Monday, December 14, 2009

The Trek

We met up with Ben and Amy (the new couple that we met on Friday night) at Dunkin' Donuts for brunch/lunch today.  After we finished our donuts and coffee we walked over to Uirimji because they hadn't been there, yet.  My sincere apologies, I forgot the camera today.  Ben and Amy have some good shots they said they emailed us, so all is not lost (just remember that Ben and Amy took these awesome photos, so props to them) .  At the Uirimji amusement park there was a couple of bachelor parties (as usual).  The bachelors are always publicly humiliated during these rituals, but today's was the most extreme I've ever seen.  Both men (though from separate parties) were wearing thin, skin colored long underwear with a bra and not panties, but animal inspired strap-ons.  Considering the usual conservative viewpoint on sex here, I'm not even sure where these "creative" groomsmen found these hideous things.  One was an elephant and the other appeared to be the rear end of a tiger.  The tiger man was just standing in his crowd of torturers, but the elephant man was forced onto the Taga Disco with Kendo sticks; his friends then preceded to beat him while he was on the ride, once forcing him to dance to G-Dragon's "Heartbreaker" in the middle of the rides circular floor.  There were somewhere between thirty and fifty people gathered in front of it to watch.  On warm days they throw the bachelor into the reservoir.  The four of us decided that marriage here might not be worth the terrible trials that you go through immediately before hand.


From Uirimji, we went down the road where we've never been to see what was out there. We eventually came upon the Semyung University (a four year university with about 9,000 enrolled students).  I found the school's website and was surprised to learn that the university was started in 1993.  I guess there are probably a lot of younger schools here, since it was recently industrialized.  The campus was really nice and included several out door sports facilities (soccer, basketball and tennis).  We'll definitely head back with camera in hand.  It'd be a nice place to eat outside and read a book or something on a warm day.
Some shots of our campus shenanigans courtesy of Ben and Amy's photography skills:



Above the soccer field/ colosseum.



Grape arbor.



Elephant!  Ben is brave.



Amy on a big horse. She's brave, too.



Ian choking out a little horse.



The rock path through the pond in the botanical/ zen garden.



Cool rocks in the garden.  I can't wait to come back to this place in spring.


Instead of coming back the way we came in, we decided to walk through the university, thinking it would take us back to the outskirts of Jecheon (that's where Uirimji is).  Well, it did eventually, but not before sending us on an epic trek around the outskirts of the city.  In fact, at one point we saw a sign pointing us back to "Jecheon City," but luckily we hit the Ha So neighborhood pretty quickly after that.  Then we walked to downtown, had a much deserved pizza dinner and walked around the shops.  I think the only way to explain how far we walked is to use Google maps.  So, please do your best to slice these three screen shots (yes, it took that many) in your mind to connect the green loop.  Also, keep in mind that we also walked around in Uirimji and downtown.



 

 
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