3rd or 4th time could be when I finally truly learn

that not only am I uninterested in at least half of the typical tourist things to do, but can definitively rule out any "Cultural Village" from anything I should ever go see.

The first time I experienced one that I remember was in Guatemala. I'm hazy on the exact where, but I think it was in Antigua. It was a recreation of what an old village would look like, but the only thing you could actually DO was continually have to rebuff most if not all of the people selling souvenirs. I remember not being particularly impressed, excited, wowed, or learning anything except that I was sick of being carted places in the hopes I'd start buying stuff.

The second time was in Tuscany, when we went to 2 supposedly famous and historic villages. The only history remaining were the location, some city walls, and the roads/walkways. Everything else was cafes and souvenir and gelato shops. Don't get me wrong, gelato's good, but there's only so much you can consume in one afternoon. I was also wretchedly sick at the time, yes, and unable to find a farmacia, but I was once again extremely bored by the whole concept.

Which may or may not bring us today, when I found the Gamcheon Culture Village as a thing to go see and do in Busan. I learned while already on my way that it's mysteriously and unaccountably apparently called the Macchu Pichu of Korea. Ok, Macchu Pichu is the one that I'm not sure counts as the 3rd cultural village I've seen. That is I suppose what it is, though its fame, popularity, story, and age make it a hell of a lot more than that. As you may recall, Marcelina and I were less-than-impressed and I think a little disappointed about what it actually was. Gamcheon bears absolutely no resemblance to MP at all. What it DOES remind me of is Valparaiso in Chile. Only in that I got there and said, "THIS?? THIS is IT?? Are you fucking KIDDING me??"

It's really just some colorful 1 story buildings in the valley and on the sides of a mountain. The buildings actually reminded me of Bo-kaap in South Africa due to the coloring, though naturally South Africa soundly defeated this place because the colors were brighter, the buildings and doors more interesting, plus the really impressive spice shopping to be had there.

Of course getting to Gamcheon was frustrating because I had to take a city bus, and try to decipher and hear the stops announced over the noise of the bus, which was a losing battle. I heard Gamcheon, but couldn't hear what came after that. And I've known many stops here in Korea to have the same first 2 words in a stop, but the last 1 or 2 are different, which is how I suppose 1 distinguishes which exact one you want. I got off a few stops later, and started wandering. I saw a view that resembled the image in the guidebook. Why now that it was in person I suddenly thought, "Dear God please tell me THIS is NOT it," instead of from the professional picture, I sadly just don't know.

Nice colors, yeah. But all I could think was, what exactly is this going to give me besides picture-taking that I just really don't do anymore? 

I looked up as I wandered up and down the hill, and saw what looked like some old stone temple sculptures at the top of the mountain. THAT must be it, I thought. I walked on to find the next bus stop so I wouldn't have to walk all the way up.

But as it happens, it wasn't really all that long before I saw the big sign on a wall and a pedestrian walkway. My doubts as to which way to go were erased when I saw 3 Western women garishly dressed. Those were definitely tourists, so this was definitely it.

And that picture above, is pretty much it. There are some nice murals on some buildings, cafes with painted parrots on the top, and the typical street food, plus some souvenir shops thrown in.

Sure it's cute, but how is it cultural, especially to Korea? I think it took me around 20-30 minutes of wandering and 2 failed attempts to buy a coffee to enjoy the view (the first I could tell by the menu and interior that the coffee wouldn't impress, and the 2nd was because I got the strange and unique-to-Korea response that they don't sell cappuccinos, only lattes. Which is REALLY mysterious since the major difference between the 2 is that a cappuccino has less milk. That isn't the only difference, but that's more or less all he, or the other coffee places that I've known to say the same thing, have to do to make me a cappuccino instead of a latte) to say I did it, I know this won't count in my competition on UNESCO sites with Mark, and I'm leaving.

Oh, and I hoped that at LEAST maybe the air quality would be better since we were higher up, but in fact it was WORSE. I'm really only in orange and yellow-colored air zones, but Gamcheon was red. That means you need to wear a mask. God how I wish I didn't have to wear that mask all the damned time.

So, I've finally learned. Cultural village like Lesedi in South Africa or whatever Maori village we got to stay in in NZ? Go; those were interesting and educational (and Lesedi had great accommodation too). Anything else? Skip that shit like the line to climb the Eiffel Tower, or the laugh-out-loud view of smog and ugly architecture that Cerro San Cristobal was.