Barefoot and Pregnant

The best part of last week in my opinion was Sunday. Mother's day. For my first Mother's Day, I wanted to do something really fun. I found out about a Barefoot Festival going on in Daejeon. Debra used to live in Daejeon, so she knows the area really well. So she decided to come with us. It was quite a journey to get there. We got up about 5am, traveled by bus to the subway station to take the train to the bus terminal. The train was late, so we missed our bus. We took the next bus, ended up at the wrong place to catch the shuttle to the mountain. We did find 3 very helpful Korean campus police at the University. We used their computer to show them where we wanted to go, and they decided that we could get a cab there easily. They argued over which way to tell the cab driver to go, then started calling cab companies. The whole time, there were cabs driving by on the road outside. They finally realized this, and 2 of them ran outside to catch one. No more came, so one of the guys jumped into his tiny campus police car and drove away. He came back a minute later with a cab following him. They put us in the cab and told the driver where to take us.

30 minutes later, we were at the mountain. We started walking (UP the mountain) to the festival. We came to a set of booths where people were registering and getting numbers for the marathon. They told us to just keep walking. We came to another set of booths, and they told us to keep walking. We came to ANOTHER set of booths, and they held our backpacks for us, but told us to keep walking. Finally we came to a booth that said "Foreigner Information". There, they just gave us some numbers. They didn't want to deal with trying to get us to fill out registration forms. Hehe. So we pinned on our numbers as they photographed us. Then we set out for the starting line. We were going to be walking the 5k. There was also a harder, 13k. And yes, it was all barefoot. So we walked along through the forest. It was beautiful. A nice warm, sunny day. About 3/4ths of the way along, there was a large inflatable pool filled with mud. There was a crowd of Koreans stomping around in it, so we decided to do that on the way back. We got to the 2.5k turnaround point, where they were handing out chocopies. They had just run out though. So we found a shady spot and sat to eat our fruit. We had brought watermelon, oranges, grapes, and apple. Then we headed back down. Justin and I were excited about getting all muddy!! Debra was not too thrilled about the idea, but was too tempted anyway. The Koreans took so many photos! There were stealth photographers in the bushes!

Once we got back to the bottom, we were handed a snack of vitamin C drink and rice cakes. Then as a finishing prize, they were handing out gift boxes of Soju. Soju is the very alcoholic rice liquor. They even handed one to me!! We had to get a picture of that one. There was entertainment including breakdancing and women in schoolgirl outfits pretending to play stringed instruments. We took that as a cue to leave. We caught the shuttle back into town, and headed over to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. It was a real Chinese restaurant too. Not American Chinese, not Korean Chinese. It even had Chinese writing on it. I was not too into the food. I was really hoping for some chicken, but the dish they said had chicken in it turned out to be pork. It wasn't too bad though. They are most famous for their lamb skewers. There is a grill set into the table, they put the burning coals into it and you cook your own skewers over it. Then they give you a saucer with coarse salt, curry powder, ajwain (parsley) seeds, and chili powder in it. You mix them all together and roll your meat in it before you eat it. I am NOT a fan of lamb, so I spit it out as soon as it was in my mouth. Everyone else seemed to enjoy it though.

After dinner, we made the long trek home. Justin got on a train heading towards Osan (he had to work the next day). Debra and I got on a bus back to Incheon. We actually didn't get home that late, considering the day we had. I had a nice long bath and slept very well. I didn't have any soreness at all the next day! All I had was a couple blisters from wearing my flip flops up the mountain! I'm just made to be barefoot though. Justin and Debra didn't have it so easy. They got pretty sore. It was a great day. Looks like we have a tradition developing!

Ok, I've gotta get going! Gonna get over to that market, then we have class tonight! Yay!

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