick bite to eat from an old lady pushing a wagon full of dried squid. It’s these sharp contrasts that made me fall in love with the place, and even after three years there, I barely managed to scratch the surface of the culture.
Sure – there are hundreds of other cultures I want to explore and experience – but Korea’s one that is ready-made for travellers. There is a constant demand for English teachers, and while that remains, you’ll find it far easier to spend a year or two in Korea than in the more glamorous locales such in Europe or the Americas.
Maybe paying $7 for a draft beer at Sydney bars has put this into harsher focus for me – but getting drunk in Korea was infinitely cheaper than anything I’ve encountered in Australia or the United States. The beer might not be quite as good as you’ll find at home, but after a long day of teaching screaming kids – an ice cold Hite or Cass hits the spot just as well as an overpriced Corona with a wedge of lemon crammed down its neck.
It’s not just in bars either. You’ll find 1.5-litre plastic bottles of beer at supermarkets, and you’ll find supermarkets on just about every street corner in every city in the country. It’s criminally easy to grab a few litres of beer before heading down to the beach or out on a hike at any time of day.
Not a beer drinker? Soju is a local drink similar in taste to vodka, although not as potent and definitely not as expensive. Whether you’re shooting it, passing a bottle around, or mixing it with Powerade to form Poju – you’re never going to pay more than the equivalent of a dollar or two for a bottle.
Hell, you can get it in anything ranging from a two-litre jug to a cute little juice box.
Wines, while not as commonplace as you’ll find in a lot of other countries, can still be picked up cheap in larger grocery stores.
What does this mean for the average traveller? Good times abound!
I spent many long nights in a foreigner bar sinking beers and singing raucously. Plenty of hot summer days on the beach with a Hite in hand or at home playing drinking games with some soju and some good friends. It’s a fantastic social lubricant, and even if you’re not a big drinker, you’ll find plenty of potential friends who are.
Want to learn more about Korea’s drinking culture?
Korea might not be your cup of tea, so why not make use of one of your two annual vacations to see some of its neighbours?
Japan lies just a short flight or boat ride away, so even a weekend junket is possible. China is just a few hours flight away and offers a rich culture that most will be more familiar with.
Flights to Southeast Asian hotspots such as Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines are often cheap as well. I’ve even had friends who spent their holidays in such exotic spots as Mongolia, eastern Russia, and Brunei.
But there’s no reason to leave Korea. You’re in a nation where an ancient civilisation blends with the 21st century. There are countless temples and historical sites to explore, mountains to hike, beaches to lounge on, and cities offering the more modern pastimes such as live sport (baseball and football abound), theme parks, bowling; night clubs, and zoos.
A great many international artists include Korea on their tour schedules, as do the WWE and a number of prominent sporting teams. The local K-League regularly produces contenders for the Asian Champions League continental cup – which affords a chance to see the heavyweights of Asian football in action.
Korean festivals are a unique and amusing way to participate in local Korean culture, and no festival is quite as much fun as the annual Boryeong Mud Festival every summer.
Picture a quaint beachside town, a hell of a lot of foreigners, a dose of summer sun, plenty of beer and soju, and a liberal splash of mud to make it just a little raucous and you get the idea.
I attended the Boryeong Mud Festival in 2008 and 2009, and had a blast on both occasions. Whether you’re going to the Boryeong Mud Festival with friends or going to the Mud Festival as a couple, it’s got something for everyone.
In some ways, this goes hand and hand with #7. But the foreigner bars aren’t solely about drinking. Hell, in hindsight this could have been just ‘foreigners’, but bars are going to be your likely meeting point with a lot of the coolest people you encounter, so I’ll leave it as is.
Gwangju, where I spent my first two years in Korea, was served by a foreigner-friendlyfriendly bars when I first arrived. All three of them make appearances in my count-down of the Top 10 Favourite Bars, and more can be found on them there.
