I may as well quit trying, because I'm not sure what more I can do in life to top this. A very special and precious dream was realized yesterday. Yes, this weekend, I rode an ostrich and here's how:
For starters, the Ostrich Safari was in the middle of nowhere. We found directions on the visitkorea website that were ridiculous. No, a 15 minute bus ride from Suwon station will not get you to the Ostrich Safari so if you read all of this and still want to find the place just make it easy on yourself and take a taxi. We were on the bus for half an hour and were sure we'd missed our stop so we got off and had a cab phoned for us by some guys at a gas station. We were lucky and got a great cabbie. Most taxi drivers in Korea throw their hands up in a big 'X' shape at the first sign that something might be difficult, but this guy drove us through a single-lane dirt road in a landfill to get us to our ostriches. My hat's off to you, Mr. Driver.
"Ta-joe Safari"! We'd found it!
The reputable-looking enterprise. The website described a petting farm, overnight camp, a chance to feed the ostrich babies, a restaurant, egg-painting facilities and egg bowling
on top of the ostrich rides but it was clear that most of these frills had been scaled back over the years. The place was run by a father and daughter team who were just the teensiest bit anti-social. There wasn't a soul there besides us when we arrived and when the daughter noticed that we were there she took one look at us, turned around and went back to helping her father tinker with some old heating equipment. Since there was no clear place to inquire about the rides or other amenities, I approached her for assistance and for 5,000 Won a piece she begrudgingly led us to her ostrich corral.
What happened next was the most ridiculous scene I've ever been a part of. There were four unfriendly-looking ostriches being kept in a center pen, which was surrounded by the track where we would take our rides. The daughter went in to fetch an ostrich and of course they all hissed, flapped their wings and ran away from her. She eventually gets this one female ostrich out of the center pen and into the track area and the bird starts running all alone and at top speed around the track. The father collected the bird and brought it up to the side of the fence where there was a small ladder for us to climb and and then mount the bird. Of course the group of us are just pissing ourselves laughing at what we're about to be a part of and, boy oh boy, I was so glad to not be going first.
I did have the honor of going second, though, and although I knew this ride was going to be the crowning accomplishment of my life I was very nervous to climb on the back of an ostrich! Have you ever gotten up close to an ostrich? They are not very friendly! Picture how someone would feel as they were about to leap out of an airplane or how an astronaut might feel just before lift-off... this was the anxiety I felt. The daughter lifted up the ostrich's wings and instructed me to climb on. The ostrich was a bit matted on top from all the rides she's given and she was warmer than I expected. The daughter put the wings back down over my legs and told me to hold onto them tightly. I felt like I was going to pull the feathers right out!
And off we went! It was the most ridiculous view in the world with that skinny little neck in front of me and a fistfull of ostrich plume in my bare hands. I started to fall off a bit at first but I was able to readjust and hold on well.
The freakiest part was that the ostriches in the center of the track were freaking out, especially this big male ostrich that was a good 2 feet taller than the one I was riding. As I turned one of the corners it started hissing and flapping its wings about a foot away from me and I was pretty sure I was going to get pecked in the head. You can kind of see him yelling at me in the above picture.
Next it was Mel's turn. By this point the ostrich was pretty much over it and was being pretty docile. I just asked Mel how she'd like me to relate her experience with the ostrich on this blog and she said "warm... and once in a lifetime". LOL! That's my girl.
As you can see a fun time was had by all. Best picture ever.
Last, Hannah and the ostrich became fast friends. When we were done the father offered Hannah his dirty-ass ostrich rag to clean herself off with and then they went right back to ignoring us and tinkering with their heating equipment.
Being ignored was fine with us because that just meant we could be left alone while we looked around this large ostrich farm. They were a couple dozen of the birds spread out in a bunch of different pens, but there were also BUNNIES! There was even one brave bunny that liked to sneak into the ostrich cages to hang out. Careful, bunny dude!
