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Lunar New Year Road Trip This is the story of a cross-Korean road trip fought against 30 million automobiles that never materialized, a story about our trek that needs to be documented hella-fast because I am fucking pressed for time and going insane! Me, Sam, Mike and a ritzy black rental car drove and drove and drove across the country and down the east coast and into Busan, doing some silly things along the way and now I will show you these things insomuch as one sentence per picture will allow. That's right - one measly sentence. Except for this first part, which is four sentences.
First stop was a hidden mountain fortress which wasn't very hidden in the traditional sense of strategic placement as much as it was deviously camouflaged by fake road signs and an evil blockade of filthy industrial side-streets, but we finally found it and there was COFFEE and BAGS OF GROSS KOREAN CHIPS!
Also a BIG HUGE MAP!!
The mountain fortress had WALLS and they were sorta like the GREAT WALL OF CHINA only not as good and not as Chinese.
Within these inferior walls lay a QUIET TOWNSHIP full of simple folk...
One of whom was apparently waiting for her GOOFY SWEATER to dry so she could walk around looking like a big FLORIDIAN RETARDO.
Hey old guy, your girlfriend can WALK ON WATER and is most likely the FEMALE ASIAN VERSION OF JESUS who was foreseen by the silenced gospels, but you're too busy jumping around in that boat to notice!
Very picturesque.
Very Hitleresque.
This palm tree is neon and it guards the HOT SPRING BATHHOUSES with fiery coconuts.
Then we found Danyang which is the WORST CITY in Korea although the view was pretty sensual.
And it had a motel which seemed nice under cover of dark but by day was revealed to be a MONOLITHIC ORGY ACROPOLIS.
Although I guess once we got inside this became blazingly apparent in the glow of red-lighted hallways.
Four out of five Adams agree: the forbidden fruit tastes like STRANGE PORN.
So we departed from that heathen place and made our way to some caves, which were NOT OPEN due to the Lunar New Year... FUCKING ASTRONOMY!
It's fun to pretend, except I didn't do a very good job of cropping this picture realistically.
So then our car was BROKEN, but we eventually figured it out and set the VAPS meter to full, zooming away from those hateful fake caves and happy that VAPS actually meant "car equals go" instead of "VAPORIZE PASSENGERS NOW!!!!!"
In this province, the local mythology was a touching tale of this big dummy who once fell in love with a princess and she taught him to become a great soldier and then a legendary general despite his MASSIVE DEBILITATING EYEBROWS.
So then there's this great plot twist where we find a NEW set of caves, and all the stalagmites look like freaky brains and tongues and penises and we were attacked by a bat (FOR REAL!).
And Sam discovers an enchanting fairy grotto.
I FOUND A CAVE THING!
CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE CAVE.
This was a bit freaky because you can totally see a face in the mist there, and I can wholeheartedly assure you that when I took this picture there was absolutely no visible smoke and IT MUST BE THE DREADED ROCKSATAN who follows me around sometimes when he needs to talk about his feelings, which is sooooooo lame.
In a stunning display of inadvertent accuracy, a grotesque infant G.I. terrorizes the local souvenir dolls.
Goodbye ugly duckling!
Welcome to Busan, Korea's second-largest city... that's evidently not saying too much considering MIKE'S HEAD IS BIGger than their entire highway tollgate.
This is a 'Western breakfast' in Korea: Two pieces of microwaved bacon, two eggs, some tomato and kiwi and spam.
I FOUND A BEACH AND MIKE FOUND HIS CELL PHONE AND SAM FOUND JESUS (not pictured)!
Even in February, the beach was packed with people and the shoreline was packed with high-end resort motels.
The honourable Busan Sand Buddha presides, please leave a small cash donation in his mouth if you enjoyed basking in his noble visage!
Popular culture comes from the land itself.
And suddenly there's a sea turtle... how the fuck did that happen??
AQUARIUM!!!!!!!!!!
The chillingest croc on the south side.
And in this exhibit, you can clearly see a swarm of Nu-Wave Korean Handphones with their human hosts in tow!
Beneath the waves, the Grand Fishwich reigns supreme.
If you enjoyed yourself at the Busan Aquarium, why not remember the occasion with a penguin guilded to your crotch?
And don't forget to penguinize your child too!
New vocabulary - Benannigan / Benanniganize : to short-change someone in a manner reminiscent of a Bennigan's restaurant.
You can win a stuffed bear like this one by throwing darts at balloons in a street stall, which is a pretty good deal considering it costs 50 cents and the bear will pour all your beers for you.
Rest in peace forever lapped by the waves, sweet rum of the sea.
If you ever go to a hotel nightclub, they will charge you extra tax for the privilege of drinking there and then Mike will argue for like ten minutes over like 2 000 won (not a lot) and then he'll steal a waiter's pen and you'll have to escape post-haste while they call the cops on you!
In conclusion, we made it. Whew, one-liner captions hurt. I feel like I've been benanniganizing myself. And there's no real end, no frilly bookend to this saga, we simply crawled into our car bleary-eyed and raced for home one morning, stopping to get lost from time to time. But I'll always feel the need to grind everything into a single summarizing sentence, despite the absurdist, nonsensical seconds in time you've been subjected to as a result. We've been across Korea and nowhere at all, so here's our grandiose exit: we made it. And really, isn't simple survival the ultimate marker of success in this crazy world of roadjams and rising moons? |
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