A Firework Festival Not To Be Missed...

Another week of outstanding teaching had drawn to a close. In my last lesson I had been teaching the kids about Egyptians and the process of creating mummies, and the fact that Egyptians dried and preserved the heart but discarded the brain came to light.

One girl frowned and asked me why they thought the brain was useless and I pointed out that thousands of years ago they had no idea that the brain controlled all the things in the body and so they didn't see it as important for the afterlife but the heart was seen as vital. She frowned some more...

Little Frown Face: "So they didn't know the brain was important...that's stupid. But they knew the heart was important, that's clever."

I nodded sagely and said that the fact you can hear and feel the heart would have drawn them in part to its importance. And she then offered a beautiful summation of one of the worlds most incredible ancient civilisations.

Little Frown Face: "I think Egpytians was part genius, part idiots"

I couldn't agree more. I mean wrapping your wizened corpse in bandages...genius. Building big houses for them in the shape of a pyramid...idiotic. Fuck Ancient Egypt and their dismissal of the importance of neural pathways.

But the frowing little wench had cheered me up and I was off to meet Dubs, Yatesy and Emily for a trip back to Busan. I had not been to Busan since my first weekend here and that excursion had resulted in a new admiration for sandcastle carvings and an unforgettable encounter with a psychotic Korean girl. Could this venture possibly live up to the last?

Well we were going to see a mammoth firework festival. Busan always seems to have festivals, last time it was the sandcastles and now fireworks. I don't much care for fireworks, but then I'm not exactly a sandcastle enthusiast and the last trip worked out great, so I was brimming with unusual optimism.

We got on the train, rang our friends Miss Dreads and Mountain to arrange a meeting spot and I tucked into a bottle of Soju and some beer as is customary on my journeys on public transport.

One hour later and we arrive and leap into a taxi "To the fireworks good man and let's not waste a moment more."

Hmmm...our good man looked puzzled. We did some firework impressions which in hindsight may have seemed just like a group of drunk white people making random noises and waving their arms in the arm whilst nodding. It's not easy being a human and trying to impersonate a small explosive projectile.

But he began to drive. This is not good. Where the hell is he driving to? What if he takes us to some weird new age club where people wave their hands in the air and make random noises whilst nodding? And then he turns on a little TV that is in his cab, and by a wonderful coincidence it was showing a firework display on it. And what a display. We point eagerly at the TV and wave some more. He understands and we race off at around 12mph through heavy traffic.

Fourty-Five minutes later and we watch the finale to the Busan firework festival on a 7 inch television monitor in a taxi. It was a great display and I don't feel we missed out at all by watching it on a tiny TV in a cramped taxi, but we are still stuck in traffic. So we decide to walk.

We meet Mountain and Miss Dreads, they wax lyrical about the display and suggest drinking on the beach and playing some drinking games. I'm already drunk and already on the way to being belligerent about their choice of games.

Dubs decides to distract me with his own firework display, by purchasing ten Roman Candles and setting them off on the beach. The display could best be described as impotent, but it's the thought that counts and cheered up I agree to play their games but in a cynical and some what spoil sport of a manner.

At about 4am I've had enough of drinking and I'd imagine everyone has had enough of me, and it's time to find a warm shelter for the night. At which point Emily takes us to something called a Jimjibong. Technically a bathhouse but with saunas and you can sleep there for $10 a night.
Without a doubt this is the most surreal, non artifically induced experience of my life. The place was six floors high and looked like a 5 star hotel.

A huge water slide ran down the centre of the building into a pool and everywhere is marble. But it is as if the hotel owners thought "We could book out rooms or we could just charge people to sleep anywhere and everywhere. Yeah let's go with the latter."

You get changed into what seemed like prison or concentration camp style pyjamas. Then you have a little mat and a small brick like pillow and sleep anywhere there is space. But there wasn't. Any room that is. The Fireworks had clearly dragged in hundreds.
God knows why, when they could have just watched it in a taxi, but it meant there were people everywhere. All sleeping. I am stepping over bodies strewn across every corridor, in every corner and on the stairwells. There is a childrens play area with kids asleep on the climbing frames.

I am creeping about like some action film hero who has put sleeping gas into the enemy headquarters. But what action hero ever wore beige pyjamas?

We wander for what seems like hours, floor to floor, room to room and then Emily finds a metal shutter, presses a button, a flashing light goes off and the shutter slowly raises up to reveal a restaurant closed down for the night. Ha, jackpot. Nobody is in there, presumably because it was locked up and nobody is supposed to go in there.

I find a fantastic spot near a buffet cart and settle down, dreaming of fireworks and drinking games. And then awake at 6.30am being shaken by an irate restaurant manager. Apparently he doesn't want me sleeping in here when customers start arriving for breakfast. The cheek of the man. I was livid, gave him a dressing down for his impudence and decided it was time to leave this bizarre, beige bath house.

As we headed back to Daegu I thought about the Egyptians and realised that Korean Jimjibongs have much in common. Huge hotels with water slides and restaurants you can break into? Genius. Hundreds of people in identical pyjamas sleeping everywhere and insolent restaurant managers interrupting your sleep? Idiotic.