Wando

Last weekend a group of a few of us went to this island named Wando, where we spent most of the day at the beach, listening to Korean men and women scream at waves about 2 feet tall.

At night, things got a little wierd. After rejuenating at the jimjibang--a glorified korean sauna--we were drawn to a large performance in an amphitheatre, with pyrotechnics and young korean musicians. While I was trying to communicate in my limited Korean to some stranger, a fellow teacher got swept up in a conversation with the man running the show, who was inexplicably excited to bring us back stage. "Follow me, follow me," he kept saying to us. I had no idea why, but with a confused look on my face, I acquiesced. Soon, he was questioning us, "what music you like? music? you like?" Stunned, and a little dumbfounded, both Mike and I blanked on music, until we stumbled on the Beatles' Taxman. After that, we were pretty excited, thinking the young Koreans were going to do a rendition of Taxman for us right there on the spot. The Korean MC mumbled some things "blah ji ta, kamsahhamni da, TAXMAN...." to the 300+ Koreans seated around the stage. Yet, after he had finished his incomprehensible (to us) introduction, the other excited, smiling man approached us from the stage, and motioned us up. "you come! you play!". "Wait, WE play taxman?" I looked at MIke. I don't know how to play Taxman.
Me:"No, I can't play taxman.",
Him: "Ohhhh...you go on stage!".
Me: "What do I say?"
Him: "You go on stage!"
Forcedly, we got up on stage, and were given 2 mikes, which we used to our greatest extent for about 3 minutes. We used our limited korean to say we were teachers in Gwangju, and, that we loved Wando. Once we got a loud clap for the last comment, we quickly got off the stage.

The rest of the night jsut got wierder, set off in part by the chain reaction of our festival appearance. Some 16 year old showed us the best restaurant in town, where there happened to be a famous Korean comedian and his entourage, one of which included his brother a korean mob boss. after a lot of drinking, a bottle of expensive 17 year old whisky, and a stellar performance of Radiohead's Creep at the noraebang (korean kareoke), i received an unexpected surprise from the comedian. Rejoicing from our unbelievable cover of Creep, i went in for the hug, and saw he was going for the kiss. i moved for the kiss on the cheek, but instead was greeted with an open-mouthed kiss. needless to say, his lips were entirely surrounding my lips for that moment. oddly enough, i was drunk enough where it wasn't even awkward. i guess it was more of a "huh. wasn't expecting that", followed probably by something about soju.

The last picture shows the comedian dancing. I'm not sure if this is before or after he decided to kiss me.