In October Shinparam, the Minnesota drumming group I belong to went to Korea to participate in an international drumming festival, held by the legendary Kim DukSoo. We received a grant which covered airfare!!! and boarding and lodging were provided for all participants by the festival. So, basically my trip was free. Yay! Attending this festival resulted in me missing 8 days of school. Ouch. But it actually turned out okay. I was so scared my professors would not be cool with it, but they were all so nice! and told me that it was a once in a life time opportunity and to go. Nice!!! I was in Korea for 10 days, and when I got back home, it was fall break, so I had about a week at home to get over being jet legged and rest up. I flew from Chicago O'Hare into MSP airport and spent one night at home. Then the next morning my mom gave Peggy, Charlie, Nik, Martha, and me a ride to the airport and off we went. ~FLIGHT/JAPAN~ There were technical difficulties from our flight from Minnesota to Narita, Japan. So, our flight ended up leaving over 3 hours late! Subsequently, we missed our connection from Narita to Korea... Actually, we didn't miss it - it was canceled. Apparently, so many people from the flight to Korea were on our flight, it wasn't worth running the airplane. I was extremely upset because that night was to be our only night in Seoul and I was planning on doing some serious midnight shopping. grrr. It all turned out well, though. We got to Narita late evening. There were long long lines to wait in, but eventually we got re-booked for the next day and they provided us with accommodations at a Hilton! Yeah! Each person got their own room, and man were they nice!!! We got there and Nik, Brian, and I figured we ought to do something and explore since we were in Japan. Our initial plan was to go to Tokyo (the airport is call the Narita/Tokyo airport). But the concierge at the hotel told us that Tokyo was four hours away. So we ended up taking a taxi to downtown Narita and exploring. We wandered the streets, which were reminiscent of Kyoto, and found this awesome temple. It was midnight so no one else was there but us (or so I thought). We wandered around and took lots of pictures.
While I was looking around the temple, I spotted a security guard doing rounds. I freaked out because I thought we would get in trouble for trespassing. So, I stopped in my tracks and tried to stand perfectly still and stare off into the distance, hoping he wouldn't see me. (I know, I'm really lame.) He kept getting closer and closer. I didn't know what to do, but finally realized I was just being dumb because he'd obviously seen me. So, I turned around and bowed to him. He smiled and kept going. Whew.
Nik and I near a sign for peanuts The next day, after a huge buffet breakfast with everything ranging from cream soup to seaweed, cereal, fruit, and bread, we headed to the airport. From Narita we had to fly to Nagoya to catch a flight to Korea. (I'm not sure why because I really doubt that there wasn't a single flight going to Korea out of Narita...) Nagoya airport was the most amazing airport I have EVER been in!!! It was so much fun! We were supposed to have a six hour layover, but Martha pleaded with the flight agents to give us an earlier flight. Honestly, I was a little disappointed when we left Nagoya. I could have stayed there all day. The upstairs was like a little town with various clothing, candy, toy and food shops. It was all so quaint and so aesthetically pleasing! Plus because the airline had messed up our previous flight, we each received roughly $50 worth in vouchers. So Nik, Charlie, and I went to a sushi bar, the type with the revolving sushi and had gelato after that. SEOUL We took the plane from Nagoya to Incheon. We made it! yay! We got all of our luggage and made it through customs. We got to our bus and we were all getting our luggage off our baggage carts to give to the bus driver of the airport limo. It was very chaotic, and I set my wallet down in the basket of my luggage cart so I could hand my bags over to the driver. When I looked back my cart (as well as all of the other carts were gone!). Of course I freaked out. I told Nik and I had to go find my wallet ASAP. I yelled over to Peggy and said I needed to go find my wallet and we booked it. I ran into the airport and found the line of empty carts, and there my yellow wallet was, just chilling in the basket - nothing missing. I was sooo lucky! By the time we ran back out, literally not two minutes later, the bus had left. So I got inline and bought Nik and I tickets for the next bus to Insadong. We made it on the bus and took it to Insadong. Nik had stayed at the motel that we were staying at so he vaguely knew the way (it's right next to a large Buddhist temple) and we found our way there. Whew. Then it was shopping time!!! We got there around 7 or 8. Nik, Brian, and I shopped around Insadong for a while until things started closing up around 10ish. We still had a while until we could go to Dongdaemun for midnight shopping. We ate dinner at a restaurant and had gwa-il bingsoo at Red Mango. YUM! Then we took the subway over.
