Day 91: Pumpkins and Islands and Gays, Oh My!

This picture, though not the best one I've taken, made me and my friend laugh while in Busan. You are all not mistaken, that is a giant plastic pumpkin in the back of that truck, along with two other trucks with the same exact thing. The hotel we stayed out apparently had itself a nightclub in the basement, the 호박클럽, the pumpkin club. So what do they do, they use giant plastic pumpkins in the back of trucks to advertise the club. This was the first sight when we got to our hotel around midnight that Friday. Upon further inspection, you'll see a banner hanging off the truck that reads: 독도는 우리땅. For those that don't speak the Korean, it basically translates to 'Dokdo is ours!' And for those of you fortunate enough not to know what this implies, Dokdo is a group of rocks, some call them 'islands', in the middle of nowhere between Korea and Japan that both claim ownership of. Japan is a bit passive about it, sticking it in textbooks and not really talking much about it. This infuriates Korea at no end, and so they take every opportunity to voice their support that Dokdo is in fact Korean. There is nothing special about these rocks, besides perhaps some fishing, but outside of that it is simply yet another thing that pisses people off. So needless to say, it made me laugh even more to see this hanging off the truck advertising the pumpkin nightclub. Later when I got back to Seoul, I found out that the district we stayed in, with our hotel and all the clubs, was actually Busan's equivalent to Jongro, or the gay district. I knew I felt a little too at home.