Monthly Archives: August 2013

Korea adventure – day # 24 – Mud festival

Week 34
Joensuu, Finland

On Wednesday July 24th we went to the mud festival in Boryeong city. So we needed to drive from Suwon – point A in the photo below – to Boryeong – point B. This driving offered us the possibility to see some of the Korean landscape.

Suwon to Boryeong

Location of Suwon (pont A ) and  Boryeong (point B)

Landscape from the highway,  view from the bus window

Landscape from the highway, view from the bus window

Honestly I was unsure of what to wear and what to expect. I read a couple of things on the internet related to the mud festival clarifying what it is, but still I was unsure about it. So let’s discover.

We arrived to the festival. The mud area, where are some games as well, is  behind the tends of the photo below.

Arrival to the festival

Arrival to the festival

Somehow everything looked “calmed” when we arrived. It was a still early, I assume, because when we left was more activity.

The festival area is large and  I heard that on the weekend is busy. However, with this amount of people was possible to enjoy the MUD.

Germany present!

Different view of the festival area – Germany present!

We had some time before we were able to get into the mud.  So, first we put our bags in the lockers.

Mud is the main event.

Entrance to the lockers room. As you see MUD is THE event.

Lockers

Temporal Lockers

Message in the lockers

Message – no idea what it says.

Afterwards we went to eat lunch. One post will be dedicated to Korean meals, it deserves a post on its own.  However here an intro.

lunch time

lunch time

It is fascinating that the grill is in the middle of the table!

After a good meal, we got ready to get into the mud as time was approaching and that meant start to put mud on ourselves. No photos as available from my camera, as mud is not good for cameras.

For the dress up, I decide use some OLD cut pants which were ready to send to the trash.  Those were advices from some websites I read.  However when I saw photos taken from us, I got surprised how I was brave enough to use them. OMG!

TIP: Use something that you will not be sad that will be destroyed, but still nice and comfortable. 

This photo was taken after I was in the mud,  while I was waiting for the busses for our return to Suwon.

This photo was taken after I was in the mud, while I was waiting for the busses for our return to Suwon.

The first thing I did was to slide on that blue slide (photo above, the slide of the left), and it was FUN. However, my grip with the surface was VERY poor, and that made me slower than normal. Before my next step I wanted to be sure I was stepping correctly. All was so slippery!  So, even that must games were competitive, my aim was to experience the event and I was with a great group of ladies to do that. 🙂

My second game was on a red pool, which was located on the right of the slides. The photo does not capture it, but I confess I had a BLAST! It was so good!!!! I had much fun, the idea was to make different activities in the pool, e.g. make pairs, make teams of five, etc. Those who were unsuccessful sat in the middle and at the end we wash them with mud, shortly afterwads revenge emerge and we were shower with the mud. It was much FUN and after this moment I was really IN the event.

Unfortunately no much photos are available, except of my shoes from the picture below. This is a type of event that I could try to explain it 10000….. times and the experience cannot be transmitted. One has to live it. Great fun!  

one of those are my shoes

one of those are my shoes

another view of the festival

another view of the festival

Note: however one has to be careful too, as it is easy to slip. We had one of our students hurt 🙁 

After play and get REALLY dirty! we took a shower and got ready to get back. Below some rice fields on our way back. A very nice trip.

Landscape on the way back to Suwon

Landscape on the way back to Suwon

Next, temple stay…

Korea adventure – day #20: Amusement park – Lotte World

Week 33
Somewhere on the train in Finland

Time just flew away and I was not able to post daily. Sometimes I was not online due to technical challenges, other times I needed to finalise work and other instances I needed to live intense off-line or actually RE-CHARGE so… no able to post.  However I am still commited to document the last weeks, so making use of my offline notes.

On Saturday July 20th we had programmed to go to Everland, however we did not go.  The Everland has attractive rides, for my taste,  and high-technology developments that I would have enjoyed to experienced. However, in these days was raining A LOT  and for the  20th  the forecast was rain, which means several rides in Everland would close while raining due to security. Consequently, the organising team of the summers school at OIA decided to take us to Lotte World 🙂

Lotte World is an amusement park in the middle of Seoul.  You can see in the photos below the HUGE buildings that surround the park.

Parking our busses at Lotte World

Parking our busses at Lotte World

Buildings surrounding Lotte World

Buildings surrounding Lotte World

The entrance is actually inside a building.

