It's fairly remote, even by our standards. We took a bus from Icheon (a small city) to Janghowon (a smaller area that I think is still part of Icheon). It was sleepy, to say the least. Here's the main bus terminal:
We then waited there for thirty minutes for a bus that never came and about which no information was available. Finally we took a taxi, which turned out to be the best option anyway as I discovered later that the bus we needed only came three times a day.
So, out in the middle of a lot of farmland (appropriately enough) is this little place devoted to pigs. We had anxious minders most of the time, which I found somewhat annoying except when we were waiting around and I got to use one of them to check my Korean homework. There were less than twenty people visiting the place, so it wasn't that hard for them to shepherd us all around.
First we saw a building with all the tacky pig memorabilia you could want:
...as well as stacks and stacks of magazines on every imaginable subject that had to do with farming or with pigs, from the "New Village" (Saemaul) movement that happened here in the 1970s...
...to how to breed swine...
...to other, more disturbing topics...
Here, pigs finally do fly...
...and they don't just stop there:
You can make your own sausage, but we felt that we probably didn't need 60,000 won sausage. It was fun to watch the kids at work, though. There are a few other hands-on activities, none of which were any more interesting, so we just hung out until the pig show.
The first show featured pigs doing a variety of un-pig-like things, like soccer:
...and handshakes:
It also featured a lot of cursing by me at my camera and its white balance...
Oh, and before the show they take one of the baby pigs around the audience for people to hold.
I like animals, okay? Actually, I don't like pigs at all, but the baby one was kind of cute. I'm not sure he enjoyed the awkward experience as much as I did, judging by the resigned look on his face.
As this guy (the pig wrangler) and his beleaguered crotch can attest to, patience does not really seem to be a pig virtue.
After that they took us all outside and scattered food on the ground while a herd of baby pigs ran around gobbling it all up. I gather this was supposed to be a good opportunity for pictures, but pigs actually move pretty damn fast when food is at stake.
Finally, the gift shop features not only a wide selection of tacky pig-themed crap, but a bonus selection of sacrilegious tacky pig-themed crap.
That is... an admonishment against smoking? I guess?
Anyway, I had a pretty good time in spite of my general dislike for pigs in their pre-cooked form.
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