Lights, Camera, Action!

Hello!

We meant to write earlier.....that was the plan...but we were too busy swimming in the loveliness of something called "late schedule". Oh the late schedule. We love it sooooo much. During the month of January, we actually had to work during the day! Imagine that! But now that February has started, our school has gone back to the late schedule, which means that the earliest we start work is 4:00. We have the whole day to enjoy. The weather had been warmer the past two days as well.....adding to our extreme bliss. So we have been running, playing, frolicking, dancing, climbing up mountains, and singing in the sunshine. Oh late schedule.....how much we love you!

Anyway, back to the story.

On Sunday (sorry sorry...I know this is now an OLD story...Sunday was ages ago) we got up at bloomin' 5am, made our sleepy way to downtown, where we boarded a bus with many other foreigners and some Koreans and began the 3.5 hour ride to a stadium just outside of Gwangju. We had all signed up to be extras in a Korean movie. The people organizing the trip had arranged for two cramped buses, and provided us with food and beer (really!) for the trip there.

We were greeted with a Korean style buffet lunch. Thank goodness most of us were foreigners. I cannot imagine a buffet lunch with Koreans would go very well.....we would never make it to the table because our pushing and fighting skills are so not up to theirs. Anyway, we happily ate our kimchi, rice, and unidentifiable pasta dish. And then it was time for us to show our excellent acting skills.

We were fiiming a summer scene in a movie about the 2008 Olymipcs, and then another summer scene from the 1988 Olympics. We were thankful that our scenes were in a stadium, and not in the very cold weather outside.....well, we were thankful while changing into summer clothes outside, and walking to the stadium....and entering the stadium....and then we were no longer thankful. The bloomin' stadium was freakin' colder than it flippin' was outside!!!!!!! Ahhhhhh. So there we all sat in our summer clothes, freezing for many many hours.

Brett was picked to have a special roll as a coach. This involved him wearing a red track suit and standing beside the fake stage for an hour. I was jealous...not because he had a bigger roll, but because he got to wear a track suit, which was warmer than my t-shirt. He then joined the rest of us for many hours of pretending to cheer for fake athletes, and a fake soccer game. I wish we had more photos, but they didn't allow our cameras into the stadium for the first while...until they realized that tourists at the olympics would actually have cameras.

Being the experts we are, we toughed it out through the cold while many others gave up and ran back to the warm bus at the first opportunity. Sissies. Ok, so maybe we also spent 20 minutes on the bus, but I was hungry, and I cannot cheer for invisible athletes when I am hungry.

Six hours later, when the filming ended, we were given shirts and hats as a thank you and then enjoyed another buffet of kimchi, rice, octopus and unidentifiable things.

Our group then got back on the buses and headed to a light festival going on in the green tea fields about 15 minutes away. This is what made the whole day worth while. It was amazing. There were tiny little lights everywhere. We could not get over how beautiful it was. It must have taken ages to put all those lights on the trees and the rows of green tea plants.

40 minutes later we were all back on the bus. We had been promised a karaoke party in the bus for the ride home, but everyone opted for sleep instead of singing. Well, somebody's bottom did plenty of singing....I guess we aren't the only ones who don't like octopus.