Korea: Departure from Izuhara

After weeks of scrambling around, everybody got their passport. (Japan's passports have red covers!) There was a lot of discussion about when people could leave, how many days each person could pull away from work, etc. In the end, I took Thursday and Friday off.

The festival itself began on Wednesday, with performances throughout the day Thursday; however, the only way for us to have been there for that would have been to take Tuesday and Wednesday off as well. That wouldn't work for any of us. In fact, half of the group arrived on Friday, unable to take Thursday off.

The jetfoil departed Izuhara on Thursday afternoon. I met my four fellow travelers--Sajikibara (the chief of the group), Noguchi (the conductor), Kazumi (the preacher's wife), and Mrs. Abiru--in time for our 3 o'clock departure.

We easily got seats at the front, mostly because the boat was almost empty. This marked my longest trip on a boat, and my first time out on the open sea. The weather was gorgeous, and the water was calm, so the trip was blissfully uneventful.

We arrived in Busan at about 5. When going through customs, Bara was asked to open his bag for inspection. Abiru and Kazumi found this hilarious, and when I tried to get a picture of the inspection, I got a nice scolding from some security folks. I kinda forgot about being in a sensitive area.

Waiting for us at the ferry port was a woman holding a big sign that read "CHORUS D." She introduced herself as Kim, and formally greeted us. She did all this in Japanese, and, in response to the appreciative gasps of the others, explained that she was a university student majoring in Japanese.

A van picked us up, and Kim gave a long explanation. I'm not entirely sure what it was about, since her Japanese was pretty much at native speed. Besides, I was having a hard time paying attention to anything but the city we were driving through. (Koreans drive on the left side of the road, and I've been in Japan long enough for that to seem like the weird style, not the more familiar to me.)

We got to the Cultural Center that was hosting the festival, and were shown to the dinner buffet. I was floored by what I saw: people! From everywhere! There were about fifty round tables, and though the room was less than half full (we had apparently arrived at the end of dinner), the occupied tables seemed to each represent a different country.

I saw a lone group of non-Asians, whose t-shirts identified them as being from Northern Kentucky University. Another group's coats read "Indonesia Y2k Choir"--Indonesia! I've been there! It took more than a little effort to keep from running up and blurting "Selamat sore!" ("good evening!", one of the few Indonesian phrases I can remember). There were also a couple of other groups with different uniforms on, though I couldn't place where they were from.

We were shown to a table, where we received the program for the festival. I was practically bouncing up and down as I thumbed through the list of participants and their home countries: Indonesia! Malaysia! The Philippines! Russia! Singapore! China! Taiwan! Nigeria! ...And Kentucky!

When I broke away enough to look around the table, wondering if everyone was thrilled like I was, I found mostly blank or mildly amused expressions. Crestfallen, I wondered what the problem was. Then I noticed they weren't poring over the program so much as flipping through it. It was then that I realized the whole thing was in English, and the only non-English (which I had paid no attention to) was Korean. The whole group was lost; only Kim and I could read the program.

Kim gave us the lowdown: all of the forty groups--representing a total of fourteen countries--would be performing. However, only about half of those would be competing. We weren't one of the competing groups, and I completely relaxed when I heard this. The non-competition performances, grouped into Friendship and Gala Concerts, had been and would be taking place at different venues in the afternoons and evenings. The judged competition performances would be at the main Culture Center in the early afternoon each day, and were open to the public.

Our performance was to be the last gig of the last Friendship Concert of the last day. Though our only contribution to the proceedings was our little three-song set, we were still official guests of the festival. Kim and the van were at our disposal, free to take us anywhere in the city.

I wolfed down my meal, carefully avoiding the huge dishes of kimchi and opting instead for spaghetti, soup, and a valiant but ultimately failed attempt at macaroni and cheese. I tried a little of everything (except kimchi; I categorically despise the stuff, having tried it a while ago), but nothing especially impressed or repulsed me.