We shopped around the outdoor part as well as the indoor malls. We went all over. Initially, Nik did not seem very enthusiastic about shopping, but once we were there, Brian and I kept losing him because he kept stopping at various stands to look at various merchandise. Haha! I bought chapssal bread, which are like rice donuts - sooo good! I've been craving them since I left Korean last summer. I also got my dad one of the bug zappers that we used on our farming excursion, which looks like a tennis racket and electrocutes the bugs. (Sadly, it broke the first time he turned it when I got back to MN... my mom fixed it though!) I also bought some clothes and other stuff for myself and friends. It was so fun! We got back to our motel around 2:30 am. I shared a room with Peggy and Charlie; I slept on the floor. I fell asleep to the sounds of monks chanting, it was pretty cool, but slightly annoying (because I had a hard time falling asleep as they were pretty loud). The next morning I woke-up to find Charlie sitting on his bed staring at me. creepy! haha! Apparently he is an early-to-rise kind of person. We wandered around in search for food and then came back to gather our stuff and check out. We caught the Hanullim bus (provided to us by the Hanullim drumming school) that would take us to Buyeo. Since Sangho et al. weren't with us yet, I was the person who spoke the most Korean... yikes! The bus driver kept talking to me. I got the gist of what he was saying, but was a bit confused at times... ~BUYEO~ We went to the airport to pick-up the Mexico team and then headed south. We passed Yonsei on the way and I swear, I felt my heart break a little. I wanted sooo badly to get off and go visit Tte and KLI to find Kim Seunsangnim. We passed the main gate which is located on the road I took to school everyday from Casa and I wanted to get off and go back to Casa and the Sinchon rotary and see everything again. It was rather sad.
Anyhow, we got to Buyeo. Charlie was very disappointing because he thought it looked "sooo depressing!" It was a bit desolate looking. The sky was cloudy, and the drumming school is in an old elementary school, so the buildings are pretty old and grey, there is grey gravel all around, and the vegetation was all pretty much dead because it was fall.
I had bought Charlie this little Super Mario brothers key chain while we were in Japan because I felt bad he couldn't come out with us. Wow, bad idea. That thing was soooo annoying! It made a really obnoxious noise when you pressed a button and he was constantly pressing it. When we got there he was messing with it, incessantly pushing the button so HanYong tried to grab it and break it. (*refer to picture below) Haha! HanYong failed that time, but did eventually succeed in dismantling it. One time when Charlie was out of the room, he borrowed my Gerber multi-tool and took the battery out of it. Haha!
We met the other participants. There were various groups from all over the world representing their country. I didn't realize that Shinparam was to be representing the whole of America! There were groups from: Mexico, Belgium, France, Russia, Japan, Switzerland, and China. And group members ranged in age. I think Charlie (age 13) was the youngest participant. Well, the French group had one of their son's participating, kind of, and he was four - I think.
absolutely adorable!!! The Mexico team had all women from college up through I'd say their forties. They got into Samulnori through their interest in Korean pop culture. The Belgium team was very small, three people - not even enough for a Samulnori ensemble, which requires four people. They were a really new group and all of the members had been drumming for about six months prior to the festival. They were amazing for being newbies though. The French team had all adults who were in their early thirties to forties. Two of them were married and had two children. The Russian team was from Sakhalin Island which has a high population of Korean immigrants. So a lot of the participants were second or third generation Korean-Russians. They were all in college. The Japanese team was AMAZING!!! They were all girls from a Korean/Japanese middle and high school. They were also second and third generation Korean-Japanese from Osaka. Interestingly, I am pretty positive I saw their school during my study abroad trip to Japan when we were in Osaka visiting areas with large Korean populations. Their school was the North Korean affiliated school. The Chinese team had only four members, all of which looked to be in the mid twenties.
I ended up sharing a room with Brian, Charlie, HanYong, and Nik. Wow, it was insane. I have never hung out with so many guys! I'll admit I was a little disgusted by some people's lack of personal hygiene. (I know, I'm such a girl...I think I'm over obsessed with cleanliness) They didn't always wear pjs to bed, and often wore the same clothes the next day. Although, rather obnoxious at times it was so much fun sharing a room with them, particularly HanYong and Charlie! There were two bunk beds, and I was sleeping on the ground. I had brought my computer and Charlie and HanYong liked using it to mess with my pictures. They used the Paint-it program and altered some of my photos from camp. Haha! One night, I think it might have been after our party, Charlie got really really really hyper. I was so dead tired. It was around 2 am and all I wanted to do was go to bed. I kept trying to go to sleep but Charlie and HanYong kept bugging me. They told me I looked like an ajuma, or old lady, because I was wearing my grey monk pants and a checked scarf I'd gotten at Dongdaemun. Thus, the phrase, Hajima the ajuma came about.
