Valeuf^Korea

First week-end in Seoul

I did not really had time to enjoy Seoul since I am in Korea. Indeed, when I arrived from the airport, I was quite destroy by the time-gap, and moreover I had to go to the bank, buy a cellphone and so ... I could only act that, Seoul is an incredible huge city, with many many people and not for the agoraphobic people. (Or they are going to die with the numerous aggressive neon sign and the compact crowd who push you wherever you go).

So I was going to enjoy a good week-end in Seoul, but it is really short a week-end. Only 48 hours ... The Saturday I could only go to the hairdresser with my pretty translator. It was quite fun, the hairdressing salon was quite old, completely messed-up. There was the hairdresser, a woman about 45 years old with curly hair (probably not natural in Korea). And another old woman, probably the mother of the hairdresser. Like the pure Confucianism tradition (the kids should take care of their parents when they are too old to work) ! I should transcript a part of the dialog which happens some minutes after I arrived.

-- Where is he coming  from ? (said the hairdresser)
-- From France !
-- Oh really ? I have a dog from France too. I lost him yesterday ...

But the true adventure of this week-end was probably the festival I visited Sunday. It was a kind of "lunar festival". As in our Judeo-Christian culture, Korean people need some excuse to get together. So the excuse was : "let's go celebrate the biggest full moon of the lunar year". Well, I still do not understand why we celebrate this kind of events, but I have to say it was really fun.

It was aside a small river with no many water at this period of the year. (So few water as we could cross it by foot). The main activity was to play with fire. Particularly there was many kid who was playing with fire (that is really bad). You put fire in a small iron container, and you have to do round around of you (as you can see on the picture).

First : do not do like me : check if there is no a small kid hidden behind of you otherwise you are probably going to burn him. (Well, it is also a fun activity)
Second : do not do like me : give a lot of speed to the container, due to this crappy inertia the fire will fall on you if you did not give enough speed.

After that there was a kind of big bundle with many paper put on it. The main purpose of this was to write your wishes on the paper and put this on the bundle. Later during the evening, they are going to burn the bundle. But before you have to listen the different local politics men. It was quite fun to see that almost no Korean was carrying the talking.

Something less fun was the security. In my whole life, I never see a festival with no security like it was. Especially in France, we care a lot (too much) about security, and sometimes we have so stupid law or rules. But here, it was the extreme opposite. Nobody was carrying about. It was quite unbelievable. There was no any fireman. They launched the fireworks over the public (but there was a river just behind !), and the rockets was started from the dry grass. So naturally a small firer happens !

Anyway, nobody die here (but there is some death in the south of the country due to a similar festival ...). So I could walk arround, and try to hunt the spirit too ! During my visit, I was really looking as an UFO ! It was really not common to see a foreigner here (in the heart of Seoul ...). An old-timer talked to me in Korean, I almost understood nothing, but it was keeping talking ... And he finally hug me ... (I could smell alcohol at this time). Even a local TV would like to interview me... As Obelix always say : There are crazy ... (but so nice ...).