Almost every city with a sizable foreigner population boasts a well loved foreigner haunt. There’s P-Bar in Mokpo, The Wolfhound (and about two dozen others) in Seoul, and too many I’ve not had the pleasure of visiting in other cities. And while their main purpose is the Saturday and Sunday night binge drinking sessions that tend to give foreigners a bit of a bad name from time to time, a lot of them offer more than just cheap booze and loud music.
Gwangju’s Speakeasy offered live sport Sundays, fortnightly trivia competitions, and occasional charity events of a non alcoholic nature. The German Bar once hosted open mic nights. Not a night owl? Some of the best excursions I’ve been involved in have stemmed from the people who run the foreigner bars.
They care enough about the local scene to have invested their time and money into a bar, so it makes sense that their love extends beyond drinking. Touch football games, baseball games, summer camping trips, and even short films have been conceived in the dimly lit confines of a foreigner bar.
That’s not my endorsement of a narrow minded approach to nights out either. Some of the best bar experiences I had in Korea were off the beaten track. I had the lucky of attending my good friend Cody’s bucks night in which we intentionally steered clear of the well known foreigner haunts and instead ate suspicious food and sank soju in one of the tent restaurants we all habitually overlooked on most nights.
And after it’s all done? In a nation that never really sleeps there’s always greasy food to be had and oddly placed carnival games to be played. Win a teddy bear for your sweetheart or just vent some frustration by shooting ducks with an air rifle. Hit up a batting cage or splash out $5 or so for a noraebang (singing room) with a dozen of your closest friends.
It takes a certain kind of person to uproot their humdrum life and just move to a far corner of the world, and while you’re not going to get along swimmingly with every single person you meet in Korea, odds are you’re going to make a lot of fantastic friends.
There’s your drinking buddies and your wingmen, but there’s also the hiking friends and the people you meet up with for coffee and dinner. There’s social clubs that engage in rock climbing, language exchanges, and weekend excursions. There are foreigner newspapers and web-pages you can contribute to; foreigner radio stations; and volunteering at an orphanage for the charitably minded. No matter the kind of person you are, you’re going to make some fabulous friends in South Korea.
There are social clubs that engage in rock climbing, language exchanges, and weekend excursions. There are foreigner newspapers and web-pages you can contribute to; foreigner radio stations; and volunteering at an orphanage for the charitably minded. No matter the kind of person you are, you’re going to make some fabulous friends in South Korea.
There are foreigner newspapers and webpages you can contribute to; foreigner radio stations; and volunteering at an orphanage for the charitably minded. No matter the kind of person you are, you’re going to make some fabulous friends in South Korea.
Some may only be friends for as long as you’re in the country, but others will be the kind of people you visit in their home country a decade after you last parted ways.
I’ll be up front – South Korea isn’t the best place to teach English if you’re looking to save money, but it’s a damn side easier to save money there than it would be living a comparable lifestyle back home.
The average pay rate of $1,500 to $2500 a month isn’t particularly exorbitant, but with your rent being paid by your employer, a low tax rate, and a ridiculously low cost of living – chances are you’ll be able to put aside over half of every monthly pay check to go towards student loans or credit card debts.
Saving up for a big trip after your contract done is easy as well, and the low cost of travel within Korea means you can still do some exploring without blowing your budget.
It took me a long time to narrow down this list to just ten things, but the one that was never in doubt was the reason that I am so glad I went. I arrived in Korea as a naive country boy with no real life experience and low self esteem. I left having made some amazing friends, learned a great deal about myself, and having a laundry list of unforgettable experiences to carry with me.
If you’re at work and thinking that you can be doing more with your life – I urge you to consider taking the plunge.
There’s the challenge of a new culture and meeting new people, but there’s the not small challenge of teaching English to children who don’t speak a great deal of it. Step into a classroom with a textbook you haven’t read and teach a bunch of students you’ve never met, and you’ll know you’ve earned your pay check. It’ll be trying sometimes, and you’ll have kids you just can’t stand – but I guarantee you’ll be sad to leave them when the year is done.
