Crazy foreigners running about in Chungju

Rowena: So I guess it's been 2 months since we've been here in Chungju and it's hard to believe what close friendships we've formed within this time. We spent the weekend celebrating a combined hens and bucks day (or bacherlorette and bacherlor party), then parted ways and partied throughout the night, then rejoined in the early hours of the morning til it was literally daylight. So during the day, a scavenger hunt was organised and we were divided into gender teams. A crazy list was compiled with tasks that both teams had to complete within a time frame of an hour and a half, and these were to be done all around Chungju. Now here's a taste of some of the things we did:

- Fit as many people as you can into a taxi (we managed to fit 10 girls into a 4 seater taxi)

- Fit as many people as you can into a phone booth (again, the 10 girls fit)

- Form a human pyramid in front of Lotte Mart (a VERY public and busy shopping center. We succeeded with a huge crowd of on lookers!)

- Chat up a Korean who was working and score a phone number (success!)

- Kiss and be kissed by a Korean (thankyou to the kind gentleman who allowed me to do it!)

- Take a picture of a Korean with the biggest head

- Take a picture of a Korean with the most 'jacked up' teeth (we got big head and jacked up teeth in one shot! Gold!)

...and a whole heap of other crazy shit! I don't know what the locals now think of us foreigners running all over Chungju like crazy manics! Like we all didn't stand out already. I think some of us feared we'd be sent back to our home countries. But it was definitely worth it, running around in the ridiculous summer heat, and the fact that the girls won made it all worth while!

Minor fracas

Rowena: So far we've had nothing but great experiences in our interactions with Koreans. They have been very friendly and helpful... up until yesterday lol. We were on a bus returning from Anseong to Chungju. Chris and I were having a chat with one of our foreign friends, and I felt a kick on the back of my chair. I didn't think anything of it, maybe someone was just crossing their legs over. Then it happened again, and our friend asked me if my chair was being kicked, and I said yes, thinking that this person behind must be fidgety. Then our friend got up from his seat and was standing in the aisle having a chat to our friends who were further up the bus. Then I felt three hard kicks behind my chair and I turned around thinking wtf is going on?? The person who had been kicking my chair was an elderly man yelling at me and kicking my chair while pointing to my friend standing in the aisle. He wasn't happy that my friend was having a friendly chat on the bus, but I don't think kicking my chair and shouting at me was the most appropriate way with dealing with his 'obviously distressing situation'. Now why was he kicking my chair? Probably because like everyone else, he thought I was Korean, and expected me to tell my friend to sit down. Now I'm all for respecting the elderly, but it goes both ways... So to anyone planning to travel on a bus in Korea with an elderly person, be weary, they're violent*!

*Eldery Koreans are not violent (only the man mentioned in this post)