Delightfully Hideous

My friends and I left Seoul on Saturday and immediately got sold into the white slave trade.  But the funny thing is, it was kind of a blast!

As a result of the enticing-sounding Pumba Festival, we left at 7:10AM Saturday morning to get to the Express Bus Terminal by 8:15 to meet up with a group called Adventure Korea who promised a good time for a small price.  And I have to admit, they did deliver on that promise, expectedly not in the way we expected.

All we knew about the Pumba Festival was that it was all about Korean "traditional beggars" who used to roam around in funny makeup, doing little performances in hopes of receiving money, food, clothing, or whatever they could get their hands on.  We also knew that the festival was a chance to dress up like these old-timey vagabonds and walk around taking pictures of everybody.  After the festival, Adventure Korea would bus us to the beach for sea rafting and paintball, or extra time on the beach if you preferred.

About 3 hours later, our bus, jam-packed with about 40 English-speaking foreigners, arrived in the small town of Eumseong.  It was obvious we had made it to the event, but before walking around to take a look, we were immediately shuffled over to the first tent to be clothed in fake beggar attire--cute, colorful patchwork vests, skirts, and hats.  Next we went to the second tent to get makeup.  We were covered in hideous dark unibrows, bruises, soot, green glitter, red clown lips and noses, fruit, and polka dots.  It was pretty hilarious.  Then, totally decked out Pumba-style, we followed the sidewalk lined with tents containing various foods and arts and crafts to the main section.  The whole time we were being followed by dozens of Korean professional photographers just like paparazzi.  They were asking us to pose and we did, of course!  Crazy makeup will really make you ham it up for cameras.

Me getting painted

Kylie getting painted

Kim getting painted

One of the foreigners on our bus getting sooted and unibrowed

It didn't take us long to figure out we were the only ones dressed like Pumba clowns.  There were tons of Koreans there and none of them were in makeup except for a couple who were working the event.  The vast majority were only there as spectators and apparently we were the show!  The paparazzi became our entourage and we quickly realized that this was not a Korean-only event we were crashing, but rather a "let's-exploit-the-foreigners-by-dressing-them-up-funny-and-taking-their-pictures" event.  It was quite obvious that if our tour bus hadn't come, there would be no one in costume for the Koreans to photograph. We had, in a sense, been tricked to work for free.

But that's not to say we were particularly perturbed by it.  Quite the contrary, really.  I was with Kylie, Rebecca, and Kim.  It was a gorgeous sunny, warm day.  After posing for pictures for ourselves and the Koreans around some straw huts put there for the paparazzi/clown festival, the four of us got thirsty and set off to find drinks.  The situation definitely called for beer (and water) and we easily found a tent to cater to our needs.  Next, we sat down on a shady rock behind the straw huts where one of the Korean Pumba workers in costume was doing a little dance for the paparazzi, who were finally leaving us alone (except for the occasional straggler).  Glad to be in the shade where our thick, sticky face paint wasn't melting, and away from the constant slew of photographers, we cracked open our cold beverages.

The next thing we knew, the man's dancing ended and the paparazzi, spotting Pumbas drinking beer, saw us as their next extremely important photo opp'.  Thirty or so Koreans with big expensive cameras rushed over to us and started snapping away.  They were practically tumbling over one another as they tried to get the best shot!  This was apparently the most important day of the year to them, like photographer's Christmas or something.

"Oh, Lord," we all thought, not really feeling it anymore but knowing there was nothing we could do.  We made the decision to make them happy and oblige them with the cutest pictures we could manage.  It was like a frenzy of hungry sharks and we were slabs of raw bloody meat.  They were standing on tip toes, kneeling, rolling on their stomachs in the dry grass...the intensity was unreal!  As they closed in on us, it seemed like there were hundreds of them!  At that point it just became so funny we pulled out our own cameras and started snapping pic's of them!

Big expensive cameras

This one was really crazy, rolling around in the grass to get a good picture

The paparazzi snapping photos of the Pumba man dancing in the hut

We're getting swarmed!

Hungry sharks

That was when I met one of the only Korean women in costume.  She obviously worked at the festival. She came over to pose with us.  I handed my camera off to Rebecca to take my picture with her.  Then she asked me, "Shall we uh'dance?"

"Of course we should dance!"  I got up and hopped around joyfully with her.  The paparazzi was really having a field day.

Me and the only Korean woman in costume, looking beautiful despite the hideous makeovers

Soon after that, our tour guide collected us to have lunch as a group.  I was psyched to find out it was all vegetarian.  I guess slaves don't get meat, which was just fine with me!

Our veggie lunch :)

Also during the day they had us go beat on drums for a while while they sat around and watched.  Some of us also beat on big gooey rice balls with large wooden mallets to make it into rice cake treats.

Pounding out rice cakes

Beating on drums

By the end of the festival, we were more than ready to get out of costume.  We returned to the face painting station where they gave us baby wipes to de-Pumba-ify ourselves once more.  Then we returned the funny clothes and boarded the bus to head for our next stop--the beach!

As soon as we arrived at the beach we got the key to our hotel room from the tour guide.  Now, we weren't expecting anything fancy.  Cheap hotels in small towns means sleeping on thin mats on the floor.  The only problem was, we were only given 1 small mat and there were 4 of us in the room.  We did have 4 rather pathetic pillows and some blankets to share, but that was it!  Plus, there was no office or front desk to ask for more!  Luckily I found a cabinet on the 4th floor of the building that was tied up with ropes.  I untied them and found a ton of bedspreads and grabbed as many as I could carry down to our room on the 2nd floor.  One thing I've learned from being in Korea is that I am actually able to sleep on a hard wooden floor with only minor provisions!  Let's just say, I'm extremely happy I brought an inflatable travel pillow along...