And sure, the moment where you realize you’re a few thousand miles from home and don’t speak a scrap of Korean is terrifying. I won’t lie. I cried myself to sleep the first night I was in Korea after an hour of battling with the phone in an attempt to phone home. There will be days when you hate every single thing about Korea and swear you’d give it all up for just one comfort from home. You’ll miss your friends back home and in some cases, you’ll realize that you weren’t so unhappy at home after all.
But you’ll never know if you don’t take the risk, and I’d say that 99 times out of 100, you won’t regret it.
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So there you have it, my ‘case’ for teaching in Korea. I loved it so much that I’m headed back next year, and that’s a big endorsement from a guy who can’t stand still for more than a few minutes without getting antsy.
Want to know more? I’ve written a detailed guide on how to find a job in South Korea.
The one where I watch the sun set over the Grand Canyon; fall in love with idyllic Flagstaff; eat greasy foods at the Arizona State Fair; sample deep fried crickets; marvel at a freakishly large cow; and befriend a Rottweiler by the name of Harley.
Fallon and I’s reasons for visiting Phoenix were three fold, really. The most obvious of these was for a chance to see the Grand Canyon. While my six week United States journey couldn’t possibly have hit every major landmark on the continent – it would have been criminal of me not to see the Grand Canyon in all of its….uh…. grandness.
Then there was the small matter of attending a real American style County Fair. While Australia does have them under a different name (we call them ‘Shows’ which is short for agricultural show) – I’d grown up seeing county fairs on television and in movies. While I certainly didn’t expect a tractor pull or a blossoming romance with a girl in overalls, I was still excited about a chance to see the fair as I’d always imagined it.
And finally, although definitely not the least of our reasons, was that two of Fallon’s best and oldest friends just happened to live there. With Fallon moving to Australia to live with me in January of 2010 – it would be a good chance for her to catch up with some of her best friends.
So, there’s your set-up. Now for the story.
We touched down in Phoenix late in the afternoon, and Fallon’s good friend Krishelle picked us up on her way home from work. While it was Fall and Idaho had already begun to take on the chill that would only deepen as winter drew nearer – Phoenix was hot and dry. Unlike a lot of the large cities I’d seen in the United States and South Korea – Phoenix is just one big sprawl, as if being close to the ground helps to disperse the heat of the Arizona desert.
We arrived at Krishelle’s condo and were greeted by a bit of a terrifying sight. I’ve never been a dog person, and I’ve certainly never been comfortable with big dogs – so to see a hulking Rottweiler racing down the stairs as we entered was almost enough to have me turning tale and heading back to the car.
I guess a lot of it has to do with the breed’s reputation, so my face was just a little red when I came to realize what a darling Harley was. Not only was he affectionate and friendly – but he would have had to have been the best trained dog I had ever seen. And smart! You couldn’t even spell the word ‘treat’ without him going crazy. But you could leave food on the table and he wouldn’t even approach it without your permission. Such a sweetie, and a bit of a micro-example of how it’s best not to judge a book by its cover. A valuable lesson for travelers!
We spent our first night in Arizona hanging out with Fallon’s friends and eating copious amounts of candy. There was a fantastic sushi dinner in there too.
The next day rolled around with Fallon and I up bright and early to meet our hire car. Before too long we were nudging our way out of Phoenix’s early morning traffic and spreading our legs on the road towards the Grand Canyon. The terrain was the stuff of Wild West lore and had I know how close we were to legendary locales such as Tombstone, I’d probably have requested a detour.
Over the course of our five hour drive we began to ascend into the mountains and the terrain changed drastically. Gone were the rolling hills with their mantles of cacti and low grass, and we were soon in the midst of a hazy pine forest. The our outside had gone from oven hot to afternoon cool, and it was hard to believe we were still in the same state.
We flew through Flagstaff and went directly to the Grand Canyon. It was a surreal feeling to be approaching this place I never imagined I’d be, and the anticipation only grew as we wend our way through the woods that separate the parking lots and buildings from the canyon proper.
