The Penis Park

Ha, I am sure to have all of your attention with a title like that. So this post is not for prudish readers and when you're viewing this at work, better don't click on the pictures, okay:-)

We spent one day in Samcheok, a medium-sized city on the east coast of South Korea.

There is not much going on in this place except for one special attraction: Haesindang Park also known as Penis Park. When we heard about the existence of such a place in rather conservative Korea, we just had to see it. We didn't read much about it before going there, we just knew it's a park full of phallic statues. 

There are really hundreds of them and it was very... euhm...special to walk from one penis to the other. Unfortunately, all the info provided was in Korean, so we had no clue what it was all about or why we were watching those monsters.

Later that day, we googled the Haesindang Park and found out that there's a myth explaining the origin of these statues close to the sea. So here it goes: 

Once upon a time, there was a young couple living in the fishing village of Samcheok. The day before their wedding, they went for a walk along the shore but a giant wave swept the girl away. Without having consumed the relationship, the girl became a frustrated, nymphomaniac ghost. The next day, as usual, the fishermen of the village went to sea but came back without fish. The day after, same thing happened. Nobody knew where the fish had gone to. Then one night, a drunk fisherman relieved himself in the sea. The next morning all the fish were back in the waters of Samcheok. So the fishermen started to believe that the nymphomaniac ghost had taken their fish as reprisal for her sudden death, but upon seeing the drunk fisherman's penis, she had released the fish again. So that's why they started the build larger than life penises to satisfy the ghost and keep the fish in their waters.