99 red balloons picnic

well, it wound up being more like twenty balloons, but britt biked to the park with these, which i think was pretty impressive.

most people followed the red food rule pretty carefully, with everything from crab-tomato-brie sandwiches…

to homemade sangria.

it was children’s day, so we wound up getting swarmed by curious children who, in typical korean kid style, got as close as humanly possible without actually interacting with us in any way.

this tactic is so pervasive among korean children, i once had a little girl sort of swim onto my lap, alligator-like with only her nose and eyes above water, while i was lounging in the public baths, where everyone is nude. boundaries, children.

we’ve had three picnic-like events at apec naru park in centum city this spring, and this woman has appeared at every one, demanding that we give her food. as i snapped this photo, she was in the middle of saying, “give me!”

usually she demands wine, drinks some and exclaims, “yeeeacchhh!” then she finishes the wine. on this day, it was “give me wine! four strawberries, give me!”

she scarfed that, grabbed some chopsticks and started picking her way through the rest of the food on offer, gobbling it all up sort of in the manner a stray cat eats when you give it a can of tuna. then she moved on to the next picnic over and started aggressively demanding some of their food, too. she should invest in some granola bars or other pocket-sized snacks to take along on her next walk in the park, i think.

but the real point of the day was saying goodbye to the fabulous jenn young (pictured above with the conspicuous grin), one of my best friends here in busan. she’s in china now, on the first leg of a 7-month journey across asia. fingers crossed the larium she’s taking to fight disease leads to some really cool lucid dream adventures and that she finds her way home safely.