To say I was awestruck doesn’t do the Grand Canyon justice. The word ‘grand’ wasn’t merely attached to it to attract tourists. It’s just… I’m not sure I could do it justice. It stunned me into silence for a moment and if you know me, that’s no mean feat. Rather than try to capture the sheer size and colour of it – here are some photos. They do paint a thousand words, after all.
We spent a few hours wandering the rim of the canyon and snapping off hundreds of photos, pausing occasionally to pose beside a particularly interesting tree or in front of a breathtaking vista. The latter certainly weren’t in short supply. In the few hours we were there we only managed to see a fraction of the park, and that was with the aid of buses. I’d love to go back someday and explore the canyon more thoroughly. Perhaps even take one of the legendary donkey rides down to the floor.
We took a moment to explore one of the information centres on site, and then it was time to stake out a good spot to snap some sunset photographs. You can see one of them above, but we really didn’t have the position to really capture it. Another thing to add to my bucket list.
With full bladders and empty stomachs, we piled back into the car and headed back toward Flagstaff. The air had turned bitterly cold and, stubborn fool that I am, I had declined to bring a jacket for the walking. Suffice to say I was regretting my lack of foresight on the ride home.
Our night in Flagstaff was a pleasant one. We had dinner at the Beaver Street Brewery. I sampled their Bramble Berry Brew and Fallon, the Heff lover that she is, couldn’t resist a chance to try another Hefeweizen. I really enjoyed the berry beer, although it’s definitely something probably more aimed at drinkers of the female variety. Gwangju readers might have tried the strawberry beer at Songs. This was a bit better than that. Dinner was some pretty good Mexican food (by my humble tastes – Fallon is far harder to impress on that front). If we hadn’t been so tired we might have stuck around a little longer – there were pool tables and even a Wii set up to entertain the patrons.
Our plan for the next day had been to get up early and drive back out to the canyon to catch it in the half light of morning, which fellow photographers will know to be a fantastic time to get good shots. Laziness won out over our artistic aspirations, so instead we spent our morning exploring Flagstaff – which has got to be one of the cutest towns I’ve had the pleasure of visiting. Compared to the rootin’ tootin’ stereotypes you associate with the rest of Arizona, Flagstaff is this wonderfully off-beat little hippie town up in the mountains. There were craft stores and book stores all over the place, and the entire vibe of the place put me in mind of a Byron Bay or Nimbin back in Australia. Definitely a place I’d love to visit again if time allowed.
With our car due back in Phoenix by 6pm and one last stop to make, we left Flagstaff earlier than either of us would have liked. Our sole pit-stop on the way home was another canyon, albeit one a little less famous than its colossal neighbour. Walnut Creek Canyon is known for the many cave dwellings that were built in it by Native Americans centuries ago. It’s a testament to their ingenuity (and the outstanding efforts of Arizona State Parks) that many of these dwellings are still present today.
Exploring the box canyon, it was easy to imagine how vibrant it must have been when it was still inhabited. By day the winding trails that hugged the cliff-face would have been lifelines between the many humble dwellings that the locals called home. I could almost imagine children racing around in the shady groves on the canyon floor while their parents labored higher up to erect a new wall or find a meal for the evening. By night, when fires were lit, the twinkling across the canyon must have been truly beautiful.
We spent an hour and a half wandering the trails and exploring the dwellings, and were lucky enough to spend a good half hour discussing the site (as well as fantasy novels) with a very helpful volunteer ranger on the site. It was a fascinating glimpse into Native American history, and while it wasn’t the Sioux or Apache that some of us might have studied in school – I felt like I had learned more in that brief brush with their culture than I did in an entire term of classroom learning.
I felt truly humbled to stand on the same ground that a Native American family might once have slept and taken their meals on. The soot stained roofs were a testament to how long they had been called home, and it was every bit as moving as I’d imagine standing in the Parthenon might feel. It’s a shame more of the Native American culture isn’t known, because it is truly fascinating what they had achieved.
After the truly painful trek back up out of the canyon (one I would not recommend to the elderly or the overweight) – it was time to head back to Phoenix via the infamous Route 66. And, tourists being tourists, we pulled the car over and posed just to show we’d been there.
