Necessary Purchases

Just a quick lunchtime post to tell you about some things I bought recently. First of all, the above picture illustrates the full effects of drinking Soju, and make a classy advertisement against partaking in such activities. NO! It'doesn't make you piss yourself! Not yet anyway. But it DOES mean you will spill everything you touch for the whole night, sometimes with embarrassing consequences! Kids, just say no!!

The next couple of pictures show some activity at La Festa, which, if you remember, is the huge outdoor shopping area quite close to us. It's always a groovy place with loads going on. Best of all, last weekend when Ross and Amy were visiting, they had a big Makkoli festival,for no reason whatsoever except to get pished. Makkoli is traditional rice wine, of which there are hundreds of varieties. It's fairly palatable, and from the types I've sampled, anywhere between 20-30%. We bought a rice wine cup each for 1000W (60p), and then you visited each of the 50 tents getting free samples, all day if you wanted! Genius! Lots of traditional music was being played, and all the pished guys had a good jig as usual, much to our amusement. We got cornered by "Old Mr. Shin" for about half an hour, who wanted Lynne to go home and be his "adopted daughter". I doubt he had "daughterly" relations on his mind really. Dirty old perv! On the food front, the most interesting thing we spotted was a massive barrel full of stewing piglets that a man stirred with a rowing boat oar. Fantastic!


Another thing happening was this bunch of young Karate Kids performing for a large crowd. One of them had the unenviable task of jumping off a springboard and breaking that board. He never came close despite his repeated efforts, poor show sonny! Miyagi must have been turning in his grave. Instead, they performed some martial arts moves choreographed to the music of an Asian Britney Spears song, and still managed to actually look quite hard. Good job!



Which serves as a neat segue into the first of my purchases, a bamboo sword, in order to start learning some fundamental Kumdo techniques. Kumdo is the Korean equivalent of Japanese Kendo, a sword-based martial art. Due to my gammy knee, I'll probably have to give up, but I plan to get a book and check it out, before turning up at the dojo and crippling myself. Fingers crossed that the acupuncture will help, as we all know by now that Western medicine has failed me! I bet most people wouldn't put such ugly photos of themselves on public view, but I aimed for a look of mid-battle craziness, and think I almost succeeded. If the aim had been to look like I just got smashed in the balls, it would have been a resounding success.



As you can see, the other purchase was the South Korea football shirt. Just as stupidly priced as football shirts in the UK, but it basically had to be done, as the World Cup edges closer and the percentage of red clothing on view increases daily! Worryingly, a lot of red t-shirts are emblazoned with the slogan "Again Korea!", which makes me remember the amount of Koreans who apparently believe they WON the last World Cup. Still, I'm quite happy to be swept up in all this feverish excitement and anticipation, albeit, with a little bit of sorrow for the blinkered hopes of a nation who will probably not do very well this time. Hopefully, I will be proved wrong, and there will be many a soju-soaked 3 am kick-off!

Finally, talking of (un)necessary purchases, what you can see in the background on the window-ledge, is a homemade target made using an old Ramyon box. This is for the BB gun that was also recently bought. I don't know how to justify that, but it's fantastic fun. Now, the only other major things on the shopping list, are a guitar and a comical pet. Any pet ideas, let me know. Bye!