Curse

I'm on a much needed vacation all of this week, but since my contract with my school is finished in a month I decided not to make any big plans for my week off. Yunha and I decided, however, to take a few days to get away from Seoul and relax. Since this is the high season for travel around Korea and that when presented with time off from work nearly all Koreans flock to the same two or three locations, we tried to pick a more out-of-the-way location. Thus, I took out my trusty Lonely Planet Seoul guide, eyed a map and picked 이천 or Icheon (not to be confused with 인천 Incheon the location of Korea's largest airport and made famous by General Douglas Macarthur when his landing there turned the tide of the Korea war).

Icheon is roughly an hour by bus south of Seoul and as Yunha said "it's very famous for rice and water". Sounds exciting! Of course, by water she meant it's famous for its hot springs and according to its official website it is indeed famous for rice as well. Aside from those, it's also home to a vary large ceramics village. Needless to say, none of these attractions are why I chose Icheon, mostly I just wanted a place that wasn't crowded.

This turned out to be true. Icheon didn't appear any busier than it may on a normal week. The problem, however, is that I'm cursed. It seems that anytime I take even a short trip somewhere there are always freak weather conditions. Last year around this time I took a week-long trip to Seokcho on the Eastern coast of Korea and spent five days in my hotel looking out the window at ferocious rain and wind. It seems I'd timed my trip perfectly with the onset of a monsoon. Then last year when I arrived in Bangkok on Christmas day only to encounter an earthquake and the deadliest tsunami in history the following day. Of course, this curse isn't limited to Asia. There were the massive Mid-western floods of 1993 that drowned the city of St. Louis. The unusual tornados in suburban Atlanta. And the many many hurricanes. All of these coinciding with my arrival or departure at a location.

My trip to Icheon proved to be less catastrophic than previous adventures, and yet the curse still showed signs of life. For the two and a half days we were away it poured rain nearly the entire time. Even the smallest trip out of the hotel and across the street for dinner left my pants soaked to the knees, my umbrella turned inside out and my shoes squishing with rainwater. Despite the bad weather it was a good trip with the highlights being feeding potato chips to fish in the lake and letting Yunha beat me at pool. We tried to find the ceramics village once, but the long distance and driving rain eventually got the best of us. I did sample some of the famous rice and must say honestly: it tasted like rice.