The last hurrah of our Arizona trip would be an excursion to the Arizona State Fair, and I was particularly excited after a friend of mine from South Korea trekked all the way up from New Mexico to take part in the fun. Tim, one of the wingmen I paid testament to in yesterday’s entry, brought along his beautiful fiancé (and now wife) Chloe to join the fun.
The price for parking might have been exorbitant, but we recouped it by getting into the fair at a discounted rate thanks to some kindly locals letting us get in on the back of a 2 for 1 promotion they’d found a loop-hole in. Something about a receipt from Home Depot being required, and Home Depot selling $1 bottles of Coke.
I’ve been to a number of fairs in Australia, the most notable of which is Sydney’s Royal Easter Show, but this was like an Australian show on steroids. The crowd was massive and so too was the selection of rides and food to be had. With Fallon not a huge fan of carnival rides, our night’s budget was instead set aside for trying as much greasy and potentially lethal carnival food as humanly possible. We tried the traditional things such as Indian fry bread and funnel cake, and then Chloe and I branched out and tried something a little different.
I’ve eaten some strange things in my life: writhing raw octopus tentacles, silkworm larvae, and the humble Witchetty Grub to name a few. The challenge set out by the aptly named ‘I Ate the Bug’ stall was too much for me to refuse. I stepped up and confidently ordered some deep fried grasshoppers to munch on and was promptly served two of the unfortunate creatures (with a dab of chocolate sauce) in a plastic cup. They were… disappointing. They had the consistency of badly burned and dried out toast, and the taste was not particularly remarkable.
Not to be outdone, Chloe stepped up and ordered the chocolate coated scorpion instead. After a lot of goading from the gathering crowd, she coolly slipped the creepy crawler into her mouth and chewed it.
“Tastes like Vodka,” she informed us, which might have something to do with the fact they’re preserved in alcohol before being dipped in chocolate and served up.
The sole other real highlight of the fair was a visit to a ‘freak animals’ show, which basically consisted of various abnormally large animals including a pig with enormous testacles, a cow, a horse, and an alligator that looked like a light snack for an Australian saltwater crocodile. But here’s the cow, for your viewing pleasure.
The remainder of our night consisted of more food, some grossly overpriced Budweiser, and the eventual feelings of sickness and guilt over having eaten so much greasy food. Our final day in Phoenix was a bit of a special occasion, and Fallon whipped up a batch of fantastic dak galbi to go with the kimchi and Hite that Tim had brought along. Our Korean feast was accompanied by a UFC PPV, and then it was time for a bunch of goodbyes.
Our trip to Arizona was done, and while I didn’t get to visit the OK Corral or ride a donkey down to the floor of the Grand Canyon, I did plenty of other memorable things. And now I’ve just got an excuse to visit again someday!
It wasn’t until the rise of Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother that the wingman began to get the credit it had long been due. What is a wingman?
Urban Dictionary defines it as a guy you bring along with you to singles outings who helps you out with women. I guess, at its most basic level, that is a pretty accurate description of a wingman. A good wingman definitely does help you meet and potentially seduce a woman of the female variety.
But there’s more to being a good wingman than simply tapping a girl on the shoulder and shoving her in the direction of your bemused friend.
A good wingman has his friend’s (hereafter referred to as a ‘bro’) interests at heart in all things. It’s not just about finding a girl for your single friend to talk to – it’s about protecting him from undesirable attention; keeping him from getting tangled up with an ex girlfriend; making sure he has a drink in his hand; and ensuring he’s never left to sing at karaoke on his own.
I talked about Dean in my last entry – and he was most definitely the first guy I recognized as my wingman. For a few weeks in South Korea, the Podgestar was the guy who bugged me to come out on a weekend and shoved me in the right direction – which just happened to be away from my ex girlfriend.
