Going Out For Trout

Went to a winter (it was cool, pun intended) trout fishing festival (what) about an hour outside of Seoul. Train journey and the village it was in was amazing, surrounded by snowy mountains. Whilst walking from the train station, one of the first people that we encountered was a man a car. He wound down his window and shouted 'Welcome!', to which we replied 'Thank you' in Korean. He was so bowled over by how well we could apparently speak that he thrusted a bottle of Korean rice wine at us, told us to drink it and drove off.  I had the feeling I was gonna like this place.

Once we got to the festival, the fun (as in having no idea what was going on) started. Struggling to decrypt (a.k.a translate) the signs which used specialised fishing vocabulary which was elusive to our dictionary in order to buy an entry ticket proved to be the initial stumbling block. After buying the most expensive ticket in hope that would cover us for it all, we attempted to fish. We didn't have fishing rods. An old man came over to us as we looked confused at what was going on, and gave us some rods. After seeing us struggle to catch NOTHING, he came over with a fish that he had caught. Equipped with only (what I assumed was) a long handled poopa-scoopa, he performed some sort of voodo magic to slice the fish open with this seemingly blunt implement and leave it in a bag of bloody water for us to carry around and impress the locals. And impress we did. Had plenty of stares and a few folk say 'oh berry nigh-suh!' (oh very nice). Next challenge was what to do with a bag full of watery blood and a half dead/half flailing fish. Eat it. Again, wasn't quite sure who to go to or what to do, but thrusting the bags at locals and looking distressed seemed to do the trick. That always seems to do the trick. After some guy cut it up, we continued to look confused (genuinely was confused) so some other guy just bunged the fish on his barbecue and cooked it for us. Foreign privileges.

Went to an modern art exhibition. I knew it would annoy me. It did. Someone was selling a white canvas with a 'hoover tube' sticking out of it for about 7000 pounds. Robbery. Downstairs they had a collection of fridges, with what ever junk this guy could find glued to the fridge. And on another fridge he was obviously low on inspiration and just draw a picture of a man urinating. I don't 'get' it. I refuse to 'get' it.

Also rang up the airline to extend the return date of my plane ticket. Probably got mugged off with international call charges, especially as the conversation was extended by yours truly charming the lady on the other end of the phone by teaching her some words. In hindsight (actually, at the time too) it was clearly not worth it.

Also managed to rack up the grand total of 2 valentines gifts (sort of). Get in, that's a new record.