Jeonju, you surprised me!

 Traditional Korean paper (known as Hanji), made in the historical villiage in Jeonju

For the last few days I've been living in an alternate reality. I went to Jeonju to rest for a few days, laundry and explore, an I got buckets more than I ever bargained for. To tell you the truth, on my

way in to town I was at a crossroads; I could either head inland or go straight on towards the next town, and along m journey towards the south coast and Jeju island, and I just told myself the island will stay, but now is the time to visit while I know people there, so off in my determination I went, and what a whirlwind few days!

I went off exploring on my bike, ended up in an inconsequential part  of town by just letting my curiousity guide my path, an ended up  sneaking up a hill to get a photo of some school boys sneaking a  cigarette, and ended up making four adorable friends out of them. We  played games, stared up at the sky, and spoke in broken tongues to one  another the best that we could.. until it was dark and their parents  called them home.

The following night was one of the new friends' birthday, so it was a  night out on the town watching the Korean soccer game in the world  cup, in a sea of red tshirts and the glowing devil horns that  represent the fighting Korean spirit. After a loud, good time, we went  to a small upstairs pub with nimblehanded bartenders who put on a  fireshow, and played a videogame version of darts (just like real darts, but plastic ends, a special board, and buttons, scores and player modes), until finally finding my way home at 4am. So, I was in  no shape to bike off into the sunset today, so Ashley, whose apartment couch I've been sleeping on, told me I should just come to Seoul for the weekend, so here I sit, 2hrs into the 3hr bus ride back to where my adventure began, and excited to see my friends and city of the past few months.

I'm travelling light and I love it. All I have is my little sleeping bag case half full to survive the weekend. On the funny side of things, today was not so much my day, I swallowed  a bug to the point of gagging and coughing for a few mins, got caught biking in the rain, and on a bus until almost 2am, BUT I have a place to crash for the weekend for $5 a night! Glory!