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there is a ritualistic team building exercise in korea called "MT" (membership training) where everyone from a school department or company gets together for an overnight trip to the countryside. usually, they all pile into a vehicle, drive to a pension by the seashore or in mountains, unload themselves into a big room and then eat and drink copious amounts of food and alcohol in order to "get to know one another". apparently artists too need their MT, and thus a few days ago the crew at ssamzie traipsed off to the seashore at gwanghua do, south of inchon airport, for 2 days of bonding.

we were all dutifully in denial about the threat of a typhoon that was blowing in from japan. packed swimsuits and towels and headed out on to the highway.



after about an hour we arrived at a suburban-looking duplex that looked out onto a coastline. surprisingly enough, the sun was shining.




went for a short walk and found a military post armed with fake soldiers


sloshed around barefoot in a mud flat collecting clams and waiting for the tide to come in




eventually the tide did come in and we went for an amazing AMAZING swim as the sun was setting, ate lots of barbecue, and tried to learn a korean card game called 'stop go' (or something like that) that was so complicated that i fell asleep playing it. but the cards are really beautiful


was roused awake to play a game of pictionary at 2am, stayed up until 4am, woke up to kitchen shenanigans and a pile of kimchi the size of your head. and yes, they ate it all.


drove around in a storm, drank convenience store coffee under an awning, and ended up at the gwanghwa museum of history where they had some interesting diorama displays


and met a marine corps unit as we were leaving the museum


so there you go. MT, korean style.