I lay down on my bed and buried myself under the blanket. Charlie jumped on me and farted. Ugh. He was laughing maniacally and egging me on. I kept telling him to let me sleep (some of this was caught on film thanks to Nik, who idly stood there looking highly amused and observed, and a few times even encouraged HanYong and Charlie). Then they got the grand idea to grab my sleeping mat by the corners, fold me in, and drag me outside into the unheated hallway and lock me out. Eventually they let me back in. Grrr... There was definitely not a dull moment. They were sweet. Nik and HanYong went for morning jogs a few times and once they brought back flowers for the room. One time HanYong was wearing some stylish clothes and I thought he looked really adorable so I said something like, "oh my god, you look sooo cute!". Him being a 13 year old boy obviously did not like this, so we created this game where if he was wearing something I thought looked cute or stylish, I would tell him he looked terrible and use all these descriptive adjectives to describe how ugly he looked. Once I did it in front of his mother and she was like, "huh?"... Haha! ~PRACTICE~ The next day we started practice. We had individual practice as well as group practice. There were a few instructors and they would drop-by our individual drumming practices to give constructive criticism and help us develop new techniques.
FRUSTRATION... We also were doing a group piece , YoungNam NongAk, with Kim DukSoo, SamulNori, and all of the different teams. It was so awesome to be in an environment where everyone passionately cared about drumming. There were places for us to practice, and we could pretty much practice any time we wanted (although Nik and I did get kicked out once because we were practicing after midnight). Everyone there were such amazing and talented drummers! Particularly, the Japanese kids who practice every day for two hours and on Sundays from 9am to 6 pm!, SwisSamul - the Swiss team, and the French team. I really enjoyed the speed of class too - we progressed pretty fast without too many hold backs. The drumming school is located in a rural town, so there was one convenient store down the road and lots and lots of farms. It was nice and peaceful. Our third day, Kim DukSoo came down from Seoul. We had a dress rehearsal for all of the various drumming teams. Apparently, we were supposed to have some sort of performance that represented our own country... Yeah, we didn't know that requirement and we didn't have one. We found out about half an hour before we were to go on!!! All of the other teams had really cool performances with traditional clothes, but not us. And anyways, what is our national dress? Cowboy boots and a hat??? We seriously thought about singing Yankee Doodle or The Fifty Nifty United States song, but at the last second decided that was just too pathetic. So, we went on and did our standing piece. I didn't even really know it. After our performance, Kim DukSoo pointedly said something to the effect of, "I want your performances to represent you OWN country." Ugh. How embarrassing. I mean, Mexico had a really cool Aztec dance, Russia was singing a folk song, China was doing a Chinese dance etc. Anyhow, from then on, we had group practice everyday to work on our joint piece and work on the choreography and transitions between individual team performances. There was also Binari, an intro song, which had one person from each team, (Steve from ours) take turns singing/chanting something in their own language for the introduction to our group peformance. It actually turned out really cool!
It was so inspiring and motivating to be around so many talented and dedicated drummers! The atmosphere was awesome! ~BEKJAE CULTURAL FESTIVAL/DRESS REHEARSAL~ There was a lot of spare time too. We had breakfast, lunch, and dinner provided to us. The food was pretty good!
The day before our actual performance, we went to the festival grounds to have dress rehearsal. However, the stage wasn't even set up yet, so we had lots of time to wander and explore.
They dropped everyone off at The Bekjae Cultural Festival, which was concurrent with the SamulNori fest. We found some pretty awesome stuff there! There was a large stage with traditional arts performances, ie. drumming, dancing, singing. To the right, there were lots of booths set up to sell and advertise things, as well as free cultural activities, such as ink printing and mask making. Nik, HanYong and I wandered around there for a bit. Then we wandered over to the left side, which was more of an outdoor market. That area was awesome! There were vendors selling clothes, socks, food, etc. We found this one vendor selling old American army surplus stuff and other odd things. Nik found an old electronic Korean/English dictionary for $20!! A great price! There were air guns, coats, boots, flashlights, really ancient looking baby powder and shaving cream (SKETCHY!!!), knives, binoculars, belts, etc. Next to it was a pumpkin taffy stand. The vendor was using those cool big metal scissors and making music with them as he cut. PICTURE We also found a "dollar store" type thing. I bought two flashlights in the shape of pigs. Cute!
