Culture Shock, Beach Edition

So, even after 9 months, Ryan and I still get a shock ocassionally. Most recently, Koreans reinforced something that we already knew about them, but still came as a funny surprise. Last weekend we headed to a new stretch of beach in the Taean National Beach front at Manlipo. Heading straight down to the beach from the tiny bus station (a seemingly empty parking lot with a barely-noticeable shack posing as a ticket office), we encountered first a number of EZ-Up tents housing numerous carnival games: shoot the bottles and win alcohol; pop the balloons with a dart and win a stuffed animal. Then one lonely amusement park ride (the oscillating pirate ship, which, after my experiences at Songdo Resort, I was smart enough to avoid), and then the beach, and hundreds upon hundreds of people packed into 200 yards of beach. Packed. Most of them were hiding under umbrellas (again, they aren't sun worshippers like me) and the others were wading into the water and playing with children or building sand castles. You know, normal(by my standards) beach stuff. See:




The strange thing was that 100 yards in either direction, there were no beach revellers. It was deserted. Only a few straggling, and obviously deviant Koreans were wandering outside the "zone." And, of course, us:




Korea is a country of 48 million people, a third larger than our home state, and it's half the size of Minnesota. Try to imagine the population density. They actually have some open space too. Not much, but some. So, I knew that Koreans were accustomed to crowds and congestion, but who knew they would seek it out when they had another option?