Namwon is called Korea's "city of love" because of its connection to a legend about a faithful wife named Chunhyang, who endured torture and imprisonment because she refused the advances of the provincial governor while her husband was away. The annual Chunhyang Festival seemed like the natural time to check out this small city in North Cheolla province; we met up with our Irish buddies Brian and Verena, and their Korean co-worker Jackie, and their other buddy Niall (not quite sure if that's the name; it's been a while) for some fun.
 | Here's a beautful lake in the park where most of the festival goings-on took place. |
 | Here's a cute kid wearing hanbok (traditional Korean garb) and getting photographed by her mom. |
 | This street vendor was willing to go to unusually great lengths to get attention. |
 | Spotted a great bit of Konglish in the window of a boutique and snapped it. |
 | After a nice dinner, we settled into a bar for a drink or two. Note Cheris and Jackie reaching for the same beer in this one. |
 | Out on the sidewalks again, these fried whole baby chickens caught our eye on the streetside food carts. We didn't feel like trying them. |
 | With festival activities over for the day and nothing much to do for the rest of the evening, we settled into another bar and made ourselves comfortable. |
 | It wasn't too many rounds before Jackie got really comfortable. |
 | Not long after, we were all extremly comfortable. Note the low angle of this shot due to a seriously slumping cameraman. |
 | After a night on the floor of a tiny, overheated hotel room (and Korean heat is built into the floor) and very loud neighbors, we grumpily made our way to the last thing we could catch before getting buses back to our home cities: the Korean-style wrestling tournament. These guys are tied together with a kind of sash... |
 | ...and the really cool moves are when they use it suddenly flip the other guy over, lightning fast. Yeah, it's dark and blurry, but I really can't believe I got a picture of this at all. |