Hadong Weekend

It was a good weekend for a trip. Monday March 1st is a Korean national holiday commemorating some massacre by the Japanese during an independence protest. So it was a three day weekend. The only downside was that I had to fight off and party through a mild cold.

Magnifying the festiveness was the first full moon of the new lunar year. It seems the country people put extra zeal into their pagan rituals celebrating such events. In a rice field near Hadong there was a bbq buffet free for all to come and enjoy. Grilled pork (same part of the pig that bacon comes from, but uncured) and some of the best mushrooms I've ever had, soup and kimchi, as well as all the soju and green tea you cared to drink. There were some traditional drum dancers to liven the mood, then, at the strike of moonrise, they set light to a gigantic 10m tall bamboo bonfire. It's a fun way to start the night.

It was great to see all my old friends from town. Saturday I hung out with David, the English guy. Not much has changed for him, but he is planning on moving to Busan at the end of his contract in May. His 3 1/2 year old son is as cute as ever, but at that age where he has learned just enough language that you wish he hadn't sometimes.

I spent the rest of the weekend hanging out with my Korean friends. Jaesik and Sooyeon got married in December and sold their sandwhich shop. She's pregnant already, but maybe there are some complications: her doctor told her to stay home and rest. I'm not clear what's going on, but I didn't get to see too much of them. I heard through the grapevine that also newly married and pregnant is a girl who, at the time, I felt unfortunate to have met so close to the end of my contract last summer ..

Hanging out (and drinking excessively) with my Korean buddies was certainly fun. I got a much better feel for my current language skills as well. For the most part one on one conversations would be conducted in a mix of Korean and English, but in a larger group I could follow the flow, if not all the details, of the Korean conversation but I found myself chiming in in English more and more as time went on. I want to think that this was just to maintain the tempo of the conversation, but maybe I was also suffering language fatigue trying to keep up, and maybe I new having to listen to a little English would slow them down a bit. Anyway, overall it was one of those things that lets you feel proud of how far you've come while still just making you realize how far you've yet to go.