Travel Buzzkill

So, what could be the ultimate buzzkill in living abroad? Could it be serious illness (well, probably), surgery (I'm sure that'd be a buzzkill), unexpected bad news from home (yeah, that would be bad too), craving a cheap breakfast taco from the Taco Cabana and knowing there's no way you could fulfill that craving without at least a 24 hour flight (that's pretty bad)? No. The ultimate travel buzzkill (aside from the previous ones actually happening) is waking up one day when you're trying to be cheap on cash and realizing that your new foreign environment feels domestic.

Right now Daegu feels oddly a bit like Fort Lauderdale, except the mountains are much prettier than the ones in Fort Lauderdale (because those are landfills.) There's no good reason for this other than we're going on a big trip in a few weeks and don't want to spend the money required to go out and eat new things and see sites and such. I also think that learning to read Hangeul, while greatly helpful during our time here (especially with menus and such) kinda ruins the foreign mystique of all of the signage. There's nothing quite exotic as realizing that the sign for "Eyemart" is just "Eyemart" spelled out in Korean phonetics, right?

I've been feeling the urge to get out of Korea since we started looking at Bali. Don't get me wrong, I like Korea, a lot. It's a pretty nice place to live. It just didn't feel shiny and new anymore. So I think the problem is that we need to do some new things to remind us that this place is really not that much like home. I think we're on a pretty good start to this mission next week with the Boryeong Mud Festival. Normally there's no way in hell you could get me to slather myself in mud for fun, but I really want to do something different right now, and you know what...that's different. Sure it's going to be a bunch of westerners getting drunk and mudding without a pick up truck, but we don't do that at home either. Throw in the fact that it happens on the East China Sea and suddenly it's very exotic.

The next weekend we're headed down to Busan for a weekend. It'll be fun, since it's the 2nd largest city in Korea and it's situated right on the Sea of Japan. Once again, throw in a foreign body of water and all of the sudden the plan becomes exotic. This will be fun for lots of reasons. One of those reasons is that our friend BritBrit lives in Busan and we'll get to try her favorite eateries. The 2nd reason is that we can pre-tan a bit (also in Boryeong) for Bali. I'm particularly excited to just get the hell out of Daegu for a bit.

This is a really small country, and it would be so easy to see a whole hell of a lot of it by the time we head home. There's giant penis statues somewhere on the east coast up north and there's all sorts of great temples and stuff to see. Have I even mentioned the incredible singing highway in Anyang? Haven't been there yet either. There's plenty left to see in Korea that I'll probably never have the chance to see again once we've left here, we just need to get out and see it.

Now, to prove that we're not slouches, here's a list of cool stuff we've seen and done.

• 1 week in Busan at Pukyong National University
• Climbed most of the way to Gatbawi on Mt. Palgongsan
• Been to Dongwhasa Temple on Mt. Palgongsan
• Climbed Mt. Apsan
• Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival
• Taekwondo World Championships in Gyeongju
• Toured Seoul
• Rafted the Hantan River
• Joined a Taekwondo school (we're orange belts now. Yeah, we're dangerous.)
• Watched local talent at the Dongseongno Festival

Yeah. We're not slouches. We just need to re foreignify Korea. Maybe after we get back from Bali :).