*PIFF* 14th Pusan International Film Festival 부산국제영화제

It is Geraldine’s 3^rd time at Busan 부산 but she is not tired of it. This time, she went there because of the Busan Film Festival! Woohoo!~~

In total, she caught a total of 8 films over 2 days and reserved the last day for her friends. On Friday, the 1^st day that she was there, she watched 2 films which are a compilation of short films. They were interesting. Some were cute, some touching, some quite impossible to understand and some just fed her to the zee monster.

She also caught Haeundae 해운대. Watching Haeundae the movie at Haeundae the place was quite an experience. This movie was a blockbuster in Korea just a couple of months ago. It was such a touching story that made Geraldine and her friend, Qiuyi, 2 losers sitting at the back of the cinema sobbing. Haha. Currently their favourite movie of all the reason movies they have watched.

That night, Geraldine and her friend caught the Midnight Passion too, which is a movie marathon comprising of 3 movies starting from 2359hrs. Geraldine watched the 1^st, slept the 2^nd and continued watching the 3^rd. The 1^st movie was about vampires in Japan and it was not bad. All the vampires were quite ugly except the king vampire. Obviously this time the humans won but get ready for the sequel. The 2^nd movie was about some police and gang, sorry Geraldine is unable to tell you anything much more. The 3^rd movie was about how evil humans are and some parts were so disgusting it made Geraldine’s stomach stir. The film revolved around 4 prisoners and how a simple poker card game ended up with someone dead. ㅠㅠ

Geraldine wishes that she lived in Busan so that she can attend the film festival every year. This year it is in its 14^th run. Ever watched a movie that puzzled you so much you wished the director was there so you could ask a few questions? At the festival, that’s just what you can do! For some of the screenings, there will be guest appearance of the directors and/or stars. And there will be a dialogue regarding the film.

There was one movie and Geraldine and her friends caught that was so puzzling and confusing and many people stayed behind to bombard the director with questions and it was interesting to hear what the others were thinking after watching the film. Apparently, many film major students were there too and it felt like a literature class at times.

Geraldine really loves the film festival. It definitely exposed her much more to the world of film-making and she for once begin to perceive a film as a piece of art instead of just something you go to with friends and eat popcorn, nachos and coke.

On the 3^rd and last day in Busan, Geraldine dedicated her day to her friends in Busan. She met up with Qiuyi for lunch and went shopping, eating, chatting blah blah blah. In the evening, she was suppose to meet her Korean friend but he had something on last minute so it was just the girls. They went to Dadaepo Beach 다대포, where every night at 8pm there will be free musical fountain show. It was beautiful and much better than the old sentosa musical fountain. At least there wasn’t any lame storyline. Just music, lights and lots of water.

[pictures coming soon..]

Geraldine just wants to grouse. Ain’t it hard when expectations aren’t met? Ain’t it hard when promises are broken time and again? Ain’t it hard when you know what’s left is just a fragment of a chance?

8.15 Mid-autumn / Korean Thanksgiving 추석

The lunar calendar says 15th August and it means eating mooncakes and pomelo, drinking tea and looking at the full moon for Singaporeans. At the parks, kids will be playing with traditional lanterns or those omg-so-noisy electronic lanterns and sparklers. Naughty kids will be burning lanterns, candles, candle boxes and whatever they can find to start their own bonfire. Even naughtier kids will be trying to invent their own fire rockets. Naive kids will be throwing sparklers up trees and make a wish if their sparklers stay up there before burning out.

In Korea, it means everyone will be flocking back home, and school will be like a graveyard with the out-of-place foreigner who is left to fend for himself with supplies from the convenience store. Geraldine wants a little bite of the festive atmosphere too, so she started asking around if there is a house that she could visit. Her second plan would be to climb mountains with some Korean friends. Third plan would be to visit a museum with Chuseok activities. Fourth plan would be to rot in the dorm. Thankfully, Geraldine's friend, Shinho오빠 has a friend who is willing to welcome the both of them to his grandparents' house.

So today, Geraldine woke up at 3am to wash the bedsheets and left the dorm at 5am to catch a cab to the subway station. She managed to book a cab with her nursery school standard of spoken Korean! She had to leave so early because she needed to meet Shinho오빠 7am at Cheonan 천안, to take a bus to Jincheon 진천. All these to avoid the traffic jam around Seoul and reach the house early enough to join in the activities.

When the two reached the house, the family was doing ancestral rites, and they were kind enough to allow Geraldine to take some pictures. They then had breakfast and the food was wonderful. Homecooked! (Geraldine misses her mummy's cooking)

After breakfast, they went to seongmyo 성묘, which would be sao3 mu4 in chinese. Very interestingly, this family decided against the traditional tombstone and opted for a garden tomb. In recent years, it is in vogue and also definitely more environmentally friendly. In place of the intrusive blocks of stone, a tree is planted.

