Day 78

The Penis Park: Revisited

Well, wouldn't you know it, I just found some more photos from Samcheok!  This is what happens when you depend on three separate cameras to capture your special moments.

Apart from the Penis Park, most of the town is devoted to fishing tourism.  There's lots of fresher-than-fresh seafood restaurants, where the meal is actually still alive and swimming around in a tank when you get there.  Souvenir gift shops, all selling the exact same dried fishy goods, are literally everywhere.  I tried to get a picture of the street to show just how ubiquitous they are but photos couldn't do it justice.

Dried squid are super popular here.

Live squids are pretty popular too.

Sea squirts!  They actually squirt when you bite into them.  Like a Gushers fruit-candy, but alive and salty.

Flatfish are mostly too ugly to live.

Fresh filefish!

Noooo you're too pretty to get eaten!

Here's what every single shop looks like:

Literally.  Every.  One.  They're all identical.

Dramatic little dried things.

Saw this by the water, it's terrifying:

A bit exaggerated, perhaps.

And I saw a wedding group!  The girl in the dress is the bride, and I think the dude in the ripped up pajamas is the groom?  My Google searches have been unsuccessful in explaining this traditional Korean car chase/drag.

Don't flirt with me, man, your new bride is right there, LITERALLY.

Run, Forrest, run!

Keep running!

Another gem of the day was this little pagoda-thing on the water.  The pagoda itself is boring but I loved the people inside.  More specifically, the BABY.  I love love love Korean babies, they are so cute.  They have chubby little round faces, they rarely cry, and they're left unattended so often that it's tempting to just grab one and walk away quickly.  Fortunately I didn't have to take a sneak-photo this time because they wanted my picture with the baby!  YESSSSSS.

I MUST GET THE BABY.

Sadly they didn't let me hold the baby, but look at him!  He loves me!

HE LOVES ME.

One of my students keeps asking me if I'm going to "make a baby in Korea."  Not planning on making one but I might kidnap one from Costco soon, nobody would notice.

Not sure how I missed this one last time around, but here's me with another older Korean gentleman:

This guy later cornered me at the bus stop and after about 4 awkward minutes, I
gathered that he was just excited about how many cameras I had.  I carry my DSLR,
a point-and-shoot, and my phone camera, and I use all three.

I estimate that about 75+ people took pictures of/with me at the Penis Park.  But that's cool, because I definitely take sneaky pictures of Koreans.

Lady, what are you wearing?

I've also been taking random photos of weird things I see.  Here's a small list of them.  First up is a concoction that Koreans at Costco seem to love: onions mixed with ketchup, mustard, and relish.  That's it.  It looks like barf.

If this guy noticed I was photographing his food, he didn't give any indication.  This looks gross.

Here's an enormous live crab (possibly King?) sold at the local grocery/department store:

The eyes kinda freak me out.  Also, who has a pot large enough for this?  And why don't they band the claws?

Here's a meal I had recently, some kind of rice porridge?  I got a spicy seafood flavor, and it was actually super delicious.  It was about 11,000W ($10) which makes it pretty expensive (I love how cheap food is here!) and it's also apparently a 'diet food.'  Who cares, it's yummy.  Definitely going to be a winter staple.

There's some side-dishes at the bottom, and a delicious juice of some kind on the far left.

I didn't eat alone.  My spicy seafood porridge is on top, on the right is a pumpkin porridge (also yummy) and I
think on the left is spicy... well, I know it was spicy.

In other news, Mattel apparently sells hair dye here...

These colors are fabulous, it says so on the box.

 ... and the Tigers are popular?

One of my students wears a Tigers cap every day.  I don't think he knew what
the D stood for until I told him the Tigers were my team.  Oh well.

And last but not least, here's a dog in a pet shop taking a dump on the floor.  In my defense, I didn't realize that's what he was doing until after I had taken the photo.

The poop is under the brown one's right foot.

 And that about sums it up!  Coming up: photos from Halloween.  Korea on the whole doesn't celebrate but my school does, and I must say, some of the teachers really outdid themselves.  I also spent a solid hour at a stationary store this weekend and mailed out a bunch of letters today.  It's so cheap to mail things here, even if it takes 3 weeks to get there.  For those whose addresses I don't have, give me your address and I'll mail you something cute to put on your fridge!  :)

Till next time,
Ashton

Day 74

Penis Park: Part 2

Now that you've had a brief pictorial introduction to Samcheok and the Haesindang Penis Park, it's time for some history, education, and learning.

The Samcheok Fishing Village Folk Museum.

Haha, just kidding!  It's time for more penises!

This here is the most realistic piece of artwork I have seen in Samcheok.

Actually, the Samcheok Fishing Village Folk Museum, despite having a rather boring name, had some neat stuff.  Here's a model of the village, complete with real water, a tidal system, and a day/night cycle.

The inflow-and-outflow of water was actually kind of mesmerizing.

There was also a scale model of half of a modern fishing boat, and inside the wheelhouse was a 'ride' simulating a speeding boat, which I unabashedly enjoyed.  The screens showed a very poor resolution video of a boat ride, and the chair moved all around like those immersive rides at theme parks.