The festival was located across from a really pretty river surrounded by flowers. We went over and took pics. I saw some of SwisSamul collecting flower seeds and I followed suit.
~PARTY~ That night, back at the drumming school we had a big party. There was lots of food and snacks and drinks (soju and of course, makoli). It was really fun; everyone took lots of pictures.
~PERFORMANCE~ We had our individual performance the same day as our big group performance. We played Samdo poongmul. Honestly, it wasn't so great. We got out of sync during our performance... not good. We were being judge not just on our playing abilities but our stage performance as well. Before we went on, Sangho told everyone to SMILE! I tried to smile the whole time, but found it rather hard. However, after our performance had ended, Karim, one of the Belgium members came up and told me I was the only person who had smiled during our performance. Interesting. Needless to say, we did not place. It was good experience though. I watched other groups perform. Wow! were they good. Oddly, Samdo seemed the be the popular piece. Unfortunately for us, it seemed like every other group played it. And ALL of the other groups, even the kids who were 6,7, and 8 years old, and the developmentally delayed group way way way surpassed us. Oh well, there is ALWAYS room for improvement. haha! That evening, we had our big performance. We stood in two long lines outside the grounds waiting for our cue. We played and marched in and onto the stage. We walked around the stage playing for a while, and then we walked to our respective group spots around the edge of the stage. Next was binari while each country took turns going back to the alter at the back of the stage to show our respects. The first row in the audience also came up. I think they were all high-up government officials, but they took too long at the alter and screwed up our timing with the binari. Kim DukSoo got really mad. He came back grumbling and fuming and grabbed me and few other people and shoved us forward. Ah! scary! Then we had individual country cultural performances. The Japanese team kicked-off the performance. Their group had only arrived the day before, on Thursday evening (because they couldn't miss too much school). They had been awarded the Presidential Award for best foreign Poongmulnori troupe of 2007 or something big like that. OMG! They were amazing! I think one of the best performances I have ever seen! They had about 40 students, all girls, from middle and high school. Their performance was like none I have ever seen. It included large flags that they waved around as well as an instrument called an Oola, which has 9 small gongs connected to a wooden frame.
The first photo is of the Japanese Team practicing and the second is them getting ready before our big performance. Then after they went, the other country teams performed their skit/piece. Then we got into place for our group piece, YongNam. Everyone played together. After we finished our piece, we all stood and held hands as a few people (mostly the Japanese students and the SamulNori people) played and we sang Arirang and waved farewell to the audience. Then we all tied our drums back on and walked around the stage playing. It was funny because I was behind Steve, who has long curly blonde hair and I felt like I was behind a rock star. Every time we passed the front of the stage, people from the audience, who were now crowding towards the stage, would reach out and try to touch him. WEIRD! After the performance ended and we took a pic with Kim DukSoo!
group shot ~마지막 날/THE LAST DAY~ Nik and I were leaving a day before the official last day of the festival because Nik had to get back to school. We spent much of it as the SamulNori Festival because most of the other country teams had their drumming performances. Nik and I wandered around town and found a drum shop too, where Nik bought a new drum. He also got new glasses. Some of the Russian kids and Charlie and HanYong rented bikes and went biking. Later that evening, 현정 언니 HyeonJung, 윤정 언니 YoonJung, 범정 오빠 BumJung, and 상훈Sanghoon, all counselors from the camp I worked at over the summer came down from Seoul to visit Charlie and me!!! I felt bad because they got lost and then went to the Hanullim drumming school, instead of the festival grounds! But eventually they made it. We went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant.
