It appears to be Festival Season here in South Korea. The Lantern Festival in Jinju was swiftly followed by a Mask Festival in Andong and next up is a Fireworks Fesival in Busan. :)
The Mask festival took place two weekends ago in a town about four hours away from Jinju so we had to get up at the ungodly hour of 6 o'clock to get the bus there. The G-unit and I journeyed thither with 3 of our most prized ex-pats. When we arrived at our destination we weren't sure how to get to the actual festival but luckily a friendly man took pity on our perplexed pale faces and offered us a lift in his car. He did us a boon that day that we shall not soon forget. We arrived at the main festival area and wandered about between the different tents for a while looking at the colourful masks and playing dress-up in some of the traditional garb they had for tourists to play with. (See below)
When we had finished playing dress-up we left the main festival area and travelled to a nearby traditional folk village called Hahoe. The place feels like it has been frozen in time because all of the cottages are centuries old and look just like they would have done during the Joseon dynasty. It was amusing to see big, shiny modern cars parked in the wee vegetable patches outside the quaint thatched-roof cottages. We wanted to get accomodation for the night but we were told that there was no room at the inn because everywhere was booked up for the festivities. However, we managed to persuade one kindly old local lady to let us sleep in one of her rooms for the night. She even provided us with a home cooked meal. :)
After securing accommodation we spent a pleasant few hours meandering around the dusty paths admiring the rustic houses, yellow fields and orange persimmon trees. At one point we arrived at a beach and we spied with our big round eyes a white rope connecting the cliff face beyond the water to the hill behind the shore line. The rope was thin, wobbly and highly precarious looking so naturally we assumed that it was made for the purpose of a zip-line and that it would be a perfectly sound idea to slide along it. We went in search of a friendly local to ask how much it was for a go on the line. We had to communicate via the medium of mime because we didn't share a common language and after much gesturing we managed to get our message across. The man's response was to double up in peels of laughter. We weren't sure why we were being made sport of as we thought our request was a very reasonable one. We stood by indignantly as the man had a hearty chuckle at our expense. He kept saying 'fire rope' between his snorts of mirth but this conveyed little meaning to me. Later that night it became clear why we were mocked so mercilessly when we were treated to a rather unique fireworks display down by the beach. The 'zip line' turned out to be laced with fireworks that went off one by one when the rope was lit. (So it was probably a good thing that we didn't succeed in harnessing ourselves to it.) Orange rain fell from the heavens as the fire spread slowly across the line. The townspeople then began a bizarre ritual where they started to throw flaming rocks off the top of the cliff into a hell pit below while a troupe of gaily glad dancers drifted by in an ornate boat swaying softly to eerie music. I have no idea what the significance of the whole affair was but it was fun to watch. My pictures don't really do it justice though... When the festivities had come to an end we went in search of beer and then made our way back to the beach where the menfolk started a fire to keep us all warm. A fine time was had by all. :)
Last weekend was spent shopping in Daegu. I also went shopping at a thrift store in Jinju with a friend to try and find some glad rags for Halloween. We didn't get anything appropriate but we did buy matching t-shirts with the lyrics to 'I just died in your arms tonight.' This amused me highly. The clothes were all in huge piles in this warehouse and you had to jump on top of the clothes mountains and just shift through them. The ground floor was an organised chaos; the clothes were all in musty old heaps but they were seperated into piles for men, women and children. The upstairs was just a big barren floor strewn with shoes. There were no shelves or anything and many of the shoes had lost their sole-mates. It was like a place where clothes and shoes come to die...
Well that's all my news, next up will be a special report on the Fireorks Festival! :)
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