This is a common problem on Korea’s roads where miscellaneous businesses put emergency flashing lights on their vehicles and then expect everyone to get out of their way, while at the same time the ambulances are stuck in traffic. Watching this video was almost like watching someone play a video game considering how crazy this driving was.

Jangheung county in South Jeolla Province will open the nation’s first nudist area, the “nude forest bath,” on July 30 where people are allowed to walk through the trees naked, officials said Monday.

The county has been building the area, called Vivi Ecotopia, inside the Jangheung Woodland, famous for hundreds of 40-year-old cypress trees on 33 hectares of land.

Tens of thousands of visitors are expected to experience the forest bath each year where they will be exposed to phytoncides released by the trees. The antimicrobial, allelochemic, volatile organic compounds are known to relax the human body.

“We will open Korea’s first nude forest bath area to the public on July 30,” a Jangheung county official said.  [Korea Times]

So is this really Korea’s first nudist area?  Well not really:

“We will charge those who want to experience the forest bath nude an entrance fee. But we have not yet decided on the amount. The visitors will receive disposable panties and gowns free of charge. But they can also wear their own clothes if they want to,” the official said.

“With clothes on, visitors can go anywhere they want to. But those who want to take part in the experience naked should remain inside the huts or in a designated outdoor area. Men and women will be also separated from each other,” he said.

Sounds more like a jimjilbang in the forest than a nudist area.

Apparently last February two women in their thirties, Ms. A and her friend, met two younger gentlemen at a night club. The men promised to buy the girls alcohol if they met them the next day at a wine bar in Shinsa-Dong.

After ordering 950,000 KRW worth of alcohol and food, one of the men, a Mr. Ju, received a phone call telling him to “come and move his car.” His friend, Mr. Jeon, said that he had “better see what was going on” and followed shortly thereafter. Neither of them ever returned. The two women were then forced to cover the bill by the owner of the wine bar.

It turns out, however, that the twenty-something men were actually working in cahoots with the owner of the wine bar to lure women there and extort money from them. The owner of the bar, Mr. Kim, has been taken into custody but the other two are still at large.  [Marmot's Hole]

You can read the rest about this scam at the link, but I thought Robert’s moral of this story was quite true.

Maria Yoon’s wedding invitation details are quite precise. The nuptials will take place at 4 p.m. on Sunday, May 22, at Times Square in New York City, near the Walgreens, on the sidewalk. As she has learned from her previous 49 ceremonies, it’s best to leave little to chance.

Yoon, 39, is a first generation Korean-American. Calling herself “the voice of the unmarried Asian-American woman,” she bridled against the pressure her parents put on her to get hitched at a young age. So she became Maria the Korean Bride, and set out to hold a wedding in all 50 states to amplify and explore the ostracism that she feels, as well as examine how getting married is seen in other cultures.

Along the way she discovered a lot of different attitudes, anxieties and anguish about what a wedding – and the institution of marriage – really means. But, mostly, she got really good at on-the-fly wedding planning. New York, her home state, is her last (fake) espousal. “It was important to me to finish the project before I officially became 40 on May 25,” she says.

Each wedding is an art project, and thus requires a commitment from a guy only to show up and read the vows Yoon writes for each occasion (“I promise to love, honor and cherish you until the end of the ceremony…”). Nevertheless, it’s no simple matter to find grooms. In one state (Nebraska) she married a 700-lb. Angus bull. In another (Wisconsin) she married an embroidered shirt.

Still, she has standards. Since it’s art, she has to approve of the way the groom looks. She married a dog musher in Alaska and a cowboy in Wyoming (his girlfriend took a dim view). In New York, she held a lottery to find grooms, with vying suitors paying $5 each for a ticket. But even in a city where unusual art happenings are a daily occurrence, the first two grooms bailed and she had to go with No. 3. Another lesson she learned from 49 weddings: have a backup for everything.  [TIME Magazine]

You can read more about this marriage artist, Maria Yoon on her website.

South Korean police say they’ve found the body of a man with his hands and feet nailed to a wooden cross.

Police said Wednesday the man was found crucified Sunday in an abandoned stone quarry in Mungyong, about 115 miles (190 kilometers) southeast of Seoul.

Police say they found nylon strings around the man’s neck, arms and stomach. They say two smaller crosses were erected on each side of the cross he was nailed to.

They found nails, a hammer and instructions on how to build crosses inside a tent near the scene.

Police said they are investigating the exact cause of the man’s death and whether it was a homicide.

They identified the man as a 58-year old surnamed Kim.  [Associated Press]

The above picture comes from the Korean YTN via Robert Neff, that shows the site of the killing but has the actual crucifixion blurred out.  This Daum link provided from the Marmot’s Hole comment section shows how the crucifixion was done complete with a spear to the side, a crown of thorns, and even a mirror to look at himself hanging:

Police are even considering that this guy may of had himself crucified or even did himself based off of step by step instructions left at the scene.  This has got to be the weirdest death I have read about in some time.

