The story of Dumb and Dumber

In the days leading up to the recent Lunar New Year break I'd been hanging to get out and see a bit more of 'traditional' Korea.  Aside from Thursdays trip to the Changdeokgung Palace, everything I'd seen of the country so far has been really modern and shiny and flashy (like neon flashy, not show-offy flashy)... and unless I'm mistaken and Dunkin' Donuts and Paris Baguette are actually remnants from the Silla Kingdom, I think it's pretty fair to say that at least visually, Yongtong isn't exactly dripping with traditional Korean artifacts and buildings.

The 5 day break provided me with the perfect opportunity to get out there and check out what else Korea has to offer.  On Saturday Ellen and I decided to head to the nearby city of Icheon- popular for it's ceramics, rice and natural hot springs. Mmm... hot springs...

And here begins the story of Dumb and Dumber (AKA. Ellen and Amy)

Our day didn't get off to the best start when we got a bus into Suwon city (north-west from here) to get a bus to Icheon (south-east from here) only to find that the second bus drove pretty much right past our apartment building (at least an hour or two wasted with that)... Furthermore, the bus driver on the way to Suwon was apparently training to be an off-road drag racer, which made for a bumpy and often hair-raising trip, some serious back jarring and sore behinds (this is probably why he was given the oldest, most rickety bus in Korea to drive). However, the bus ride was made all the more entertaining by a little man with very big shoes sitting a few rows in front (see below for the covert picture of the year award).... 

Now, I know the quality of the pic isn't the best, but unless this man is on his way to tap-dancing class (and hasn't attached his tappy bits yet), I am going to conclude that he is wearing high-heeled (and platformed) court shoes due to a severe complex about his lack of hight - a complex he has obviously harboured since childhood, ( a speculation I have made based on the agility and ease in which he mastered the aisle and stairs of the dirt-derby-speed-racer-bus as it barely slowed down to let him off at his stop). 

After arriving in Icheon we headed to the "Ceramics Villiage" (a village where ceramics are made, not a village made out of ceramics, I believe).  Getting off the local bus at the "Ceramics Village" bus stop, we were a little shocked to find a "Not a Ceramics Village".  

Yes, it's a paddock with nothing in it... AKA a "Not A Ceramics Village".

There were some shops (and cool statues) opposite the "Not A Ceramic Village"... selling ceramics (surprisingly enough)... although we decided we didn't really like clay that much anyway, so we just stood in the shops to get out of the freezing cold...  Really didn't bank on standing in a bloody paddock when I got dressed that morning.

Me, being cold (opposite the paddock).

We decided to have a walk around and look for the mysterious village of ceramics. This was scary as it involved walking down a highway with no pedestrian facilities. Plus we were having trouble feeling our extremities by this point which made walking somewhat difficult and painful.  The village would want to be pretty bloody good after all the effort we put into trying to find it... but we didn't. Find it, that is... not until we got back on the bus into Icheon city where we passed it about 5 mins down the road - we'd just gone the wrong way (Dumb and Dumber strike again!). Meh, it looked kinda crap anyway and upon re-reading the guide book, which pretty much said it was as crap as it looked (why neither of us read the entire article rather than just the misleading first sentence remains a mystery), we figured we hadn't missed out on anything much by not getting there.  Besides, it was a bit of an adventure... into a paddock... but we did see pretty mountains, a stunning sunset and some  interesting statues.

Umm, what the..??? If you look just above and below the sign that the carving is holding, you may understand my curiosity.  This statue was outside a building we found which could be named  "The Building That Was Closed and May or May Not Have Contained A Village for Ceramics".

The not-so-happy-campers... jaded with their trip to a paddock - even if it was a kinda 'pretty-surrounded-by-snow-capped-mountains' type of paddock.

Isn't this the dude from the video game Crash Bandicoot or something?

Arriving back in Icheon city after dark, we kept our fingers crossed that our attempt to find the hot springs would not be as disastrous as the ceramic village attempt... (thank goodness everything in Korea is open 'til late!) 

We stumbled across this picturesque bridge and and frozen lake on the way.  

Ellen's crafty camera work...

When we finally made it to the spa place we were suprised to find that what we thought would be a "bring-ya-swimmers" type of place turned out to be a room full of naked women greasing us off for wearing bathers. 

**Can I just add that I haven't run off to some hippy-nudist commune or anything, the nakedness is the norm in Korean bath houses (Jjimjilbang)... but we didn't expect in this place for some reason.   (I'll write about my experience at the Jjimjilbang some other time as it really does require a post of it's very own). **  

So we followed suit, or rather, removed suit, and did what we went there to do... we walked outside into the minus 10 degree night (yes, incredibly cold... particularly without clothes) and spent hours soaking in steaming hot herbal spas, mud spas, green tea spas, salt water spas, charcoal spas (although the charcoal one did smell and look a little like sewerage). We soaked away the cold that had frozen our bones in the paddock and soaked away all the memories of the "Ceramic Village" (still gets inverted commas as I am not sure it (a) actually exists or (b) is deserving of the title 'village')... we were hoping for snow, but when none came, we soaked and soaked some more until all fingers and toes were sufficiently prune like. Then, warm, relaxed and satisfied that the day had not gone completely to waste in a paddock, grabbed some dinner and headed home where Dumb and Dumber live to do dumb things another day.