There were also some pictures of taboos in the fishing village.  The signs were in Korean but I think the general idea here is that "women + ocean = bad news."  Basically women weren't allowed anywhere near the ocean or a boat, I guess.

"Stop!  Stay!  Good woman!"

And if you died at sea, then you got a proper sea burial.

Are you guys totally sure he's not just passed out drunk?

Enough of that.  On to the real art.  (And by 'real' I mean 'penis.')  Let's start with the rudimentary art that is more or less indistinguishable from an over-imaginative second grader's clay projects.

Check out that monkey on the left and sweet baby Jesus what is that on the right?  A mummy?

I get the one on the right, but I haven't entirely figured out the left one.

What did people do with these?  Put them on their kitchen table as decoration?

Apparently the other side of this sensual piece is a mirror.

And don't forget the statues:

Something tells me that these aren't traditional Korean sexy statues.

What is up with this dude's feet?!  So unrealistic!

And my personal favorite, due to the extra-special touch of sticking his tongue out:

I'm not normally an art gal but this gallery has really shown me a new facet of human creation.

Then there's this, which is decidedly not Korean but certainly deserves a place in this museum.  Yes, your eyes are fine, he is indeed using his manhood as a standard of weight.

Alternate interpretation: he's seeing how much his junk weighs?  I mean I've heard of measuring with rulers,
but this... is this a normal dude thing?  Because if it is, I didn't know about it.

And in case the wooden and metal phalli weren't enough for you, here's some rocks.

Such variety.

Actually, this reminds me of the rock my sister found in Bonaire...

I miss Bonaire!

But I digress.  That wraps up the museum tour, so let's head back outside... TO THE OCEAN!!!

I often forget how much I miss the ocean until I smell the salt in the air.

What, you thought I could go to the ocean and not poke around?  Not possible.

Cute little crab!

Anemone!!!

Anemone with hermit crabs!!!

I enjoyed about two hours in the tidepools, and at least 20 minutes were spent inspecting algae.   If my devotion to marine biology was ever questioned... it shouldn't have been.

There's at least four types of algae in this picture!

The leafy green one is apparently edible.  (Technically I guess they're all edible.)  An old Korean man plucked some straight off a rock and tried to feed it to me.  Unsurprisingly, this was not the most inappropriate thing an old Korean man (or woman) did at the Penis Park.

Oooh, a different one!

Look how cool this one is up-close!

Two years ago I would have thought this was all boring seaweed.  Props to the CIEE Bonaire program for showing me the light and inspiring my interest in algas.

But it wasn't all algas!  There were scary bugs too!

The Korean earwig is significantly larger and scarier than its American cousin.

This thing is over an inch long, which doesn't sound like much until it's ON YOU.

Then I got lucky and spotted a comb jelly!  This glorious ctenophore has no stinging bits or tentacles, and the faint lines you see are called 'comb rows.'  They're a long column of cilia that create a rainbow effect when they're beating.  Obviously this little guy can't control where he's going, and he quickly disappeared.

See the faint lines?

Those lines are cilia (like tiny waving noodles) and they're rainbow colored in real life!

Another shot with more contrast.  See the cilia columns now?  (Seriously, you can't miss them.)

Comb jellies are common in some areas but only at certain times of year, and no matter how common they are, I am always excited about jellyfish.

But enough of my oceanic indulgences and back to the real reason you're here: penises.

Just hanging out.  They don't seem to serve a purpose.

Here's a penis-canon, which moves up and down mechanically:

Sadly, it doesn't shoot water (or anything else.)

And just below that, a large bronze penis.   Getting a photo of yourself sitting on the bronze penis is the popular thing to do.

It's really quite impressive.

Oh hey, a little temple near the ocean.  I know I said no more temple pictures, but this one is special.

Notice how all the fence posts are actually penises?

Oh hey, what are those things under the painting of a maiden?

Honestly, you all saw this coming, right?

Loving the hand detail.

Oh hey, some nice bugs!

Butterfly!

You thought you could make it out of here without seeing a spider picture?  HAHAHAHA.

Korean ladybugs are about 4x bigger than the American ones.  They're HUGE.

Aaaaand back to penises:

A literal garden of penises.

My hobby: taking photos of Korean tourists.

I tried to take a few selfies but every time I held up the camera, a Korean guy came up and insisted on taking the picture for me... with one of his friends in the picture.

See that shadow?  THEY'RE COMING FOR ME.

This guy actually got several pictures with me in front of several statues.

His buddy.  If you're wondering why I look so uncomfortable, it's because
this guy kept trying to grab my hand and rub the penis together.  

And of course, my favorite picture that will someday be framed:

A small mob of Koreans rather forcefully insisted that I get this picture...
I suspect about a dozen of them now have this same photo on their cell phones and iPads.

If you didn't notice, there is something vital that's missing from this place, and that's a souvenir shop.  Seriously, a girl can't even get any NSFW postcards to send to her friends?  There is so much potential here for souvenirs and it's being wasted!

The Penis Park was a fun experience and I'm glad I got to see it before all the flowers and trees died.  I definitely recommend it for tourists, it was easy to get to and worth it just for all the awkward photos with old Korean men.  The ocean was gorgeous and I expect I'll make another trip to the east coast when it gets warm.  I can't wait!

Cheers,
Ashton