Dragon Boat Race!

2 Weeks ago I participated in the annual dragon boat races here in Ulsan, which is a part of the annual Whale Festival.  I agreed to join the team 2 or 3 months ago, and was hoping to get a lot of practice in with the team so that we could have a shot at winning.  Unfortunately we only had one practice, and it was held on a rainy day 3 weeks ago.  I would have gone to practice in the rain (like 3/4 of our team did), but I was working an English camp that Saturday, which I do once a month.  I showed up to the race both excited, and as you might expect, ready to laugh at our performance.

Our team was the called the Narwhals, and we tried to all dress sort of like psychedelic medieval vikings, so at least we had THAT going for us.  I did not take our theme lightly, and I got completely "neoned" out from the post-its down my legs, to the paint on my face and arms.  It was intense.

Here is our team getting ready to leave port.  I really enjoy this group of people, they are a lot of fun.  I am a little disappointed in Rich (up front) and Roseanne for not getting the Narwhal's trademark 'helical tusk.'  The rest of us embraced this Unicorn-looking whale's natural beauty.

My friend Penelope took this photo of our boat as I was waving my oar at her and heckling her team.  

Still doing it.

Out of 15 teams we were in the 2nd of 3 heats.  We looked like we were going to tip the boat over on our way to the starting line, but did surprisingly good!  We stayed straight, and were almost neck in neck with the 1st and 2nd place boats of our heat.  Unfortunately we fell into the slow (redemption round) heat, and failed to have such 'good' results.  The important thing about rowing in these dragon boats is timing and rhythm.  We had that the first time, however we did not have that during the second heat.  Prior to the start we all agreed to watch the paddler in front of us, and just after the start some guys began yelling for everyone to follow the drummer!!  (There is a drummer to keep the rhythm on each boat as you can see above.)  This made our teammates focus on different things and we did pretty awful.  Regardless it was a lot of fun, and a great experience (especially for the next time I do something like this).  After us foreigners got done racing the (very serious) Korean teams took the oars, and we enjoyed free food, beer and entertainment in exchange for our 10,000 won entry fee.  A pretty good deal if you ask me!  All in all it was really fun, and I didn't lose too much sleep over not winning.

There's our boat rolling back in after that first heat.  Good times!