Monday, June 21, 2010

Taehwa River Festival and World Cup South Korea

This weekend was the Taehwa River Festival in Ulsan. Leon described it as the "shittest festival ever" and I have to agree. Admittedly, I didn't get there until 4:00 on Saturday, but it hardly stands to reason that there should be so little left to the event just because it's late afternoon. There were dozens of tents set up around the Taehwa Bridge area, on both sides, and they were mostly empty, except for people sitting in them, avoiding the occasional sprinkles or taking a break from whatever not-activity they were doing before.

After czeching out a tent with some children's prize-winning paintings and some taxidermied animals, I saw this guy making pottery for children for free.


Then there was this race, maybe a marathon, going on the whole afternoon, which made passage from different areas of the fair a little difficult, because you had to wait for runners to pass before you could cross the path. I saw some guy get heckled severely for absentmindedly wandering onto the track and getting in the way of some runners.


The most engaging thing around was this stage, on which belly dancers were performing.

And then this group came on, and they were pretty entertaining. They did the Macarena, among other dances, which made me wonder if they were referencing something from way back when, or if it just made it here. I'd like to think the former.








After the dancers I needed some food, but the food tent was so disappointing at the festival that I just walked down the street and got a sandwich at a convenience store. That's really sad. Had I had a group with me, I could have gotten barbecue stuff, but they don't serve that in single-servings.

As I got back, Leon had just arrived, so we waited for our friend Thulas to join us for the South Korea vs. Greece World Cup Game. It wasn't for like another three or four hours, but there was nothing else to do, so we secured our seats in front of the stage, near the back, as most of the seats were taken already.


Here are a couple pregame shows they put on the stage. Both very popular songs. I think it's kind of funny that the second song, which is about Korea, is sung by a white guy in the video. That seems very out of place for this culture.



Thulas went and bought some beer for the waiting and watching periods, and the area became totally packed come nightfall. South Koreans loves them some soccer, so it was quite exciting to watch with them in one of the many public viewing events in the city, especially since they won the game.



South Korea's team is the Red Devils, hence all the red and the devil horns. Korea's normal slogan is "Korea Sparkling" but lately all you can see is "Korea Fighting" (pronounced "hiting" or "hwiting"). They are very enthusiastic about this whole thing, despite their awareness that they won't win the cup. One of my classes wanted a party the other day, because another teacher was having her birthday party all day, I guess. I said that's because of her birthday, blah, blah. So then they tried to get me to agree to have a party if Korea won 16th place in the Cup. I said we could if they won, and the got wicked pissed at me. They did amend to 8th, and I said I'd think about it.


Here is some celebrating after the game, which they won 2-0:



The USA vs. England match took place five hours after the South Korea match ended, and I went to a pub with my friends to see that, but that's become a whole other entry in itself.