Jinhae, fun +1

Thursday was more of the same, with ping pong going less than stellar. Oh well, that's old news anyhow. The big part of today was Jinhae. It's such a big part of the note, I made it rhyme in the previous sentence. We left the university at 9, and arrived in Jinhae at roughly 11:30. It was pretty neat there, as there were lots and lots of cherry trees. They weren't all in bloom yet, which made me kind of wish the trip had waited a day or two, because the blooms were on the verge of busting. All in all, it was a fun trip. First, we made a stop at the naval museum. It was really neat, and really similar to the naval museum of groton connecticut (a whole bunch of navy stuff and boat theory and whatnot), except that (of course) it was in Korean. I find that I use a lot of parentheses when I type (go figure). Anyways, they had some smallish turtle boats there (pride of korean military history) and a full size battleship or destroyer that we got to tour. Most of the interesting guts had been ripped out of it, but that's to be expected with military stuff. I got really nauseous though, for what seemed like no reason at all as I was leaving the boat. Maybe I don't have my docked-boat sea legs yet, or maybe it was the sprite and mentos (but Mythbusters said sprite didn't work with it? does anyone know?). Either way, I had planned to do a really nice little video about Korean navy history and the whole museum there, but the aforementioned nausea really just stopped all desire to do anything. So I apologize. Afterwards we headed on over to lunch to a Korean meat buffet. I'm not sure how many of you know what a meat buffet is, but it's a spectacle, especially when 100-120 people arrive there at the same time. Basically, it starts out like any other regular buffet. Everyone finds a seat and sits while the waitress makes sure she knows you're there. After that, too, just like a regular buffet, everyone goes to get their food (in this case meat. Oh yeah, and EVERYONE went to get the meat). Since there was so many, the scene looked like something from the discovery channel. People were situating themselves around the foodsource in accordance with some intrinsic value system, whether it be a line, or whoever could gracefully insert themselves between people already in line. The buffet technicians had to bring out meat basically continuously for the first 20 minutes or so, and at the end, everyone had a reasonable amount of raw meat and fresh veggies and spices. Did I mention the meat was raw? Just as you read it, the meat was uncooked. There were, however, little grills on our tables, and when you wanted the meat to be cooked, you did it yourself on your little grill. It really was delicious. Our table first carefully laid out a tray full of meat, making sure it was all perfectly flat. Then, mounds of garlic, onion, and fresh kimchi were also piled on. Once the meat was done and the veggies grilled to satisfaction, everyone took turns making a little meat burrito. Making the burrito is just as fun as it sounds. First, you take a big, green, leaf. Next, add any and all manner of desired ingredients (meat, onions, garlic, rice, kimchi, hot paste, etc.) until you feel your korean burrito can get no more delicious. Then, fold the burrito up and put the ENTIRE thing in your mouth. It's impolite to eat it any other way. I really can't exaggerate the deliciousness of the meat cooked on the grill. They had everything: pork, beef, squid, octopus. The smell gets in your close, but in the end, you're full, so who cares? We all waddled back to the bus after lunch and headed off to the naval academy. That was a really neat place too. They combined the academy with another museum thing. It even had a full size turtle boat! I was so excited! The line looked daunting to me, though, so I didn't go inside it, but it looked fierce even in my modern mindset. I tried to get more video of everything, but I realized I forgot the platform (this fixes the camera to the tripod) for my camera in my room, so my tripod was basically useless. So the video I do have is relatively brief, unfortunately. I apologize again. I tried to capture today the best I could, it just seemed it wasn't going to work out. Besides the turtle boat and nice scenery, there wasn't much else to be had at the naval academy. I really wanted to stay for the parade, but the buses were leaving before and I was too tired to have another adventure. On a bright note, though, I was able to read ~200 pages of a really interesting non fiction book today. It's called Talking Hands and is about a sign language made up in an israeli village. That's pretty much all that happened today. When I came back, I attempted to study, but found that I couldn't, so I am trying to salvage the day as a day of rest and recharge for next week. Let's hope the weekend lets me do it. Until next time, Aron Huckaba International Vagabond