While I served as the Chief of the Armament Maintenance Branch for the Deputy Chief of Staff, Matériel, 19th Support Command at Camp Henry, Korea, I worked nonstop for about a year without taking any time off except for the normal long weekends during national and federal holidays. On most long holiday weekends, I would eagerly await one of my clients making a plea for my services to pull their staff duty shift over said weekend. If times were good, I would get lucky and score a double whammy. What was that? Oh, a double whammy was simply a situation where I pulled two staff duty shifts during one long weekend. On rare occasions, I even managed to score a triple whammy. When that happened, I sat back and watched the dollars really pile up. Actually, that’s not entirely true. My wife is the person who really watched the money pile up. She was the proverbial bank. On one occasion, however, I chose not to pull duty for somebody else because my wife and one of her friends wanted to drive down to the Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival in Jinhae, Korea. On the appointed weekend, both families drove their own cars down to Jinhae. When we arrived in Jinhae, we went over to Jungwon intersection. Jungwon intersection is where most of the main events for the Cherry Blossom Festival were held. For example, this is where the opening ceremony was held and where the festival began. There were a lot of other fun performances held here such as Korean folk dances and musical performances. There were a lot of vendors in the area as well, and there were tents set up. Of course there were. What festival or carnival would be complete without vendors and tents. There’s got to be some sort of way to separate all of the poor-slob tourists and visitors from their hard-earned cash. Naturally, every good tourist wants to buy at least one or two souvenirs to remember the occasion. Perish the thought that you visited some famous event like the Cherry Blossom Festival and didn’t buy any souvenirs. I mean, seriously. You gotta have some sort of junk to take home with you so that you can throw it away in two or three or five years. You know. When you can’t remember why you bought it, or when you’re packing up to move back to the United States and you need to get rid of shit to save room or save weight or both in your household goods. Either way, the vendors are going to find a way to separate you from some of your money on useless crap that you’re going to end up throwing away. And when you get tired of haggling with the junk dealers over their ridiculous prices on their overpriced junk and trinkets, you can also eat lunch at one of the many vendors that are selling food. Believe me, if you take kids with you, they will be hungry every time you pass by a food vendor. They won’t eat shit, even if you buy them something, because they weren’t really hungry. They just saw the food and decided to nag you until you bought them some. That’s how that game is played. When you get tired of getting fleeced by the junk dealers and the food vendors, you can do what we did. We walked over to the Yeojwa Stream. The Yeojwa Stream is lined with cherry blossoms, and the Koreans decorate it with lit-up decorations and umbrella decorations. Jehwangsan Park is close to Yeojwa Stream. We walked over to Jehwangsan Park after we left Yeojwa Stream. In addition to seeing the Korean folk dancers, one event we did not want to miss was the Joseon Dynasty victory parade. The Joseon Dynasty victory parade reenacts the victory march held by Admiral Yi Sun-Sin after his army won the battle in the Imjin War (1592-1598). The Cherry Blossom Festival has evolved over the years to include some evening events as well, but we never stayed for any of those evening events. But another event that we did catch was an air show by the Korean Air Force. If you’ve ever seen an air show put on by our own Air Force, it was something similar to that. Late in the afternoon, our friends suggested that we eat dinner at a local restaurant before we headed back to Taegu. I simply said, “I hope you know where to go because this is my first time in Jinhae.” Our friends assured us that they knew exactly where to go. They told us we were in for a treat. I am always a little skeptical when somebody says, “You are in for a treat!” Those words usually, generally, always have a hidden meaning. On that occasion it was no exception. When I saw my friend’s car pull off of the main street into an alley, I knew that something was up. That should have been my first clue. As it turned out, the restaurant was pretty good. However, you had to get used to the idea of the menu fare from which you were selecting. Of course, that assumes that you knew up front what the menu fare would be. I however did not. I was going in blind. Come to think of it, my whole family was going in blind. But my wife may have been previously introduced to the menu fare at some point in her life. I thought back to my younger days running the back alleys in Itaewon-Dong, Seoul. Some of the very best restaurants that I ever ate in were located in little back alleys off the beaten path. Maybe this was one of those places. And maybe I was the King of England. Not likely. Anyway, we parked the cars and approached what appeared to be a pet store. It appeared to be a pet store because it had a huge glass display window in front with a bunch of puppies in the window. When we walked up to that window, I asked my friend, “Are we at the right place? This looks like a pet store. I thought we were going to a restaurant.” My friend replied, “This is the right place, all right.” Just then, a lady came out and told me, “Pick one.” I looked at her kind of stunned and asked, “Pick what? Pick one of what?” She simply pointed toward the dogs in the window and said again, “Pick one.” I really didn’t want a dog, but I found one that looked cute enough, so I pointed it out and said, “I want that one.” That was surprise number one. Surprise number two was that we were also ushered into what I thought was the pet store. Surprise. Surprise. It wasn’t. It was the restaurant. Surprise number three was that there was no menu. Go figure. I had already ordered our food. I just didn’t know it yet. Surprise number four was when I was told I had to take my hat off. That was some more Korean custom bullshit. I was wearing my Minnesota Twinkies baseball hat. My brother Craig had given me that Minnesota Twinkies baseball hat in 1987 after he had scored it during the Twinkies World Series victory run. I hung that hat up on a hook in the restaurant. For all I know that damn hat is still hanging there. I forgot that hat on the way out of the restaurant, and I didn’t remember it until we were halfway back to Taegu. I sure as hell wasn’t going to drive all the way back to Jinhae for a goddamn baseball hat that I got for free. I just figured that I would con my brother out of another one the next time that I saw him. I must admit that the dog stew that we ate for dinner with rice and kimchi was really delicious. I felt really sorry for the cute little dog that we had to sacrifice in order to have that dinner. Yeah. Well. I felt really sorry for all of about five seconds until I had my first bite. I was really hungry, after all. And other than the sacrificed dog and the sacrificed baseball hat, we didn’t encounter any exercises in futility during our trip to the Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival.
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