A Twirling Marvel

Busan Firework Festival

Nate and I just arrived back in Ulsan after a raucous weekend in Busan during which we saw the Busan fireworks festival, celebrated Halloween, and pre-celebrated Danielle's birthday. Quite tired and hungry, we headed to a small noodle restaurant in the Ulsan University area. But first, a bit about the weekend.

The annual firework festival draws a croud in the thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, and is located on Gwaghali Beach in Busan. Similar to New Years in Times Square in New York, we reserved our spot on the beach around 2PM even though the fireworks did not start until 8PM, and I'm glad we got there so early. To cut right to the chase, as the beach got more and more filled with people, the night began to set in, and as the night began to set in, unfortunately, so did some rain clouds, and about 30 minutes into the show, I, as well as the rest of the group I was with, decided to hustle our chilled and sand-covered selves to the nearest place of refuge which just so happened to be a fried chicken shop called "The Frypan." Wearing my Halloween costume, or rather, the costume my friends bought me and the one with which they surprised me (a polar bear hat, a pink fuzzy tiara, an adult sized diaper and pacifier, and a magic wand), soaking wet, covered head to toe in sand, quite buzzed from our libations, and not having eaten in hours, the approximately 8 of us polished off 4 or 5 platters of fried chicken, and probably left an equivalent or greater amount of weight in sand on the floor of the restaurant. At the end of the whole ordeal, my costume diaper was too soggy to stay on any longer (thankfully I was wearing shorts underneath), so I excused myself to the restroom, tore off the diaper, returned to the table at which point everyone was splitting the bill, and a few minutes later was again walking in the rain, but this time, we were headed to the subway station and eventually to some bars to continue to celebrate Halloween and Danielle's birthday. At the last minute I decided to detour to my hotel in order to change before going to the bars. However, my detour turned into me feeling too cozy in my warm dry clothes and thus, I did not make it to any more bars.

The next morning, and keep in mind this is all hearsay to me, I was told that a person (who shall remain unnamed) was apparently streaking down the main street where all the bars were located. Though there are apparently pictures, I've yet to see them, and frankly, I don't want to.

In any case, a couple of the bar goers had put their bags in a locker in a subway station during the previous night, and now, quite hung over and tired were beginning the task of retracing their steps in order to find their bags. Though at first I decided to tag along on the journey (it reminded me of the movie "Dude, Where's My Car, or the more recent "Hangover #1"), at the last minute Nate and I decided to head home, and once arriving in Ulsan decided to get a bite at a small noodle restaurant.

As we were sitting at the table waiting for our food, the girls next to us received their dishes first. One had ordered some sort of fried pork cutlet, and the other, to our great surprise, ordered spaghetti with cheese and sauce. You see, noodles are quite common here, but I'm talking about Udon, or Ramen, or anything but spaghetti, so the heaping pile of spaghetti coated in red sauce and heaping with melted cheese caught both of our attention. More over, when the girl reached for a FORK and began to TWIRL it in the pile, both of our jaws hit the ground. And just as we were about to drool, the girl gave both of us a glance as to say "What, you've never seen a Korean use a fork?" and we realized that we were both rudely staring. On second thought, maybe we weren't rudely staring, but rather were just staring in the same way so many Koreans stare at us when we use chopsticks. Either way, Nate and I instantly realized the comic value of what had just happened, somewhat embarrassed stopped staring at the girl, and resume our conversation.

I guess two things struck me about the whole crazy weekend. First, when I was on the beach in Busan watching the fireworks, though by my American standards my personal-bubble had been popped about 50 times over, I didn't at all mind, and two, when I was back in Ulsan at the noodle restaurant, I caught myself marveling at a girl twirling spaghetti on a fork. The reason I mention these two seemingly insignificant parts of my weekend is because in retrospect, I think they are quite significant. They are significant because they are proof positive that my perspective is changing. They are proof that my sense of tolerable and intolerable, that my sense of normal and abnormal are shifting and changing and causing my entire orientation to the world to be different.

I've been in South Korea for just about 2.5 months at this point, and if you asked me, before I took this moment to write this post, "Seth, do you think you have changed at all by being in South Korea" I would have likely answered in the negative. However, I'm coming to realize that the changes I have already experienced and the ones I anticipate I will experience may not be as fundamental and drastic as I had imagined they would be, but rather, I think they will be more subtle, more mild, more likely to go completely unnoticed unless I take the time to introspect. So, what does this all mean? I don't know quite yet. I'll have to think about it for a while, and I suspect that I might not even realize all the subtle changes until I am back home and thus in a situation which may more starkly highlight such changes.

Hmmm...now I've got myself thinking. I wonder what other changes have taken place that are quite unnoticeable here in Korea but would be quite obvious back home.

Who knows, I think only time, and maybe the folks I interact with back home will be able to tell.