English Major Away: Festive Edition (Also Banana Hammocks)

Well, I did it. I made it through my first official Christmas away from home. So, (you ask, wide-eyed and awed) what was it like? How is Christmas celebrated in Korea? Well don’t fret, dear reader, because I am here to tell you that it seems to be a mix between Christmas in America and Valentine’s Day. That’s right, you get all that insufferable holiday cheer shoved down your throat in the form of mistletoe and holly, Christmas trees, and creepy robot Santas as well as the constant Valentine’s Day reminder that you are alone and ugly and no one will ever love you! Hooray!

Pictured: Christmas in Korea

Okay, so I’m being a little melodramatic. But Christmas is, in Korea, less a day to be spent with family under the tree and more a day to spend with a girl/boyfriend, shopping and going to movies and eating at nice restaurants. Also, there’s presents and Christmas carols. But take this: on Christmas Eve, when most Americans who celebrate the holiday would be at home eating a home-cooked meal and watching It’s a Wonderful Life (or whatever it is people do these days), the restaurants all over Daejeon were positively packed. I went for dinner with a large group of friends, and waited for nearly three hours in the lobby of our chosen restaurant. Once inside, we saw that most tables were taken up by couples gazing lovingly at each other over their Christmas Eve steaks.

Once I’d powered through Christmas on a diet of (literally) meat and potatoes, I had a school trip to look forward to. No, not a school trip with students, but one with only the staff of my school. We went on an overnight excursion to the island of Jeju, just past the southern tip of the Korean peninsula. It’s a subtropical island that seems to have a completely schizophrenic climate. Up north, it was incredibly windy and cold. Towards the center of the island, it was chilly with thick layers of snow coating the ground. And down south was mild with no snow and plenty of sunshine. This is an island that takes maybe an hour to travel from north to south.

Above: Monday.

Below: Tuesday, 15 miles away.

 

Anyways, Jeju-do (do, as in doe [a  deer, a female deer], means island in Korean) was perhaps the most exhausting bout of furious traveling crammed into an incredibly short time I’ve ever witnessed. After landing at around 9:30AM on Monday, we proceeded to a Chinese acrobat circus, hiking a stretch of coastline, going on a cruise around some volcanic islands, and orange picking. Yes, you can pick oranges in the snow on Jeju-do.

Anyways, that night our unsuspecting group was bussed over to a ‘nightclub’ after dinner. When you think of a nightclub, you might think about a sweaty basement with pounding bass beats and flashing strobe lights. Or maybe a slightly classier establishment with windows and other such high-end accoutrements. Apparently a nightclub in Jeju-do is a huge, bare facsimile of a Las Vegas lounge-act joint. A singer who ‘used to be famous’, according to my co-worker, and a band serenaded us as we entered. Later, the entire goddamned roof opened up for no reason like someone punching a sliced pie from below, only instead of being delicious and hilarious, it just let cold air blow in for awhile while they sprayed soapy foam on us from above.

Now imagine that it opens, only instead of being filled with custardy goodness, there’s nothing but a vast and frozen sky blowing its nose at you.

But wait! There’s more! The next act onstage was a lone man. Off in the corner was a DJ, who started playing some thumpin’ dance beats. Then, the guy started taking his Vegas-y leisure suit off. Until he was wearing only a glow-in-the-dark banana hammock.

Um, not quite.

That’s right, our intrepid tour guide saw fit to take the mostly middle-aged staff of a middle school to a male strip club for a little after-dinner treat. I was probably the least-horrified one there, but only because I couldn’t stop laughing. Especially when the lights went purple, and the stripper’s body somehow glowed purple while his man-thong glowed green like he was some kind of wildly gyrating reverse Hulk.

The next day we woke up early, went hiking once again, took a ride on a toy train to a Dutch windmill (really, should anything I say surprise you at this point?), visited a traditional Jeju-do folk village, and went horseback riding for maybe ten minutes. All in all, we did an absolutely ridiculous number of things in only two days and a little over twenty-four hours. I felt like I was at a buffet of free samples made of Jeju activities.

Thought I was joking about the toy train, didn’t you?

Nine times out of ten, if someone asks you to feel the bear, you don’t go near that shit. For the record, it was kind of greasy.

Anyways, it’s New Year’s Eve here in Korea, and I have been enlisted to taste-test the food at my Korean friend’s new restaurant before I get down to the execution of the Korean New Years’ ritual: forgetting everything that happened in the previous 365 days via the consumption of alcohol. Wish me luck. For the record, my New Year’s resolution is the same as it has been for the past several New Years now, which is to simply not die. Happy New Year, dear readers!