In downtown Buyeo That night, Kim DukSoo was giving a performance and I really wanted to see it... but Nik and I had to get back to Seoul so we could catch our flight the next day. YoonJung unni was kind enough to give us a ride back. After dinner, Nik and I made rounds saying goodbye to everyone. It wasn't the most ideal because the concert had started, so we had to crawl over people in the aisles and it was really noisy. It was so sad. Then we drove back to Hanullim to get our luggage and drums. Somehow, we fit six people, two suitcases, two backpacks and two boxed-up drums in her car. I don't know how! It was pretty cramped. Man, YoonJung unni is kind of a crazy driver and there were a few times where I was pretty sure we were going to get into an accident or hit something (one time it was a white dog and another a cat). Luckily we didn't. We made it back to Seoul and dropped off HyeonJung unni. Nik and I didn't have a place to stay that night, so the five of us went to Jimjilbang (bath house). yay!!! YoonJung unni was so nice! She bought me shampoo, lotion, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. We showered and washed up and met the guys outside. We played Never Have I Ever and a few other games. Then YoonJung unni went home for the night and the rest of us went to sleep. The next morning, she picked us up promptly at 7 am. We dropped off BumJung oppa at a subway station and then went to the airport. She and Sanghoon accompanied us inside, and she treated us to breakfast. Then we said our goodbyes and Nik and I went through security and flew back to good 'ol Minnesota. !THE END!
While I was looking around the temple, I spotted a security guard doing rounds. I freaked out because I thought we would get in trouble for trespassing. So, I stopped in my tracks and tried to stand perfectly still and stare off into the distance, hoping he wouldn't see me. (I know, I'm really lame.) He kept getting closer and closer. I didn't know what to do, but finally realized I was just being dumb because he'd obviously seen me. So, I turned around and bowed to him. He smiled and kept going. Whew. 
Nik and I near a sign for peanuts The next day, after a huge buffet breakfast with everything ranging from cream soup to seaweed, cereal, fruit, and bread, we headed to the airport. From Narita we had to fly to Nagoya to catch a flight to Korea. (I'm not sure why because I really doubt that there wasn't a single flight going to Korea out of Narita...) Nagoya airport was the most amazing airport I have EVER been in!!! It was so much fun! We were supposed to have a six hour layover, but Martha pleaded with the flight agents to give us an earlier flight. Honestly, I was a little disappointed when we left Nagoya. I could have stayed there all day. The upstairs was like a little town with various clothing, candy, toy and food shops. It was all so quaint and so aesthetically pleasing! Plus because the airline had messed up our previous flight, we each received roughly $50 worth in vouchers. So Nik, Charlie, and I went to a sushi bar, the type with the revolving sushi and had gelato after that. SEOUL We took the plane from Nagoya to Incheon. We made it! yay! We got all of our luggage and made it through customs. We got to our bus and we were all getting our luggage off our baggage carts to give to the bus driver of the airport limo. It was very chaotic, and I set my wallet down in the basket of my luggage cart so I could hand my bags over to the driver. When I looked back my cart (as well as all of the other carts were gone!). Of course I freaked out. I told Nik and I had to go find my wallet ASAP. I yelled over to Peggy and said I needed to go find my wallet and we booked it. I ran into the airport and found the line of empty carts, and there my yellow wallet was, just chilling in the basket - nothing missing. I was sooo lucky! By the time we ran back out, literally not two minutes later, the bus had left. So I got inline and bought Nik and I tickets for the next bus to Insadong. We made it on the bus and took it to Insadong. Nik had stayed at the motel that we were staying at so he vaguely knew the way (it's right next to a large Buddhist temple) and we found our way there. Whew. Then it was shopping time!!! We got there around 7 or 8. Nik, Brian, and I shopped around Insadong for a while until things started closing up around 10ish. We still had a while until we could go to Dongdaemun for midnight shopping. We ate dinner at a restaurant and had gwa-il bingsoo at Red Mango. YUM! Then we took the subway over. 
We shopped around the outdoor part as well as the indoor malls. We went all over. Initially, Nik did not seem very enthusiastic about shopping, but once we were there, Brian and I kept losing him because he kept stopping at various stands to look at various merchandise. Haha! I bought chapssal bread, which are like rice donuts - sooo good! I've been craving them since I left Korean last summer. I also got my dad one of the bug zappers that we used on our farming excursion, which looks like a tennis racket and electrocutes the bugs. (Sadly, it broke the first time he turned it when I got back to MN... my mom fixed it though!) I also bought some clothes and other stuff for myself and friends. It was so fun! We got back to our motel around 2:30 am. I shared a room with Peggy and Charlie; I slept on the floor. I fell asleep to the sounds of monks chanting, it was pretty cool, but slightly annoying (because I had a hard time falling asleep as they were pretty loud). The next morning I woke-up to find Charlie sitting on his bed staring at me. creepy! haha! Apparently he is an early-to-rise kind of person. We wandered around in search for food and then came back to gather our stuff and check out. We caught the Hanullim bus (provided to us by the Hanullim drumming school) that would take us to Buyeo. Since Sangho et al. weren't with us yet, I was the person who spoke the most Korean... yikes! The bus driver kept talking to me. I got the gist of what he was saying, but was a bit confused at times... ~BUYEO~ We went to the airport to pick-up the Mexico team and then headed south. We passed Yonsei on the way and I swear, I felt my heart break a little. I wanted sooo badly to get off and go visit Tte and KLI to find Kim Seunsangnim. We passed the main gate which is located on the road I took to school everyday from Casa and I wanted to get off and go back to Casa and the Sinchon rotary and see everything again. It was rather sad. 