But there had been good wingmen before him. My housemate and good friend Dave had saved me from the attempted seduction of a neighbor on several occasions by luring my drunken ass into the house with the promise of two minute noodles. An old high school friend, Magro, had once piloted me and a single female friend of his onto the same couch and instructed us to make out to great effect. And my housemate immediately before Korea, Ben, was one of the people who pushed hardest for me to quit my job in retail and take the plunge in Korea.
I’m not sure if girls have a similar kind of friend. I’d be interested to find out. Are there wingwomen out there who protect their friends from undesirables, point out eligible bachelors, and keep the cosmopolitans flowing? Inquiring minds want to know!
But back on topic.
A wingman is a particularly valuable thing to have when abroad. When there’s a language barrier to be dealt with, sometimes it takes two or even three guys to have a coherent conversation with that pretty Korean girl at the bar. When there’s only so many bars to choose from in the city – it’s the company rather than the venue that makes for a good night out. And whether they’re plying you with drinks at the local haunt or encouraging you to hop a train to Seoul at the absolute last minute so that you’ll have a fun story to tell the next night – they’re the guys who ensure that no one weekend is like the one before it.
In my last year in Korea I was lucky enough to have not one but three wingmen of the highest caliber. Paul ‘Pope’ Bishop, Jamie ‘Sorbet’ Corbett, and Brad ‘Stinson’ Andrews were the guys who got me motivated to suit up in true Stinson style, learn a new karaoke number to belt out, and scrape together my spare change so I could afford one last whiskey and Coke.
Jamie and Paul were the engineers of the spontaneous Seoul junket on which we were propositioned by prostitutes in an empty Russian bar. They were the guys who tagged along with me to a random party at the home of a girl I hardly knew. I met Fallon that night. They were the ones who dragged me to smoky Korean night clubs and smacked some sense into me when I was pining over an ex rather than paying attention to the girl right in front of me.
Getting into a relationship and doing a different kind of traveling meant that my wingmen took a back-seat, and it’s only a year on that I realize how important good wingmen are to a good time.
It’s a good wingman who arranges a bachelor party pub crawl of Sydney’s oldest pubs. It’s a good wingman who pushes another beer in front of you just as you’re eying your empty wallet.
So this is a tribute to the wingman. A tribute to the guy who shouts you drinks or the guy who asks ‘Have you met Chris?’ This one’s a slap on the back to the guy who rushes across the bar when Tenacious D’s Fuck Her Gently begins to play or who is on hand with their best scary look when some drunk clown decides you’ve offended him. He’s the one who offers to pay your fine for reckless littering.
In two and a half months I’ll be without my best friend for the first time in nearly two years. And then it’ll be time for me to find a wingman again. The bar has been set pretty high.
Lads, I salute you!
I can’t pin-point the exact moment that I fell in love with travelling. The first six months of my time in South Korea had been packed with moments that might have been triggers along my road to wanderlust.
There were drunken nights out that only ended when the sun came up and the money ran out. There’d been visits to fog shrouded temples and wind-swept beaches. There’d been first kisses and drunken 4am KTX rides and my first brush with real snow.
But as I bobbed in the warm water of the Yellow Sea and marveled at the fireworks blossoming overhead like fiery flowers, I experienced my first real awareness of just how much I loved my life. It was one of those surreal moments in which you are completely aware of everything that is going on around you – yet at the same time you’re above it all marveling at the fact it’s happening to you.
The crowd of foreigners back on the beach had become a low murmur of noise punctuated occasionally by a crack overhead, and the lap of dark water around and below me was a soothing backdrop to it all.
It was at that moment that I realized just how far I’d come and just how lucky I’d been to be there. A year earlier I’d been in my cold bedroom in Glen Innes playing World of WarCraft while Channel [V] blasted generic pop into my room. The house outside of my room would be empty while my housemate was out drinking. I worked a job I basically slept through, had no social life, and couldn’t foresee a bright future ahead.
A year on I was on the other side of the world recovering from what I thought was heart-break but what was, in hindsight, little more than a mild bruising. Somewhere off in the darkness to my right, Dean and a few other foreigners were horsing around. The splashes of their drunken wrestling eventually brought me out of my mini coma and back into the moment.
