I’ll unleash all my Wilderness Explorer training!: Luck has nothing to do with it?

Jinju- I can’t tell if im super lucky or super unlucky

So October is festival month in Korea and though many people went down to Busan this weekend for BIFF (Busan international film festival) I headed to Jinju for the lantern festival. I was planning on heading down friday afternoon because there was no school but my host mom told me she was also planning to go. We left around 8 am and my luck started. I both forgot my DSLR and could not find my running shoes. Sneakers, where did you go? We headed to the beach, about an hour and a half away, relaxed, grabbed some food, and then traveled another hour to Jinju. We even stopped by a flower/scarecrow festival. This city is literally a strait shot down from where I live in Korea. We arrived around 4 p.m.. A little later then i was expecting and my SAS friend was already there. First thing about this festival, it was HUGE! Ive never seen anything so big and was not expecting it at all. A friend had told me motels would be easy to find so we walked with my host parents for dinner and then into the fortress to watch the opening fireworks. They were amazing! This whole festival was over the top cool though I didn't explore as much until the next day. Apparently its to commemorate the Koreans using lanterns to make the army appear larger while facing the Japanese. After the fireworks ended my host parents left and we worked our way through the insane amount of people to try and find a hostel. My other friends were stuck in traffic and it was around 9 pm. Heres where my luck came into play again. We tried maybe 20 hostels/motels/hotels. If it was in this city, we tried it. every, single, sketchy dark alleyway motel was full. Around two hours later and some dark streets in a Korean woman noticed us struggling outside of a Norebang/brothel thing. She pointed through an alley to another motel, which was also full. We saw her once more and she led us to a different motel. Upon arriving it was clear this hotel was also full. This woman must have known the owners and quickly negotiated us staying in someones room who was on vacation for the night. Our savior then quickly left and we spent the night in this motel. The next day we booked at the same place in a different room right away in order to not struggle again. We got up and started walking around. This festival had a million things to explore and they were all amazing. I couldn't find my other friends through a variety of phone deaths and notifications not working. Eventually my SAS friend switched his train and I was able to meet up with my ETA friends. We walked around for a the day stoping at different food, lantern making booths, music booths, and decorations to check it out. We then grabbed some dinner (too spicy for me) and waited for the sun to go down. Meanwhile my second time friend Josh figured out his bus and was on his way to meet us and John (who lives in Jinju). John eventually made it while we were at a mini concert and his phone died. Were talking thousands of people here. His last message “I have a guitar on my back”. Which i took as its difficult to move, but was meant as thats how you can find me. We did find each other and eventually even found John! Eventually we split off so it was me John and Josh. John then informed me I could have crashed at his place both nights but i had already payed. :( next time I wont be as spur of the moment i guess haha. The three off us wandered, grabbed some food, and wound up hanging by the river playing guitar. Josh was actually really good. Like you hear oh my friends in a band and now he's whipping out an acoustic guitar but he was very pleasant to listen too. Eventually we gathered a small crowd of Koreans. Josh then explained I was their second time friend, because this was the second time we've hung out. Im not sure how that translated because it doesn't make much sense in English but you know it was late. We wandered some more and they eventually helped me find my motel again. The next morning I found the bus station, grabbed the 11:15 bus home and was back in Cheonju in under 3 hours. Success! Great weekend. Arguably one of the best weekends I’ve had in Korea. There were only 5 ETAs there but it was really nice :) Hope to visit the south again soon.

*Side bad luck story- as i was talking about the good construction of the floating lanterns we watched one flip over and sink to the bottom of the river.

** It took my host parents two hours to walk back to the car and they got back to Cheongju at 3 a.m. I really hope the fireworks were worth it!