Anyhow, we got to Buyeo. Charlie was very disappointing because he thought it looked "sooo depressing!" It was a bit desolate looking. The sky was cloudy, and the drumming school is in an old elementary school, so the buildings are pretty old and grey, there is grey gravel all around, and the vegetation was all pretty much dead because it was fall. 
I had bought Charlie this little Super Mario brothers key chain while we were in Japan because I felt bad he couldn't come out with us. Wow, bad idea. That thing was soooo annoying! It made a really obnoxious noise when you pressed a button and he was constantly pressing it. When we got there he was messing with it, incessantly pushing the button so HanYong tried to grab it and break it. (*refer to picture below) Haha! HanYong failed that time, but did eventually succeed in dismantling it. One time when Charlie was out of the room, he borrowed my Gerber multi-tool and took the battery out of it. Haha! 
We met the other participants. There were various groups from all over the world representing their country. I didn't realize that Shinparam was to be representing the whole of America! There were groups from: Mexico, Belgium, France, Russia, Japan, Switzerland, and China. And group members ranged in age. I think Charlie (age 13) was the youngest participant. Well, the French group had one of their son's participating, kind of, and he was four - I think. 
absolutely adorable!!! The Mexico team had all women from college up through I'd say their forties. They got into Samulnori through their interest in Korean pop culture. The Belgium team was very small, three people - not even enough for a Samulnori ensemble, which requires four people. They were a really new group and all of the members had been drumming for about six months prior to the festival. They were amazing for being newbies though. The French team had all adults who were in their early thirties to forties. Two of them were married and had two children. The Russian team was from Sakhalin Island which has a high population of Korean immigrants. So a lot of the participants were second or third generation Korean-Russians. They were all in college. The Japanese team was AMAZING!!! They were all girls from a Korean/Japanese middle and high school. They were also second and third generation Korean-Japanese from Osaka. Interestingly, I am pretty positive I saw their school during my study abroad trip to Japan when we were in Osaka visiting areas with large Korean populations. Their school was the North Korean affiliated school. The Chinese team had only four members, all of which looked to be in the mid twenties. 
I ended up sharing a room with Brian, Charlie, HanYong, and Nik. Wow, it was insane. I have never hung out with so many guys! I'll admit I was a little disgusted by some people's lack of personal hygiene. (I know, I'm such a girl...I think I'm over obsessed with cleanliness) They didn't always wear pjs to bed, and often wore the same clothes the next day. Although, rather obnoxious at times it was so much fun sharing a room with them, particularly HanYong and Charlie! There were two bunk beds, and I was sleeping on the ground. I had brought my computer and Charlie and HanYong liked using it to mess with my pictures. They used the Paint-it program and altered some of my photos from camp. Haha! One night, I think it might have been after our party, Charlie got really really really hyper. I was so dead tired. It was around 2 am and all I wanted to do was go to bed. I kept trying to go to sleep but Charlie and HanYong kept bugging me. They told me I looked like an ajuma, or old lady, because I was wearing my grey monk pants and a checked scarf I'd gotten at Dongdaemun. Thus, the phrase, Hajima the ajuma came about. 