I can’t think of the moment that sealed it for me or the moment that I realized this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life – but I do remember that moment well. The moment that I realized that all the break-ups, bad days at work, and financial worries didn’t matter. I was doing what I loved, and it would always be there for me to do.
The sun was barely over the horizon and I shivered as I approached Gwangju’s bus terminal. It was the jumping off point for a great many adventures during my two years in South Korea, and on this particular morning I was met by Rebecca, Cass, Tracey, Brenda, Zaid, and Dean. I hadn’t told them I was coming – having only decided to ignore my cold and tag along at around 4am the night before.
“Stay away from me,” Rebecca, ever the sensitive soul, warned, “I don’t want what you’ve got”.
Zaid took charge as soon as all of us were there, leading us to the departure gate and guiding us onto the bus that would take us to the biggest party of the foreigner year. Boryeong’s Mud Festival, regardless of what it might have been founded for, had become the yearly equivalent to a drunken orgy for sex and sun starved foreigners across the Land of the Morning Calm. It would have been criminal to miss it.
Zaid’s ‘short cut’ proved to be anything but, and we stepped out of the bus four hours after we’d boarded it – seeing people who had left two hours after us. It was a scorching hot day, possibly one of the hottest of the year, and I was relieved to see I wasn’t the only one sweating like crazy by the time we had collected our bags and made our way out into the streets.
I imagine Boryeong is almost a ghost town most of the year. Its streets on this particular weekend were clogged with people making their way down to the festival. After six months of relatively cool Gwangju weather and modestly dressed Korean women, it was a veritable feast of flesh as girls from all over the country took the opportunity to squeeze into their bikinis and soak up some sun.
I was fresh off a break-up with a certain South African girl and, as fate would have it, her group of fellow South Africans was the first group of foreigners we encountered. In a city swarming with drunken merry-makers from across the peninsula, it seemed a tad cruel that we bump into her right away.
Still, I had good friends at my side and the entire beach to lose myself in, so I didn’t let it get to me as we began to search for a place to say in earnest. Minbaks are essentially rooms you rent to sleep on the floor. The good ones will offer up pillows and blankets and even a kitchen – the cheap ones it’s just a pillow and a sheet or two.
We looked at the good ones, decided that our money would be better spent on alcohol, and instead settled for a ramshackle shack not too far from the beach. The bigger and cleaner room had already been claimed by a Korean family, and so we six settled into a much smaller side room. We hadn’t come all this way to sleep though, and so we dropped off our stuff and changed into our swimming gear before heading out to tackle the city.
Rumbling stomachs warranted a pit-stop at a tent restaurant – the kind that seem to spring up in empty lots across the country. We gathered around a table and ordered a round of ice cold Hite and some BBQed eel. The waiters assured is, in broken English, that these were good for ‘men’s stamina’.
It wasn’t a fancy meal, but it hit the spot. BBQed eel wrapped in moist lettuce leaves and garnished with garlic, samcheong (bean paste), and various seasoned vegetables ensured we had the energy required for the day of drunken debauchery that lay ahead of us.
Our first stop of the day was a body painting stand. The Boryeong mud isn’t regular mud – but the kind women pay good money to have lathered onto their skin in hopes it will decrease signs of aging and all that jazz. Dean and I, not being particularly concerned with skin care, were far more interested in making muddy hand prints on the backsides and chests of our female traveling companions.
While Rebecca sunned herself on the beach, the rest of us got into an impromptu dance and drinking circle with a bunch of middle aged Korean men. Being a hairy and slightly chubby guy, I was a source of particular amusement to them – but by this point I’d already consumed 1.5 liters of watery Korean beer and my self esteem issues were a distant second to my rising urge to find a place to pee.
Dean and I soon discovered that the best place to relieve ourselves was the aptly named Yellow Sea, and so made our way out beyond the swimmers and found suitably isolated patches to do our business. Korean lifesavers, whose ability to swim I learned to seriously doubt, waved frantically at us to come back in lest we be swept out into the sea by the tame current and waist high waves. Maybe it’s just an Australian thing to be completely comfortable in the ocean – but neither of us was particularly intimidated by the conditions.
