Monday, November 17, 2008

End of Coffee event in Korea

In Korea. Autumn is festival season. Starting in October Jinju saw the Jinju floating lantern festival. This corresponded with the Jinju silk festival. Following that there was the Jinju drama festival. For a few more days we will have the Jinju chrysanthemum festival.

There is one festival, however, that has been going on for a few weeks and has been completely disappointing. All over Korea there is the Dunkin Donuts coffee festival. 7th prize is either a free donut or a free Italian soda. 6th prize is a coffee cup. 5th prize is a waste basket shaped like a cofee cup. 4th prize is a cushion shaped like a donut. 3rd prize is a packet of gift certificates totaling 100,000 won. 2nd prize is a delonghi espresso machine. Finally 1st prize is a golden nugget in the shape of a coffee bean.

I have been a loyal player of this festival for the past 3 years. 2 years ago I won around 7 coffee cups. These were high quality mugs, I somewhat regret giving the bulk of them away. Last year the quality of the mugs were remarkably worse. The had a cheap design and the print on them wore off when I washed them. This year I have only won one cup, and it doesn't have a handle. More frustrating is the fact that I have won about 20 bottles of Italian soda. I don't drink sodas of any kind anymore.

I realize that this is all my bad luck. Now one has to point that out to me. I have to say though, I have a real thirst for a third, second, or first prize. It will make the coffee taste that much sweeter.

A few years ago, I worked in a newsstand. One of the things that we sold were these manuals that printed numbers that the lotto was going to print. People would buy these things thinking that the numbers in these books were winning lotto numbers. Perhaps to redeem my bad luck for not winning a golden coffee bean I can print manuals that have the addresses of where the winning dunkin donuts cups will be sold. It's just a thought.

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