Busan Internation Film Festival

Last weekend most schools had midterm exams. In South Korea those are serious tests, and many students had been studying for them for a month. Yes, not just the night before the test, but weeks of staying up late studying. The midterms last three days at my middle school, and I didn't have to go into school! So I went to Busan to see a film festival.

I could have taken a train from Daejon to Busan, but I decided to go for the "excellent" bus. It takes longer than a train, sure, and it's slightly more expensive than a regular train, but I've become a big fan. The seats are about as big as first class airplane seats. And the bus is hardly ever even half full. So I get to read, study Korean, sleep, listen to music for 3 and a half hours. Not bad traveling.

When I got to Busan I met up with Rachel, Rose, Becky, Liz, Kathleen, and Linda. Side note about Linda - she's a W&M grad! She graduated in 2004 and was over here last year as an ETA and she liked it so much she decided to extend for another year. Friday night we saw Parzania, a movie inspired by true events, about a massacre in India in the mid nineties. At the center of the movie are the age old struggles between religions, extremism and reason, violence and peace, etc. If you have a chance to see this movie do it, it's that good. After the movie, the director and lead actress talked to the audience and took questions. We weren't expecting it but that made the event even sweeter.

The next morning we got up pretty early and stood in line to see if we could get tickets to some films that were almost sold out. We got tickets to Paradise Now, a film about suicide bombers in the Palestinian Israeli conflict. Also a great movie, one that I had to think about. Again highly recommended. We couldn't get tickets to Broken Flowers, so we went to Nine Emotions. Not bad, but pretty weird. I feel asleep during the movie so after that it was naptime.

Our night movie was called Queens. It was a Spanish comedy about five gay guys about to be married and their mothers. It was pretty funny and I'd recommend it. I had wanted to see the Hamburg Cell about the 9/11 terrorists but everyone else wanted a comedy. It was probably better that way, I ended the film festival on a high note instead of after another intense movie. We met up with another ETA named Jason for that movie, so after the movie we went to hang out and drink at a "Mexican" restaurant. It was pretty Korean though. The decor Mexican, and there was one nacho dish, but NO TACOS! or quesadillas, burritos, etc. It was fun hanging out and comparing experiences.

Some people got up early the next morning to check out the fish market. If you're ever in Busan, they recommend it. I chose to sleep in. The "excellent" bus back to Daejon was even more excellent than the first one - the bus televised the England vs Austria soccer match.