After a short walk on the beach, Kylie, Kim, Rebecca and I grabbed some dinner at the only non-seafood restaurant in town.  Walking along the beach was, not surprisingly, seafood restaurant after seafood restaurant.  They all had huge tanks full of aquatic life.  It was sort of like going to an outdoor aquarium where you see beautiful fish, sharks, and octopus on display--and then you get to eat them.  Luckily for me, this didn't appeal to my non-vegetarian friends, either.

After dinner, the sun had gone down and we went to a convenience store to buy liquor.  I bought water and a cheap mat for us to sit on in the sand.  We sat on the dark, sandy beach, my friends drinking Soju and Powerade, and Rebecca and I putting on little shows for the other two to the rap songs we were playing on my iPod.  All around us were drunks and children.  They were all setting off fireworks.  I kept waiting for one to go crooked and zoom our way, but luckily, it didn't happen!

My friends enjoying Soju on the beach

The next morning we met up with our group to go "sea rafting."  Basically we got in a raft with 15 people each and awkwardly rowed them about 100 yards out, then raced each other and splashed the other boats.  At one point we hit a wave that knocked Rebecca and Kim face-first into the ocean!  I was just shocked and happy that for once, it didn't happen to me!  

Kylie and I are in the picture, but Rebecca and Kim had just fallen out!

After rafting we had lunch.  "How many people are vegetarians?" our tour guide asked our group.  I was psyched to see about 6 other people raise their hands.  We went to lunch and I joined the other vegetarians on the floor at the table set aside for us.  We had big pots of spicy tofu soup, on little cookers right in the tables.  They were at a rolling boil.  It was so good I wanted to have seconds.  I grabbed the thin metal ladle sitting directly in the iron pot of boiling soup.  

I may as well have grabbed the iron pot itself.  

My finger instantly sizzled and burned and I dropped the ladle, genius Annie-style.  I'm pretty sure I have some sort of kitchen-related learning disability.  I just never learn!

For the rest of our time on the beach, the girls opted to play paintball and I opted not to play paintball.  I'm from Tennessee; I've seen the bruises you get from paintball!  Plus I'm no good at that sort of thing.  I played Laser Tag one time and my rating was "It's like taking candy from a baby."  No, better to just hang out at the beach for a couple of hours...

Sitting on the beach was a trip!  Koreans don't wear swimsuits!  They were playing in the water fully clothed--even the children!  Most of them were walking around with umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun, or sitting in tents.  The only people in swimsuits were the foreigners.  "They must think we're total prostitutes," I thought to myself, laughing.  I didn't have a swimsuit, so I found a comfortable place to sit in partial shade and enjoyed the sounds of the waves and children's laughter as they splashed in the ocean water in jean shorts and T-shirts on this hot, sunny day.  I was quite content.

Happy on the beach

Notice no one is in a swimsuit!

And trust me, it was plenty warm enough for swimsuits!

Ladies sitting under a rather gothic-looking parasol

More umbrellas

Umbrellas and tents

When they got back playing paintball, my friends told me the course had been on a steep hill, and to get there they had to hike 20 minutes uphill through rice patties.  Then they had to put on hot army clothes and helmets that steamed up when you breathed in them.  I thought to myself, "Well, I'm glad I won't do literally anything for a paragraph...almost, though!"  They had had fun, however, so I was quite happy for them!

Shortly thereafter, we all boarded the bus to go back home to Seoul.  The bus trip was long but I didn't notice too much.  The interior of the bus itself sparked a train of thought which kept me entertained for hours.  It was delightfully hideous.  Let's just say it was like European-castle-meets-Great-Aunt-Verna's-living-room where all you do is sit and have tea and eat small cookies from a tin.  You know, the kind of living room where the furniture is at least 30 years old but is in amazing condition from lack of everyday use.  It was decorated in different shades of pink and lipstick red, with little gold and burgundy tassels hanging off the little curtains.  I could have been in Delores Umbridge's office from Harry Potter.  That started the first train of thought where I imagined the strange little lines left on my fingertip where I had burned it were marks left from writing lines for her, "I must not tell lies."  Then I laughed at all the lies I had told her, most of which were quite inappropriate.

Then I pondered the Koreans who had decorated this bus to begin with.  They had been to Neuschwanstein in Germany and just knew right when they saw the castle interior that it would make for lovely tour busses.  The colors, they decided, were romantic--red paired with blush and bashful, two shades of pink, one much deeper than the other...and the end result was that it looked like the whole place had been drenched in Pepto Bismol.  Then I started playing Steel Magnolias in my head from start to finish.  "Sammy Duane Dakota, WHAT is this in my Fridgidaire???"

The driver's seat

Delightfully Hideous  Bus

My friends in Delores Umbridge's office...I mean, the Korean tour bus

When I wasn't too busy daydreaming, I discussed the bizarre trip with my three friends.  We marveled over what had occurred at the Pumba Festival.  "I mean...think about it.  Imagine back home taking a bus full of Koreans to a festival and dressing up them--and only them--in clown outfits, and parading them around, giggling and taking pictures of them," I mused.  We laughed at the ridiculousness of the notion.  Even I couldn't imagine such a thing!