I lay down on my bed and buried myself under the blanket. Charlie jumped on me and farted. Ugh. He was laughing maniacally and egging me on. I kept telling him to let me sleep (some of this was caught on film thanks to Nik, who idly stood there looking highly amused and observed, and a few times even encouraged HanYong and Charlie). Then they got the grand idea to grab my sleeping mat by the corners, fold me in, and drag me outside into the unheated hallway and lock me out. Eventually they let me back in. Grrr... There was definitely not a dull moment. They were sweet. Nik and HanYong went for morning jogs a few times and once they brought back flowers for the room. One time HanYong was wearing some stylish clothes and I thought he looked really adorable so I said something like, "oh my god, you look sooo cute!". Him being a 13 year old boy obviously did not like this, so we created this game where if he was wearing something I thought looked cute or stylish, I would tell him he looked terrible and use all these descriptive adjectives to describe how ugly he looked. Once I did it in front of his mother and she was like, "huh?"... Haha! ~PRACTICE~ The next day we started practice. We had individual practice as well as group practice. There were a few instructors and they would drop-by our individual drumming practices to give constructive criticism and help us develop new techniques. 
FRUSTRATION... We also were doing a group piece , YoungNam NongAk, with Kim DukSoo, SamulNori, and all of the different teams. It was so awesome to be in an environment where everyone passionately cared about drumming. There were places for us to practice, and we could pretty much practice any time we wanted (although Nik and I did get kicked out once because we were practicing after midnight). Everyone there were such amazing and talented drummers! Particularly, the Japanese kids who practice every day for two hours and on Sundays from 9am to 6 pm!, SwisSamul - the Swiss team, and the French team. I really enjoyed the speed of class too - we progressed pretty fast without too many hold backs. The drumming school is located in a rural town, so there was one convenient store down the road and lots and lots of farms. It was nice and peaceful. Our third day, Kim DukSoo came down from Seoul. We had a dress rehearsal for all of the various drumming teams. Apparently, we were supposed to have some sort of performance that represented our own country... Yeah, we didn't know that requirement and we didn't have one. We found out about half an hour before we were to go on!!! All of the other teams had really cool performances with traditional clothes, but not us. And anyways, what is our national dress? Cowboy boots and a hat??? We seriously thought about singing Yankee Doodle or The Fifty Nifty United States song, but at the last second decided that was just too pathetic. So, we went on and did our standing piece. I didn't even really know it. After our performance, Kim DukSoo pointedly said something to the effect of, "I want your performances to represent you OWN country." Ugh. How embarrassing. I mean, Mexico had a really cool Aztec dance, Russia was singing a folk song, China was doing a Chinese dance etc. Anyhow, from then on, we had group practice everyday to work on our joint piece and work on the choreography and transitions between individual team performances. There was also Binari, an intro song, which had one person from each team, (Steve from ours) take turns singing/chanting something in their own language for the introduction to our group peformance. It actually turned out really cool! 
It was so inspiring and motivating to be around so many talented and dedicated drummers! The atmosphere was awesome! ~BEKJAE CULTURAL FESTIVAL/DRESS REHEARSAL~ There was a lot of spare time too. We had breakfast, lunch, and dinner provided to us. The food was pretty good! 
The day before our actual performance, we went to the festival grounds to have dress rehearsal. However, the stage wasn't even set up yet, so we had lots of time to wander and explore. 
They dropped everyone off at The Bekjae Cultural Festival, which was concurrent with the SamulNori fest. We found some pretty awesome stuff there! There was a large stage with traditional arts performances, ie. drumming, dancing, singing. To the right, there were lots of booths set up to sell and advertise things, as well as free cultural activities, such as ink printing and mask making. Nik, HanYong and I wandered around there for a bit. Then we wandered over to the left side, which was more of an outdoor market. That area was awesome! There were vendors selling clothes, socks, food, etc. We found this one vendor selling old American army surplus stuff and other odd things. Nik found an old electronic Korean/English dictionary for $20!! A great price! There were air guns, coats, boots, flashlights, really ancient looking baby powder and shaving cream (SKETCHY!!!), knives, binoculars, belts, etc. Next to it was a pumpkin taffy stand. The vendor was using those cool big metal scissors and making music with them as he cut. PICTURE We also found a "dollar store" type thing. I bought two flashlights in the shape of pigs. Cute! 
The festival was located across from a really pretty river surrounded by flowers. We went over and took pics. I saw some of SwisSamul collecting flower seeds and I followed suit. 
~PARTY~ That night, back at the drumming school we had a big party. There was lots of food and snacks and drinks (soju and of course, makoli). It was really fun; everyone took lots of pictures. 