Lee Hye-sun / Lee Boo-jin

Lee Boo-jin, the CEO of the Hotel Shilla Company, apologized Wednesday to renowned hanbok designer Lee Hye-sun, who was barred from the Shilla Hotel’s buffet restaurant, The Parkview, on Tuesday evening after arriving in the traditional Korean attire.
A staff member refused to allow her in because hanbok wasn’t allowed under the restaurant’s dress code. Lee is the eldest daughter of Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Kun-hee.

According to designer Lee Hye-sun, she was told by the hotel staff that hanbok was prohibited because the “dangerous” clothing could interfere with other customers in the restaurant.

News of the incident spread quickly in cyberspace on Tuesday night after Lee Hye-sun’s son posted enraged comments on his Twitter page.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link, but unsurprisingly (considering who the hotel was going up against), the Shilla Hotel has changed their no hanboks allowed policy.

Can anyone point out what might irk the Korean community in the above photos?  

Korea wasn’t represented very well at Disney World but I did manage to snap a few more photos.

This coke machine seemed out of place in the African Pavilion at Epcot Center.

I did see a few Korean Employees that were recruited by Disney World from their Universities in Korea.

There were a lot of Korean tourist at Disney World,  so I am a little suprised that Korea wasn’t represented with more than a few dolls dressed in Hanbok and a misplaced coke machine.  The Korean employees I talked to all said they wanted to stay longer than the maximum one year but were denied.

The CCTV footage features an unidentified woman in her 20s kicking and stepping on the cat in a hallway of an officetel in southern Seoul on June 15, eventually throwing her out of a 10^th-floor window and killing her.

The cat, named “Eunbi” was caught while sneaking out while her owner was asleep, according to news reports.

Along with an animal protection organization, the cat owner has reportedly filed a complaint with the police against the woman depicted in the video on charges of mistreating an animal.  [Korea Herald]

You can read more and see the video at the link.  You might want to zoom ahead to about 6:00 into the video because not much is going on for most of that video clip.  Also if you are wondering the woman claims she was drunk at the time that she killed the cat and has no memory of what happened.

A teenage “girl” arrested in central Seoul in March for offering to sell sex to adult men on the Internet has been found to be a boy, nearly a month after he was taken into police custody.

Before the 16-year old, only identified by his surname Choi, was found out through fingerprint identification, he was held in a lockup cell with five women at a Seoul detention center in Uiwang city, Gyeonggi Province, for 23 days.

After finding out his real gender, police immediately moved him to a cell for men and had to revise the case report.

According to police, Tuesday, Choi was arrested along with four others in late March on charges of selling sex to adult men.

He was dressed as a girl and used a female name when questioned by police. Because of Choi’s feminine physical features and attire, investigators were completely fooled.

Police said Choi solicited adult men on online chatting sites. When they met in a motel room, Choi stole the men’s wallets and ran away while the men were taking a shower.

He was taken into custody after a sting operation by Hyehwa Police Station in late March, and then transferred to the Seoul detention center in early April. Until Choi was fingerprinted in late April, he was housed in the same cell with female detainees.

For minors aged under 17, fingerprint identification is the only official tool to distinguish genders. Koreans receive a resident identification card when they become 18 years old.

A prosecutor said the boy had sexual identity issues. The prison guards have identifying issues. Does anyone besides me find it hard to believe none of his female inmates didn’t raise the issue of his proper gender?

Robert Neff at Marmot’s Hole puts in his two bits-

That’s right – it took them nearly a month to discover that the young chap could urinate while standing up.  Wonder what they thought of her early morning woodies.

Maybe that will be a follow up article from the Korea Times. Of course the guards will want to speak off the record and not be identified.

Muan International Airport is an airport in Muan County, Jeollanam-do. Construction of the airport began in 1997 and the airport opened on November 9, 2007. The airport serves the cities of Gwangju and Mokpo. It replaced the nearby Mokpo Airport and is expected to replace the nearby Gwangju Airport in the near future as well. [Wikipedia]

Weeds growing on the walkway.

This is a real nice Airport to be empty.

A convenience store was open and even had a couple of customers that came in just to use the store.

Glass elevators inside the Airport.

There were two planes set to arrive on this day.

The parking lot is screaming for cars.

You can see more photos of the Muan International Airport here.

The cost of Yanyang, Uljin and Muan International Airports were approaching a combined 1.5 billion dollars.  I didn’t see a single plane take off or land at any of these airports nor did I see a single customer at any of these Airports.  Muan does have flights but nothing near what an Airport of this size should have.  Muan has to be the second best Airport in Korea behind Inchon but is just another of Korea’s “Ghost Airports“.