Our seedier business done, Dean and I returned to apply more mud to ourselves before the girls collected us to do some actual sight-seeing. This basically entailed pushing our way through the crowd choked foreshore street and glancing briefly at various market stalls ranging from completely out of place (farming supplies) to delightfully Korean (colored mud for girls to paint themselves with).
After six months of being excited to spot a glimpse of white skin in a crowded street, it was almost overwhelming to be so surrounded by fellow waygookin (Korean for foreigner or stranger). US servicemen on ATVs revved their way through the crowd while pasty English girls in bikinis teetered around on the slippery streets. A loud group of South African guys wrestled over a half full bottle of Cass, while a couple of Americans threw a pigskin around down on the beach.
Dean and I soon lost the rest of our group, but didn’t find it hard to make friends on a beach full of drunk people. After a quick game of touch football on the hot sand, we again hit the water and floated out beyond the breakers with a wonderfully buoyant bottle of beer by our sides. Before too long the sun was again beginning to bake our skin, and the sight of a few mud wrestling pits farther up the beach lured us back in to the shore.
We met up with the girls once again and headed back to our Minbak via Lotteria (a Korean burger chain that birthed my post drinks obsession – the European Frico Cheese). While the girls took turns cleaning their feet in the cold shower, a few of us were invited into the larger of the two rooms by the Korean man whose family was staying there. He had us sit in a circle and pass around soju to shot. Before too long we were well into our second bottle of the potent spirit and munching on his offerings of dried fish and prawn flavoured chips. It was a surreal, ‘I love Korea’ inspiring moment. All the while we drank and acted like idiots – his kids were locked in the back room and shouted at if they dared poke their heads out to sneak a peak at the half dressed and very inebriated foreigners.
After saying our goodbyes, it was time to once again hit the streets.
On the way we met a chubby Canadian girl who we dubbed Irish (she had shamrocks on her bikini top) – who insisted we smear mud all over her. She then attempted to lure us back to her minbak by plying us with free beer, but we discretely lost her in the crowd and went off in search of less intimidating game.
We eventually came upon a pair of girls from Seoul who were to become our companions for the remainder of the day. The sun had gone down and the beach took second place to the main stage that dominated the foreshore. K-Pop bands began to play and a crowd began to form on the steps to dance and drink.
Not long after that the heat and the mud necessitated another visit to the ocean, and I was still out there when the fireworks began and the realization that life was pretty damn good settled over me.
The rest of the night was a pleasant blur. A kiss with a pretty new girl, chatting with new friends, and finally creeping back into our minbak in the wee hours to snatch what little shut-eye we could. In a room crowded with foreigners and without air conditioning, that proved to be very little. I was still a bleary eyed (and very hungover) mess the following morning when it was time to stagger back to the bus and ride back to Gwangju.
That afternoon was the afternoon of the greatest shower I ever had. You can read more about that one in my Ode to the Shower.
We tried to recapture the wild, crazy magic of the Mud Festival the very next weekend – Dean and I journeying back down to meet up with our new Scottish and American pals. There was more drinking; the invention of the Mudfest Mudslide (soju mixed with a cookies & cream milkshake in a bag); my vomiting out of a fifth floor window; an argument I don’t remember; a shower I definitely do; and a criminally expensive minbak that we didn’t even end up sleeping in after finding a more comfortable patch of carpet in somebody else’s room.
It was an eventful weekend. A fun one. But it wasn’t a patch on that first Mudfest weekend.
I’d had a great many adventures in Korea already that year, and the not too distant future held my trip to China and a slew of trips to Seoul. But Mudfest 2008, even two years on, still stands out as one of the best times I had in my life – and the first time I realized just how much I loved the randomness that only travel (and a healthy dose of alcohol and spontaneity) can bring.
Can you remember the moment or experience that prompted you to fall head over heels with travel?
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