Cheongdo Bullfights. A solid weekend.

My weekend started off early Saturday with a trip to the gym to work out and force myself out of bed. Jay was there with two friends who are in their first week. I ended up helping him show them what to do and it dawned on me that after only four months I actually know a bit. I obviously have a long way (years) to go but I'm happy to see so much improvement with myself, as I was doing about what these guys were last January, and now it's not even enough to warrant warming up with.

After the gym I went home and we watched some TV and did household chores. Hyo Jung was working Sat night and Sunday so after she left I went to meet Ange and her friend who had come down from Cheongju. Geoff came out as did Kris and Mike and we had dinner and a few drinks until they had to go and I had to head to bed to get up early.


The Sunday was the real hit of the weekend though. Cheongdo (a city about 30 minutes from Daegu by train from DongDaegu st.) has bullfights every spring to welcome in the harvest year. These are not the sort of barbaric displays you'd see in Spain, where a man dressed like Fabio butchers a bull with more drugs in him that a washed up 60's rock star. It's two bulls who go at it in the way that they do in nature when butting heads (literally) for mates and territory. In fact they are doing the same thing here, we're just watching and gambling on it. It ends when one bull turns away. In fact some fights apparently don't start if the bulls won't fight, but that didn't happen here. We stayed for three fights and I came up a whole 1000 won ($.90).

After wards we walked around the festival grounds and then hopped a bus back in to town and toured Cheongdo, A charming little town (with three Vancouverites there the comparisons to places like Smithers, Princeton and Golden were made numerous times). It had a small town vibe that all small towns do (and I mean that in a good way) and it was fun, though after 90 minutes I'm confident in saying we say all there was to see.

We then hopped a train back to Daegu and Ange got her connection to Daejeon and Cheongju. Geoff and I then went back to his place for North Korean Cognac (seriously) and Civilization 5 followed by Korean BBQ. I then hopped the subway home and crashed early.

every train station in Korea, from Seoul St. to Cheongdo st. has the

exact same design, and yet I snap a pic of every one of them.

welcome to the fights

the arena

two bulls square up

and they are fighting

the market around the festival

the fountain at the centre of Cheongdo a really nice

small town

North Korean Cognac