"Mr. Lee, where are you going?" "Lightening Tomorrowwww"

Last Saturday I traveled to the Incheon Global Fair and Festival with my boss (Mr. Kim), his wife (Cindy), and their friend, (one of my students) Mr. Lee. We didn't leave until 4 pm because tickets were less than half price after 5. When we got there we parked almost a mile away. It was the last day so there were many people there, also, Mr. Lee didn't know where he was going and we could have parked in the lot near the gates...but that's ok. Cindy told me that the area where we parked actually used to be the West Sea 10 years ago. They have actually built a dam and moved sand and dirt in the create more space to expand the already large city...and oh my goodness were they expanding! I'm putting picture on facebook but I could see at LEAST 20 very new, very tall buildings almost finished and several more being constructed.

If any of you have been to the Kansas State fair, the part of fair that has all of the buildings and expo halls is how you should picture this fair. When we arrived there were people going through the lines to get in...but because I was in the group (oops) we had to go through the "Foreigner" line. I'm not sure why they had this line...who can say whether too many foreigners visited the fair. It was the last day so they weren't doing temperature checks but we did have to wash our hands, get our hands sprayed, and walk through an ultraviolet light doorway thing. We went through a huge flower garden, saw the robot/space expo, a future/economically friendly "what Incheon and other seaport countries will look like" expo (which was CRAZY futuristic...but supposed to be done by 2020), watched a short 3-d movie, ate, and studied pictures of Korea taken from the sky (neat).

Next stop! Little sister! I mean.... A cool light/water show put on by Samsung!

Ok...so when we got to the water show area there were already a lot of people everywhere. It was like the last *bang* the fair was going to get before they closed...also...it was being sponsored by the biggest company in Korea!! It had to be good! We made our way to the front, in front of all the chairs...our first mistake and not my idea. The ground was a little wet from the previous water show but only slightly damp. We (I) had to kneel so people behind us could see over the abnormally tall American. So...let me just say I don't kneel...it's not phyically possible for more than 5 minutes. Not kidding. I've tried. I finally had to say "oh well" and just sit on my rear, a let it get wet. The show finally starts (15 minutes late) and a song plays that is in Korean with the words "Lightning Tomorrow" thrown in every 10 words. Who knows why. The water goes off...we get a little damp from the mist...no big problem. BUT THEN...I look in front of me and realize...we are in the absolute worst spot anyone at the Fair could be at the moment. This isn't an overexaggeration people...like when you're at something like this and people say "Man am I glad we aren't were THEY are." that was us...we were "they." I look...and there is a considerable sized pool of water rushing right...towards me. GREAT!!! So I have to hop back into my excrutiating kneeling position, letting the ant size tsunami wash over my shoes and not enjoy the show at all...which was pretty cool so far. There was a mixture of water, lazers, fire, and music. Luckily, after my 5 minute time limit of kneeling was almost up, some genius set off some fireworks BEHIND US!! Yesssss. Everyone at this point stood up to try and watch the water in front, and fireworks behind. Any other time I would have been annoyed....who separates two cool shows in opposite directions, making it impossible to watch both?! But today...I didn't even care, I didn't have to KNEEL anymore!! Afterwards, with my wet knees, shoes, bottom and head, we walked the mile back to Mr. Lee's car.

Mr. Lee, it turns out, is a person who doesn't like to wait for traffic. So..ignoring his GPS beeping at him, he took a detour. Mr. Kim kept asking him "Mr. Lee....where are you going?" To which Mr. Lee replied with a surprisingly bad rendition of the "Lightning tomorrowwww" phrase of the light show song. I also heard Mr. Kim say, "slow down man!", "you violated!" (which means he broke a road law) and " are we going to get home before tomorrow?" Mr. Lee just laughed and kept going. At one point...he randomly honked at some guys by the side of the road eating dinner. All I could do was sit in the back and laugh. So a fairly eventful 6 hours on Saturday made up for the uneventful Saturday morning I experienced.

miss you.