There were also ponies, but who wants to ride one of those?
You could tell this llama had never seen a foreigner before. I get the same stares in Seoul sometimes.
It didn't take long for the father to start yelling at us from a distance, so we took that as our cue to leave. As we were leaving I inquired about buying an ostrich egg because I thought it might be fun to paint. The daughter was willing to sell me one for 15,000 Won, but that seemed a bit pricey considering they already took out all the yummy insides. Plus, Mel assured me that we could get an ostrich egg cheaper somewhere else. Now where that would be I don't know, but maybe I'll check Myeongdong this weekend for one.
Did I mention that this place was in the middle of nowhere? We didn't figure the unfriendly owners would be too interested in calling us a taxi, so we headed out on foot to find... well I'm not exactly sure what we thought we'd find to get us home, but it seemed like the best idea at the time.
Pretty bad when the only sign of life is a graveyard.
We walked for probably 20-30 minutes through a hayfield full of the most birds I've ever seen in one place before we found this "Heavy Industry" factory. We asked an adjoshi on a forklift to call us a taxi and he did so with a smile. Pretttty sure they don't get too many groups like us in there.
When our taxi arrived we were so excited. We wouldn't have to go back and steal an ostrich to ride home after all.
We wound up having a beer on the roof of our old apartment building in Suwon. We had a lot of good times on that roof. It was nice to see that the place where we buried little Heathcliff is now growing some cabbages for someone.
The nostalgia tour continued with an order of grilled pork a ribs at our favorite galbi restaurant.
Then it was a trip to the Crazy Duck Self Club Bar, which was a place that the Villagey staff found after we had left the school. We always heard soooo much about the Crazy Duck so it was fun to ch-ch-check it out.
Across the road from the Duck was "Boobi Boobi". Hannah tells me "Boobi Boobi" in Korean means to be tactile with other people. Like she had a teacher friend whose school wanted her to be more boobi boobi with the children- to touch/hug/toss them around more. I wonder what goes on at this Boobi Boobi bar?
Later, we went to the alien norebang, the best non-luxury norebang in Korea! We scored many 100s, sang all the hits, got loads of service time, and just generally missed Shanda who is always the life of the norebang party <3
Our midnight snack was roast chicken, popcorn and ketchup salad at Cabin Oak.
We'd planned to go back to Seoul on Saturday night but all of a sudden it was really late so we decided to just stay in Suwon. We got a room around the corner from the chicken place called Motel Style. The rooms were pretty nice, and you know I have high standards for my love motel rooms, HOWEVER the next morning when we went to fill up the hot tub there was no hot water! They'd turned it off so we didn't even get to enjoy the best part of the room. The complimentary Maxims certainly did not make up for this cruel service.
For lunch we went to this Italian place, Provence, near our old school which I had completely forgotten about until Mel mentioned it in the morning. My favorite, the steak and pasta entree wasn't on the menu any more, but the bacon spaghetti I ordered was awesome and I was just happy to see that the restaurant was still operating after all this time.
We scoffed at the rate of inflation that seems to have taken over the clothes shopping in the CGV building, and then went to Home Plus for a few groceries. The Suwon Home Plus has some amazing new products in stock including the crackers pictured above: DICK STICKS!!! If you had dick sticks on your Christmas list this year, you could be in luck because we may have bought several packages of these.
The Christmas section was all set up and a female mannequin had been dressed up as a D-cup Santa.
We weren't going to get a tree this year because we won't be here for Christmas, but we couldn't resist getting a little plastic tree with all the ornaments for 5,000 Won. I didn't think my life could get an more cheery after my lap on that ostrich yesterday, but the tree has been a nice touch to the apartment.
When I was younger, you knew it was almost Christmas in Atlantic Canada when the local TV stations started running the Sobey's "Star of Christmas" commercial. Sobey's is an east-coast chain of grocery stores. I had my first real job working there during university, and Sobey's was also where Mel and I first met.