~PERFORMANCE~ We had our individual performance the same day as our big group performance. We played Samdo poongmul. Honestly, it wasn't so great. We got out of sync during our performance... not good. We were being judge not just on our playing abilities but our stage performance as well. Before we went on, Sangho told everyone to SMILE! I tried to smile the whole time, but found it rather hard. However, after our performance had ended, Karim, one of the Belgium members came up and told me I was the only person who had smiled during our performance. Interesting. Needless to say, we did not place. It was good experience though. I watched other groups perform. Wow! were they good. Oddly, Samdo seemed the be the popular piece. Unfortunately for us, it seemed like every other group played it. And ALL of the other groups, even the kids who were 6,7, and 8 years old, and the developmentally delayed group way way way surpassed us. Oh well, there is ALWAYS room for improvement. haha! That evening, we had our big performance. We stood in two long lines outside the grounds waiting for our cue. We played and marched in and onto the stage. We walked around the stage playing for a while, and then we walked to our respective group spots around the edge of the stage. Next was binari while each country took turns going back to the alter at the back of the stage to show our respects. The first row in the audience also came up. I think they were all high-up government officials, but they took too long at the alter and screwed up our timing with the binari. Kim DukSoo got really mad. He came back grumbling and fuming and grabbed me and few other people and shoved us forward. Ah! scary! Then we had individual country cultural performances. The Japanese team kicked-off the performance. Their group had only arrived the day before, on Thursday evening (because they couldn't miss too much school). They had been awarded the Presidential Award for best foreign Poongmulnori troupe of 2007 or something big like that. OMG! They were amazing! I think one of the best performances I have ever seen! They had about 40 students, all girls, from middle and high school. Their performance was like none I have ever seen. It included large flags that they waved around as well as an instrument called an Oola, which has 9 small gongs connected to a wooden frame. 
The first photo is of the Japanese Team practicing and the second is them getting ready before our big performance. Then after they went, the other country teams performed their skit/piece. Then we got into place for our group piece, YongNam. Everyone played together. After we finished our piece, we all stood and held hands as a few people (mostly the Japanese students and the SamulNori people) played and we sang Arirang and waved farewell to the audience. Then we all tied our drums back on and walked around the stage playing. It was funny because I was behind Steve, who has long curly blonde hair and I felt like I was behind a rock star. Every time we passed the front of the stage, people from the audience, who were now crowding towards the stage, would reach out and try to touch him. WEIRD! After the performance ended and we took a pic with Kim DukSoo! 
group shot ~마지막 날/THE LAST DAY~ Nik and I were leaving a day before the official last day of the festival because Nik had to get back to school. We spent much of it as the SamulNori Festival because most of the other country teams had their drumming performances. Nik and I wandered around town and found a drum shop too, where Nik bought a new drum. He also got new glasses. Some of the Russian kids and Charlie and HanYong rented bikes and went biking. Later that evening, 현정 언니 HyeonJung, 윤정 언니 YoonJung, 범정 오빠 BumJung, and 상훈Sanghoon, all counselors from the camp I worked at over the summer came down from Seoul to visit Charlie and me!!! I felt bad because they got lost and then went to the Hanullim drumming school, instead of the festival grounds! But eventually they made it. We went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant. 
In downtown Buyeo That night, Kim DukSoo was giving a performance and I really wanted to see it... but Nik and I had to get back to Seoul so we could catch our flight the next day. YoonJung unni was kind enough to give us a ride back. After dinner, Nik and I made rounds saying goodbye to everyone. It wasn't the most ideal because the concert had started, so we had to crawl over people in the aisles and it was really noisy. It was so sad. Then we drove back to Hanullim to get our luggage and drums. Somehow, we fit six people, two suitcases, two backpacks and two boxed-up drums in her car. I don't know how! It was pretty cramped. Man, YoonJung unni is kind of a crazy driver and there were a few times where I was pretty sure we were going to get into an accident or hit something (one time it was a white dog and another a cat). Luckily we didn't. We made it back to Seoul and dropped off HyeonJung unni. Nik and I didn't have a place to stay that night, so the five of us went to Jimjilbang (bath house). yay!!! YoonJung unni was so nice! She bought me shampoo, lotion, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. We showered and washed up and met the guys outside. We played Never Have I Ever and a few other games. Then YoonJung unni went home for the night and the rest of us went to sleep. The next morning, she picked us up promptly at 7 am. We dropped off BumJung oppa at a subway station and then went to the airport. She and Sanghoon accompanied us inside, and she treated us to breakfast. Then we said our goodbyes and Nik and I went through security and flew back to good 'ol Minnesota. !THE END!