All of them then went back to the house for some gathering and relaxing time. Shinho오빠's friend's (Haeok오빠) cousins like skipping and Geraldine skipped a little with them. Everyone joined in, even the kid's daddy. It was fun. But Geraldine also realized that she has grown old and is not as energetic as before haha. The twenty-somethings also had a little chat after that and Geraldine honestly wished her standard of speaking ain't that of a 5 year old kid. Boohoohoo. She is able to understand most of what is being spoken (unless it's super fast with super difficult words) but it takes donkey years for her to construct what she wants to say and then it breaks the whole flow of the conversation. Aargh~

Then it was lunch time!

And photo-time with Geraldine's lousy phone-camera that kept saying "blink detected" and refused to take any pictures. Geraldine needs a new camera.. Anyone?

Just before they all left, Haeok오빠's grandmother shoved 10000W into each of the 3 kids' hands. According to Shinho오빠, this means that she really loved having them around and wished that they would visit again. How kind! Initially, Geraldine was really afraid of how the whole visit would turn out. Too many scary grannies and mothers in the dramas!

[Photos coming soon...]

Yangyang Songyi Mushroom Festival

Mushrooms! Geraldine loves mushrooms.. So if there is a festival for mushrooms, you bet that she would go! Totally tired out by design mid-submission on Thursday and Cross-year on Friday but she still went to Yangyang-gun, Gangwon-do with Albert and Shuyi for the festival. They slept overnight in Seoul at a jjimjilbang (찜질방) on Saturday and set off in the morning on Sunday. Maybe Geraldine will dedicate a post just on 찜질방 soon...

Anyway, the event venue is really mushroom-here-mushroom-there-mushroom-everywhere.

Even the express bus bus-stop and information booth are mushrooms!

These are are famous Songyi mushrooms that cost around SGD250 for a small box.. And the wine made from mushrooms! They walked around the event venue and saw this..

[video coming soon]

It's only in Korea!

The trio didn't know that in order to join the trip to go to the mountains to pick the precious mushrooms, they had to register online prior to the event. After that, the trio bumped into the organizers and the organizers asked if they would like to go on a pear-picking trip instead. The trio thought that it was better than nothing, so they gladly took up the offer (and paid 10000W each for it).

At the pear farm, they joined this tour group from Singapore. It was really strange yet familiar to be hearing that so unique singlish again. And that so Singaporean-auntie voices. Ha. Anyway, the pears were huge and they each got to bring home (I mean dorm) 2.

The mega-cang (spring onion? leek?) that Zixu loathes. Mwahahaha~

Not wanting to waste time doing nothing since they had already bought return tickets back to Seoul a good 5 hours later, they asked the organizers who happen to be workers in the tourism board for the city of Yangyang to suggest some places they could go. Apparently, there is a famous temple in the region, and the organizers kindly drove them to the temple.

The temple sits on the hill and at the peak stands a tall statue of the goddess of mercy and it overlooks the ocean. It was Geraldine's 1st time looking at a horizon without boats, ships, cranes or another country. (Think Singapore.)

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Uh-oh

Geraldine's camera fell onto the ground and the lens aren't working now.. ㅠㅠ

No more blog posts till she charges her LG camera phone or gets a new camera..

Geraldine is very sad now.

CrossYear Project

Cross-year project for the archi students at Hanyang Univ! That means everyone will be split into groups and each group will be made up of people from different years. On friday morning, the archi dept hired buses to ferry the students and some professors to Incheon 인천. (Yes, that's where the airport is if some of you guys think it looks familiar)

Their 1st stop was Songdo International Business District 송도신도시, an island totally reclaimed for the purpose of a free economic zone. It is currently at the finishing stages of construction and as archi students, Geraldine and her coursemates were given a tour at the construction site. Unfortunately, it was in Korean and Geraldine is not good enough to understand such chim (singlish for complicated) stuff in a foreign language. Nevertheless, it was still interesting. Geraldine's 1st time to wear a helmet (and step into a construction site in slippers, omg right?). No one knew they were going to visit a construction site.

In the afternoon, they arrived at their seafront accomodation. It was lecture-dinner-lecture and barbeque! BBQ with huge chunks of meat/golgi 고기, and beer and soju. Geraldine secretly thinks that the whole point of this cross year thingy is the soju. The programme was such that they have to wake up at 6am the next morning to dig mud. If the project was the focus, then there would be no soju. Yeah? Anyway, the groups were suppose to think of a design for their landscape art. Landscape art is a reaction against commercial art blah blah blah.. They would have to design and build something in the mud when the tide is low and each group will give a short presentation, followed by some critiques from the professors.

Geraldine's group and their design! Taadaa!

It has something to do with the sun rays reflected onto the sea when the tide was in. She concludes that the group leader-cum-designer, Seonho (or SUNho as he spells it) 선호선배 really loves the SUN. ;;;

[to be continued..]

Good Girl

Geraldine is a good girl, ain't she?

She has been updating her blog.. Heehee.

For those who are wondering why she is suddenly so free to do so many things in a short period of time, please look at the dates of the posts.. haha.

Pain 아퍼 ㅠㅠ

Geraldine just wanna complain that she is still aching from head to toe. Don't make her laugh, she will bend over in pain. AARGH.