Our friend Min Hwa invited us to come with her to a traditional Korean circus outside of Seoul. It's the same type of performance (and some of the same performers) as featured in the popular Korean movie: The King and the Clown (which you should be able to find with English subtitles if interested). Min Hwa is not from Seoul, but from the city of Busan in the South, so she's interested in the same kind of touristy stuff we are. We met her at a bus station and when we got there from the subway (a little later than expected) she had already bought our bus tickets for us. So we purchased a few snacks and hopped on the bus, no questions asked.
An hour and thirty minutes later, we show up at the bus station in Ansan. We get off the bus, and immediately Min Hwa looks upset and confused. She says were looking for a local bus number 15, but she doesn't see anything like it. We go inside and ask, she gets a more confused and upset look on her face. Then she tells us to wait outside while she gets more information. So we wait outside and try to enjoy the sunny autumn day and contemplate why Korea lacks a certain charm you usually find in other places while traveling.
Min Hwa takes forever, so we go back inside to find her, now looking very nervous and embarrassed. Turns out we took the bus to Ansan instead of Ansang, which are similar-sounding, but two totally different places. We do a little more wandering around, Min Hwa apologizes profusely for buying us the wrong tickets, and we try to make her feel better by telling her that it's okay; we like a good adventure (not only that, but it did make me feel better that even native speakers of Korean can have a hard time differentiating the sounds). We decide to carry on with our journey instead of taking the bus right back to Seoul, so we buy bus tickets to Ansang this time, accepting the fact that we'll be a little late for the performance.
Another two hours later, we arrive in Ansang, and the bus driver instructs us to find a taxi to where we're going to save time. So we do, the cab driver knows where it is, and takes us there. We're a little late, but easily find a comfortable place to sit among the crowd of mostly parents and children. The show is free, funded by the government in order to promote tourism in the small town. Min Hwa translates some of what the performers are saying to the crowd and we shiver in the cold, clapping along to keep warm while watching the performers jump and dance and twirl and bang instruments. At one point some gymnasts look for foreigners to pick on in the crowd, but luckily we were in the shadows so the guy didn't notice all the Korean kids pointing at us screaming "Yo-gi! Yo-gi!" (Over here! Over here!). Instead he found a skinny, nerdy Japanese guy who spoke no Korean to pick on. It was pretty funny.
When the show was over we called the cab driver to come pick us up and rode another bus for two hours back into Seoul. Then we had another hour on the subway to get back. It was an exhausting day even though we were sitting the whole time. I would like to go back sometime in the spring or summer, when the weather is warmer and we know to pay attention to the "g" sound at the end of Korean place names.
by Katie
1 comment:
Wow this video is pretty cool looking, but mostly horrible sounding. Thanks for sharing with us. So was the bus ride worth it?
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