The Carnival

A Korean carny is as awesome as you would expect.* I once had an incident involving the Octopus in an American carnival. If you don't know what ride the Octopus is you really need to get out more. It might be the most ubiquitous carny ride.* Basically, I learned you can't trust a carny worker with random patches of hair scattered throughout his Oklahoma City sun burnt face. He's far more interested in creeping out any high school girls coming his way than looking out for the safety of a child. Besides, he has to smoke another red and look cool in his wife beater, who cares about the kid whose door wasn't properly locked. But I'm 23 now and ready for thrills, so that little incident won't deter me.

*That sentence was thrown together for the sole purpose of using a big word.

Being scared at a carny in the States is probably more based on incompetence of both man and machine. Being scared here in Korea is another animal. A whole different dog. For starters, the only rule is there are no rules. The machine operators take you to the limits, especially if you're a foreigner. Ride durations are stunningly long. One of the best things about rides is their brevity, the uncomfortableness is minimized to a minute or a minute and a half, but not here. There is this ride called the Crazy Flip. It basically flips you upside down and throws you about. It's a lot of fun for a couple of minutes, but after five minutes it loses its wonder. Un-com-for-ta-ble. After hanging upside down for far longer than any orangutan in the jungle, it will give you quite a blood rush to the head.

The next ride we went on was the Disco! The sole purpose of this ride was to make your life miserable. Here is a picture of the ride:

It's a circular, spinning, bucking nightmare. The operator looked at the ten or so of us foreigners and said, "I'm terminator." The object of the ride is not to be bucked off. It's similar to a giant bucking bull in that regard. I grabbed anything I could and held on for dear life. The floor of this ride is padded. The "Terminator" will not stop the ride until a few unfortunate souls fall down. The entire ride is crazy. The ride throws you out of your seat when it bucks. If you weren't holding on, you would fly right out of your seat. Meg almost did, but luckily for her she's dating a superhero who happened to save her.

The best thing about this fun filled night was the bumper cars. To be honest with you, I love bumper cars. Bumper cars became a huge part of my summers at the Ozarks. 30 years from now, I'll remember the long, boring afternoons spent driving throughout the Ozark countryside as the rents looked for houses. Those trips were only tolerable, because more often than not they were topped off with a trip to the Dam. And that meant bumper cars. There is nothing like taking your frustration out on those who frustrated you. I was locked in like a heat seeking missile on Dave. This was my normal thought process, "You want to bore me to tears. You want me to listen to 8 Steely Dan albums. My friends are out tubing, while I'm picking up ReMax fliers on the front lawns of houses we'll never see again. I hope you have a good chiropractor." Dave and I had some good battles. Bumper cars just ooze nostalgia for me.

So, I was absolutely not surprised when I was the first one in line for the bumper cars at this carnival, however, these were not your normal pedestrian bumper cars. These were bumper cars from like the 1970's. These were bumper cars before lawyers. These things were a whiplash in the making. You could see the the volts of electricity on the ceiling while driving. There were no rules. Hell, half of the people in the pit weren't wearing their seat belts. Head on collisions weren't banned; they were encouraged! They were the fastest b-cars I've ever seen. They made the 5 hour car drive to Busan worth it by themselves. The hits were brutal, the lines were non-existent, and the memory will be unforgettable. I had a great time at a Korean carnival.