We started our day with a visit to the office of the mayor. The mayor is best friends with the former Rotary International President from Korea, and he called him while we were in his office. Walter,who met the former RI President years ago, talked with him briefly.
Following the mayor's visit, we met with the vice chair and secretary general of the Dangjin City Council. After the usual exchange of gifts, speeches and pictures, we moved on to lunch.
Our after lunch stop was the cultural center, which was a magnificent new facility on the outskirts of town. A large portion of the center is devoted to the annual tug-of-war, which engages most local residents in a month long effort to make a 100-meter long, 3+-foot thick rope made from rice stalks. The tug-of-war itself involves 30,000 (!) people tugging. The event was held a couple weeks before our arrival in Dangjin.
We spent time learning how to make rope from rice stalks, then joined a group if novice traditional Korean drummers, who performed for us then involved us in drumming and dancing with them.
We finished our visit by engaging in a tug-of-war between the GSE team members against our Korean hosts. GSE won 2 of three, but I think we were pulling downhill in our wins.
Our last visit of the day was to a nursing home. Many of the challenges for mursin homes in Korea are similar to those in the US...not enough funding being the primary one. For the most part, families pay a good share of the cost, though the government subsidizes a share. Korean nursing care does not seem to have as much difficulty finding good workers.
We finished our day with dinner in an Italian (Korean version) restaurant.
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