Gwangju in Stitch: You can have a birthday in Korea and it can be longer than one day.

As it turns out, ASHfest is an international festival. ASHfest 2008 was headquartered this year in Gwangju, South Korea. The day began with shopping at TIMEZONE, our headquarters of cheap Korean fashion. Actually, I think 99% of clothes I've bought in Korea have come from this fine establishment. My girlfriends and I met at 10 am and were there till almost noon. My prized purchase that day- shiny purple leggings that will somehow work into my Halloween costume.

At work, there was a delicious cake! It was coffee flavored! Surprisingly, Korea really does cakes well. Also, everyone gets at least one cake on their birthday sometimes more. My school buys everyone a cake on their birthday. No one makes cakes because no one has an oven and the store bought cakes are really well done. My first period class surprised me with a lights off "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" when I walked in. They also drew a lovely birthday montage on the white board.

That evening we decided to have a fairly quiet evening on our roof. (It turned out to be not so quiet and one of our mysterious neighbors who we never see left us a nasty note. Oops.) Leah and Stu stormed in with birthday cake #2!

Matt wrote me a sonnet, which I'm pretty sure he whoo-ed everyone with, not just me. He also promised me many beauty and bath products, a whole lotta lovin', a delicious sushi dinner, and bottomless respect and adoration. I got a certificate, which means it's real. Below, he is reading the sonnet by candlelight. Poet boyfriends have their ups.

Too rowdy for Korea!

(I stole the above photos from my friend, Justin- he has a neat camera.)

The next day was the Gwangju Kimchi Festival, one of Gwangju's most talked about festivals. Kimchi as far as the eye can see. I neglected to get a photo of the long and varied kimchi spreads, but these guys were pretty awesome. A: They are the only people I've seen with crazy haircuts to be crazy (not because they think they are fashionable) in Korea. One guy had dreads! There are no dreads in Korea. B: They were playing these sweet hand-made vegetable instruments! They hollowed out gourds, squashes, carrots, and radishes to make instruments. They must be from Seoul.

Ack! This photo is sideways, but it's Matt making kimchi at the "Foreigner Making Kimchi Experience". You basically rub red pepper sauce and a few other things on cabbage and they put it in a bucket for you to take home. Now, we have a lot of kimchi in our fridge. I doubt we'll eat it all.

Photo Op with a radish! (Note: I'm holding our bucket of kimchi.)

Saturday was Kent's birthday. This is Kent. We all went out to a steamed pork restaurant.

Then we went back to Stu and Leah's apartment for a fake facial hair party. Matt really fell into his character that evening, Fernando Fernando. I gave myself the ever-stylish chin strap.