Entrance to Lotte World

Entrance to Lotte World

Personal side note: Those who know me are aware that I enjoy A LOT amusement parks and rollercoaster 🙂     Sadly, since I am a researcher in games my enjoyment capability has been spoiled for amusement parks  🙁  Particularly, when I am on my own exploring the park, aghrrrr! I am not pleased about this. Automatically, when I am exploring emerges an internal analyzing button! – it sounds as a line from the Avatar movie – But it is true, it has happened to me the last time I was in Disneyworld for example  🙁   However in Disney I was with my mom and she was FANTASTIC into bringing me down to the enjoyment world without analysis. 😉

In this day I get lost from my companionship, however the advantage that I have for enjoying Lotte World is that the park cannot be compared or analysed trivially. Most of the Lotte World is located indoors in a country where space is scarce! Thus, automatically one has another experience.

Park Outdoors

Park Outdoors

Park Indoors

Park Indoors

Utilising all possible space available

Utilising all possible space available

As predicted in the weather forecast in this day rained. Thus,  I spend most of my time indoors.  It is actually strange to be indoors in a amusement park and it took me some minutes to learn to navigate. It was as being inside a shopping mall, somehow. That is, we need to find the precise door, stairs, hallway, which might not be so big and obvious as in outdoors amusement parks.

where to go next?

where to go next?

Nevertheless, the novelty  allowed me to explore freely 😉  The following videos were taken with the intention to offer a “feeling” of the park from the top-most point, a ballon!

One thing is in common in ALL parks I have visited until today: lines are LONG. Thus, I could not get into all the rides as it is my utmost goal, however I think I did relatively well with the time available. The rides I did were:

One of the museums that were in my list to visit was the Trick and Eye Museum (here info in English) and by coincidence in the park was a selection of pieces from the exposition. So, playing while taking photos!  Well suited in Korea I must say. (Side note 2: I did not had the opportunity to go the museum, but I did not get so traumatised as due to have a little taste of the exposition in here. So, I start to make my list of places to visit the next time)

Taking photos

Visitors taking photos

Interesting perspectives

Interesting perspectives

Testing what would be a feeling to have if  my  piggy bank  would have the following content 😉

Visualising a future piggy bank :P

Visualising my  future piggy bank 😛

There was Korean food too 😉  as you can imagine rice was available! 🙂 However, one could see in the park unhealthy western food influence…. Please, dear Koreans, do not copy bad habits!

What do you want to eat?

What do you want to eat?

It is difficult to say what I like most of the visit. I would need to go back to actually decide 🙂  – It is a good excuse, right? –  The whole day was enjoyable and new for me, leaving a smile in my face! 🙂

Ok, I must confess there is a ride that supports my previous thoughts that the cinema and rollercoaster are converging, and that is the 4D Shooting Theater, just check the photo.

Preparing ourselves for the ride

Preparing ourselves for the ride

At difference to Disney 4D Toy Story ride, in the shooting theatre we were sitting as in a cinema where we needed to shoot, as you can imagine through the photo. Our targets were skeletons and zombies.  Once the adventure finalised, photos of all the players with our scores were shown before we stepped out. I really wonder how will be the movies and rollercoaster 10 years from now… this is getting INTERESTING!

Summarising the day was fun! 🙂  I am aware that I just wrote some of the highlights but time is a scarce resource, as I had been whining about lately, however let’s do the best out of it. So summaries are better than no post!

Next post: Mud festival!

Korea adventure – day #16 & 30: Korean movie night

Week 31
Suwon, Korea

Oh my!
Oh my!

I am very delayed on my postings.
Time passes so QUICKLY!
After this attempt to blog my time in Korea, I stress my respect for those who blog daily. It is NOT an easy task. Anyway, let’s start to catch up somehow.

One of the main activities that took most of my time while I have been in here is polishing my lectures, lecturing and grading. I post about this main activity will come, as I am very proud of my students. Other pursuit in this time has been to catch up with some writing, in which as we know I am “slow” but advancing 🙂 Thus, most of the korean events reported in here, are mainly the social-discovery happenings.

During the summer school we have two movie nights at the video conference room of the Yulgok Hall. In each one of the movie sessions we were so spoiled with snacks and drinks.

snacks and beverage for the movie

snacks and beverage for the movie

sitting arrangement

sitting arrangement

The movie on July 16th : The thieves.

This film is good! Now that I am exposed a little bit to the region, I think I enjoy the movie even more.  It is an action movie and the story has interesting twists.  Here the trailer to make you craving:

The movie on July 30th :  The Berlin File

This movie has a complex however interesting storyline. However if one does not follow carefully what is happening one can get lost easily. On the other hand if you follow the storyline, the movie is keeps you constantly wondering. It is also an action movie with a lot of shooting. Yeap, this film confirms that I did not  born to be a double agent!  Here trailer:

Summarising:
Watch out for Korean films because they are good!