Open house dance party

We had a funny experience today- one of those times that makes you think, "This is what traveling's all about." We had gone to Duryu Park, a large, lovely, tree-filled park in the middle of the city with a stadium, swimming pool, cultural center, and tourist information center. Our goal was to visit the tourist information center and learn a bit more about Daegu and what there is to see in the surrounding areas. It was another blasting hot day, so we lingered in the tourism center, and Caroline picked up a few things at the gift shop afterward. Outside, we enjoyed a cool drink and an ice cream (and were joined temporarily by a street rat), then headed along the walking path through the park towards home. The air along the path was fragrant and cool and trees bursting with pink blossoms exploded like fireworks in the crepuscular light. A few minutes later we happened upon a rest area where hundreds of people were sitting on benches, drinking soda, eating ice cream, and relaxing in the dying minutes of daylight. We could hear music coming from around the bend, so we decided to follow it, and discovered a scene that made us laugh and smile. In a small stone area was a group of elderly Koreans surrounding a motorcycle that was spitting out popular Korean tunes. The DJ was an old man wearing a cowboy hat, a plaid shirt and suspenders, and he was conscientiously replacing the cassette in his motorcycle tape deck each time a song ended. There were about a dozen people- men and women- all dancing and swaying to the music, some dancing alone, some in pairs, and some in larger groups. We stopped to watch, mesmerized by the music and dancing, and smiled politely at other onlookers who noticed us. Apparently we stayed a little longer than was acceptable, because all of a sudden several people had us by the arms and were leading us toward the makeshift dancefloor. We laughingly accepted and moved out among the group and moved to the music. Everyone seemed thrilled that we were dancing. In just a few seconds, someone had taken our bags to hold, someone else brought us drinks and dried fish, and someone else offered us some candies. We danced and one particularly lively fellow danced with Caroline in some surreal form of Korean Saturday Night Fever. I ducked away from the dancing for a minute, trying to take some photos on the digital camera of Caroline and her geriatric John Travolta. When I smiled at those beside me, I was greeted with a thumbs up sign and encouragements of "Korea number one". One guy kept pushing Caroline and I together and saying "I love you" and pointing at the two of us. We stayed for about five or ten minutes- long enough for a fairly large crowd to assemble, but good guests always know when to leave, so with deep bows, and many expressions of "Kamsamnida" (-thank you- one of the only Korean words we know), we slipped away onto the darkened path.