Here I will be blogging and exploring my journey through finding what kind of documentary and themes I want to represent. We arrived in Seoul on the 13th June in a realtively tired haze. Not much happened that day. Though at dinner some nice ajumma's (middle aged lady) kept swarming around us (probably due to our foreign appearance) correcting us on how to eat.
Preday 1:
The preday will be anything that happened before 9th June, when the trip technically starts. The first day we travelled to Yongsan to explore korean gaming culture. Being an avid Starcraft player it was interesting to watch the best in action. Whilst currently League Of Legends is the most popular game, Starcraft has a strong history and airs on TV frequently as well as attracting large crowds. We were in attendance of the WCS (World Championship Series Finals. It was interesting to see the passion in the commentators. Many outside the scene consider games just a past time, but for them it was their job and livelihood.
On the train trip there a man around our age, korean apperace, talked to us and asked me if I could read korean. He ended up speaking relatively good english and had an American accent. He was an economics student from New York who went to the United States as a sophomore. It was interesting to see someone talking to us. Having been to Korea the year before no one really seems to speak to you and they don't seem to go out of their way to talk to you (though most of this is due to the fact that no one really speaks much english). We said goodbye and headed off.
For Dinner we met up with Anthony (a fellow student doing this project) and had barbeque. There was a group behind us celebrating a birthday (from what we could gather; the sound of korean words in the melody of 'happy birthday' was a clue) and many bottles of the famous soju drink filled their tables.
Preday 2:
Time to explore. Following reccomendations of http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_6.jsp?cid=1388278 we set out towards Haneul Park to do one of the bike tracks. Cars whizzed by as we slowly walked through the sweaty hot weather. A robotic bowing lady gave us a double-take outside one of the stores. In what seemed to be a maze of conflicting signs we eventually made it there. In my broken korean I asked the bike rental man how much to which he said a lot of words I couldn't understand and "2 hours". I expected to pay but we gave him our ID's and rode off. We were pretty tired from walkng there but soon it was forgotten as we set loose and darted around the park and riverside. As we took a break a man and his wife shouted enthusiastically from a distance away "hello". I answered annyeonghasaeyo. I told them in my broken korean once again I was feeling hot and they laughed. They seemed to have a bottle of rice wine with them. It was around midday, but they were hapy, and so were we.
A shop lined the side of the cycling track where cyclists gathered to have a look at all the appropriate apparel from lycra to helmets. Having the look seems to be a big deal. In Sydney those who wear the full gear are generally the elite cyclists or those who are pretty confident. Here it seems the average person going for a dedicated cycling trip gets into their gear. Not being able to speak good korean is getting annoying.
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