Weekend Update and 해싱당 (Haeshingdang)

The first week of school went by pretty quickly and our first deserved weekend was in order.  Jayeol (my kiwi friend) and I were thinking about heading to Chunchon to visit a few friends and check out the Dalkgalbi festival which is based around the Korean dish Dalkgalbi for which the city is famous for.  What we didn't know was that the bus ride to Chunchon is about the same distance and price as Seoul, 4 hours and about 16,000won.  Add to the fact that we are down to our last 100,000won which is suppose to last us until Sept. 25th or until we get our settlement allowance of 300,000won which will help hold us off until our first paycheck.  We decided it would be smart to stay in Samchok, relax and save some money.

Saturday was spent running, playing guitar and relaxing.  Today, however, was an adventure.  I went on my Sunday long run to the beach and around the city.  I finally found a way to make it to the tiny beach.  The beach is ok but I've seen outside better ones when I went on the rail bike a little south of hear.  The weather today was boiling hot and I started my run at 10am so I quickly found myself dehydrated by the 10 mile mark.  I wanted to run more, however, I couldn't help feeling dizzy.  Anyway, after my run I found out that we don't have water in the building.  Luckily the day before I bought a 5L bottle of water and used a tiny bit to wash myself with.

To keep busy Jayeol and I took a trip to Haeshingdang which is one of the few tourist destinations in Samchok.  What I'm about to describe and show pictures aren't for the faint of heart.  You've been warned.

A 1,600won bus trip through the mountains and 40 minutes later we end up at the park.  Haeshingdang is a park full of statues that, well, are completely out of place in Korean culture.  Korean's are very traditional and conservative but is what we saw...

Not one penis statue, but....

A park full of penis statues.

So there is a reason behind having a park full of penis statues.  Supposedly many years ago there was a virgin girl that was stranded on a rock in the ocean and was waiting for her boyfriend to come paddle his boat and save her.  

Here's the girl

This Ajumma maybe was trying to recreate the scene.

The story goes that a huge storm prevented her boyfriend from saving her and she died.  Later the fisherman could not catch any fish and they attributed it to the girl dying a virgin.  I guess one man proceeded to fertilize the water with his "seeds" and after that there was no problem catching any fish.  To keep the superstition alive they erected, yes pun intended, many penis statues to satisfy the virgin girl.  

The crowd that was present at the park were older Koreans and it was interesting to see their reactions.  Some seemed to observe very intellectually at the statues while some giggled and petted the statues.  

We on the other hand, were giggling and posing with them.

We spent maybe an hour in the park and even went down by the water which was beautiful and we asked the old ladies that were hunting in the ocean what they were doing.  They were searching for clams and we asked if there were any in their area and that quickly responded with a no.  Ahh got to love the greedy Ajummas.

The water was clear as a bell.

Korea also has a park in Jeju Island that is called love park.  I've seen that it is pretty similar to Haeshingdang but shows couples making love.  Korea of all places!  Maybe I'll have to check that park out when I go to Jeju.