Visit Gwangju: Icicle City of Death and Incompetence.
Here, you can stay at the beautiful Regent Tourist Hotel where the hot-water boiler will only be turned on for the morning shower, and the heater will only be activated at 10 pm, even though the temperature outside is below freezing.
“Is that Snow”
“YES, that’s snow”
“Does this mean they will turn on the heat”
“NO, it doesn’t”
Especially good if you need a reason to cry after completing a days worth of shows and you need to soak your head free of three layers of cosmetics and hair products.
Penguins anyone? I know my room contained at least three.
Discussions were held two days in a row, after which it was generlaly decided that we would move one block to the ‘Gwangju Metrolopolis Prince Hotel’. That’s not a spelling mistake, the translation is actually Metrolopolis.
You may also want to check out the Gwangju Cultural Art Centre, where there is only two dressing rooms, neither of which have a shower, or hot water, but where the water DOES run brown. Smells of urine. That is, the WHOLE CENTRE smells of urine, not just the male dressing room where the cast is situated. (Our crew staked out the female amenities).
They don’t train their staff here, not in anything useful to running a theatre that is. You may bolt off stage to change into a fiberglass and lycra costume resembling a rhinoceros beetle, only to have the overweight and short-sighted venue stage manager practically standing IN your costume in a bid to be a part of EVERY piece of off-stage business. It didn’t take us long to realise that if you run into him at full-pelt, wielding various musical paraphernalia, he generally spends the rest of the show sitting down, or eating a bag of crisps.
Also, when the venue staff take their 90 minute lunch break at 12, the entire heating system goes with them as well. It’s policy. It is also policy to yell at the actors 20 minutes after coming off the last show of the day because you are hungry, and you want to go home.
Gwangju: City of Dreams.
