Tuesday, October 6, 2009

My Neighborhood, My 'Condo' and the Ginseng Festival

Okay so for those of you who do not know where I live, here's the breakdown. Obviously I'm in South Korea. In South Korea, I live in the 충청북도 province and in that province I live in a not-so-small, small shigol town called 증평. Even though it's considered shigol, it's really nothing what I expected a shigol town to be like. You know, the open fields, farmers trading pigs on the street, the smell of fresh manure every morning, the shigol life. Luckily it's nothing like my ignorant assumptions. [Stole some pictures from you Lawrence, haha hope you don't mind]
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So this is my town, 증평...

This is the 'Ginseng People Statue.' Not sure if that's what it's actually called but yeah...haha

This is at a big intersection, at one of the main streets in 증평. I live on this main street, which actually, fun fact, has no name. In fact, there are no street names at all in the town.

Same intersection, different angle.

My barber shop.

My bank.

My Lotteria.

My local mart, that has a lot of cheap stuff.

Basically people selling stuff on the streets.





My street.

My local supermarket. GS Supermarket. It's literally right next to my condo, which is convenient.

Alleyway up towards my condo which is one the right, just before that white car.


Alleyway going towards the other way, towards the main street.

Random 오댕 Stand with my fellow foreign teacher/town-mate Lawrence.
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Okay so now my condo. It's like a studio so there aren't a lot of rooms, actually there's only one room, it's one big room but I have many SECTIONS. It's a 5 section apartment with one bath and one laundry area.
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My condo...
This is the entrance to the condo decorated with lovely plants.
My staircase. I know it's a shot of going down, but I don't live in the basement, I live on the 3rd floor. This is from the 3rd floor going down.
My front...and only door. Room number 302.
And so we enter my condo...
Right as you enter, the first section is the 1 sink, 2 stove, no oven kitchen.
I would have done the dishes before taking the picture but I taught it looked more authentic this way.
And from the door and first section, immediately to the right is the second section, the living room. I pretty sure it's a 1957 genuine 'harween' leather couch imported from Italy...that was here when I got there.
Right next to the living room, is my home office. Furnished with a top of the line Samsung Laptop with the same exact couch from the living room.
This is my home theater. It's deceiving from the picture but that's a 42.3 inch flat screen plasma LCD TV.
This is my laundry section.
My clothes washing machine.
And this is my drying machine.
The master bedroom.
My closet/bathroom/refrigerator section.
This is my compact all in one bathroom. It's all together. The toilet, the sink, the shower, everything, all in one.



The whole place in one shot. And I know you might be wondering, "Charlie, how can you capture it all in one shot but when you were describing, it seemed so big." First of all "That's what she said" [Sorry but this one was for 'The Office' fans haha/I hope Mintae reads this haha] and second it's quite simple actually, good camera angle and mastery photography skills.
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There was also a festival in my town a few weeks back. The Gingseng festival. I'm not really sure what the festival was about. Obviously it was for Gingseng, but what about Gingseng I don't know.
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First night, Friday.
I went pretty late, so I missed the fireworks and all of the concert. My friend told me there was a bunch of B-List music artist and groups, which I didn't really care, but she also said SG Wannabe was there, which I was bummed out about.

A lot of fattie foods. If you look closely you can see a fried potato corn dogs. After my friend told me about them, I had to get one. It was good, but a little disappointed because I taught it was a hot dog on a stick warped around with a hash brown, but it was just a corn dog with potato chunks fried onto them.
There were a bunch of Carney games too. This one different from American ones so I took a picture of it. You throw coins on the board and if you get it directly on the center of a square you get a certain amount of money back. I forget the rules.
Went to a under-the-tent restaurant and had some 해물파전.

And if you need to wipe your mouth, wipe up spilled juice, or just to blow your nose, you can just look up and rip off some paper from the hanging toilet paper.
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Day 2, morning...
We saw these cute piglets. And about 10 feet away was a free all you can eat 삼겹살 contest.


Me pounding and releasing all the air out of some 떡.
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Later that night...

Came a little bit earlier this night hoping to see some A-Listers but ended up with C-Listers.
Had some 순대 which wasn't too good.




Got to see some firework that night.

And I saw this face massager/V-line maker that Grace had so I got one too. =D It was only 1000 Won too.
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So that was my neighborhood and 'condo.' My schools are in 3 other neighborhoods haha.

5 comments:

  1. LOL charlie hyung! seems like you're having lots of fun! keep posting stuff here!

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  2. lol ur sooo funny charles!!!!!!!!!!!!! i nearly peed in my pants at the office reading it. you are an amazing photographer to be able to get your office, bedroom, and living room in one shot. that takes skills, ur dad must have taught you well. also when are you coming to busan. also.. i love hte face massage rolly thing. i loveee it

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  3. wow charlie...you sure own a lot of things in your town: a barber shop, a bank, a lotteria, a local mart, a street, another local supermarket, and a condo!! O_O im actually pretty jealous :p ALSO why is there a samyang bowl!? what did i write in my note [in your scrapbook] about that, huh? :(

    anyway, i love your updates; they really make my day :D

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  4. WAssup Charlie, miss you man. Hope all is well and hope to visit you guys out in the motherland.
    I was cracking up at some of the pictures. I like the comment about the pigs and the 삼겹살. People in my office were looking at me funny.

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  5. This was entertaining! the lobby to your studio and each individual shot was awesome until they all fit in one picture... just kidding. anyway you look like you're having a blast! i hope you learn lots there and be safe!

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