Seoul Drum Festival

The drum festival was a beautiful experience. I met up with two new good friends, Brett and Coreen, a couple of awesome Canadians that I spent most of the night with. I was waiting for Jesse, Tiffany and Renae to get there and eventually they showed up and we had a blast.


Did I mention I have seen the craziest spiders in Korea? I have not moved too close to any of them because of an irrational fear that the one I am looking at will turn out to be a Korean jumping spider but it doesn't keep me from taking pictures. I was camera-less when I came across the nastiest one I have seen so far. This was early in the day before I boarded the subway on the way to the festival.

I got out of the subway near the World Cup Stadium where I was surrounded by SWAT team members. I would say about 400 cops, all in full gear, were marching around, some were just chillin'. I was too scared to snap a pick after I heard about some crazy riot police incidents in Korea. Apparently, they have messed some people up and killed some people in the middle of peaceful protests. I have not looked it up yet. Later, Brett told me he took some pictures and I am waiting on him to send them. He told me that there was a protest of about 50 workers going on and that is what attracted so many riot-geared five-o. Scary.

They had free shuttles to the show but I couldn't find them among the prison buses (later, I found out they didn't start till 5pm) so I had a nice long walk to the park it was being held at. I knew I was close. People pointed me in the general direction until I made it. I ended up seeing some nice scenery.


I walked across this bridge 3 times, figuring out which way I needed to go. It was a beautiful place to stall.


I saw a rollerskating team at the stadium and happened to end up behind them after getting a little lost. I figured they were probably going the right way but I didn't ask till we were almost there. One of the awesome things about Korea if you are a roller skater, bicyclist, or skater (or wheelchairer, i guess) are the ramps they have on the stairs:


It would be so much easier if they were wearing their roller blades! I know one day I am going to make trouble for myself on one of these sets of stairs.



Right before going down the steps I snapped this photo. All of the bridges are individually special looking; most of the buildings are not. I said it in a previous blog entry that the buildings would be so ugly if they weren't uniformed and scattered close together but I think, especially against the water they look atrocious.

When I got down to the park I saw another crazy spider:


Sorry for the poor quality but I am not sticking around something that looks like that and asking it to pose and smile; that's what nature photographers are for...

Speaking of nature photography, just after the spider, I snapped this one and thought of a career change, then I thought of the spider again... I'll stick to teaching for now.


But I am still really happy about this one! I once thought dragonflies only have a lifespan of 24 hours. Tis a common misconception. I don't know where I got the idea from but I am not the only one who pulled it from somewhere. Some adults do only live for 4 weeks or so (some a lot longer) but I still thought it was beautiful to see one relax and not move at all. For a couple minutes I stared at it and thought about that. Then it flew away.



The dragonfly was outside a campground that I thought was the festival at first. It reminded me of Tent State


The show didn't start till late, but there was an early preview performance on a small stage.

The lady with the trumpet rocks it. It sounds more like a Rusted sweet voice singing in a high pitch. I loved it. They went on for longer than and hour, non-stop.

There was also a drum circle and tents for all of the performers. I recieved some free cds and dvds.

To my surprise, I passed the main stage when I turned the corner of the last tent.

How did I not see this before?

I made friends with a Korean guy, whose job it was to give out free water. He let me use his phone.



I saw this scene sometime after I met Brett and Coreen.





The toilets are nicer than indoor toilets; brought in on trailers and more than enough for everyone. Right as I was taking the picture a woman rode by on her bike... (I flashed a lady right outside of the bathroom. - hahahaha)



GS 25 is a convenient store. They have so much goodness at this traveling location. Hot water for making ramen noodles, cold drinks in refrigerators, hot coffee and tea drinks in hotterators, and some glowing things I tried to do some fire spinning with. I took this picture to remind myself of the hotterators that I tried to get a cold coffee drink from.



The show was amazing. An all woman's group kicked ass, an all blind group ripped it up, a band performing at the Olympics from China was there. They rocked some E L O 14 person band deal and some cool electrodrums. There was a DJ (represent - just needed a beat boxer and they would have had almost everything.) Julliard music school broke the fast paced beats with some composed weirdness. There was African drumming, awesome Korean drumming (the group from earlier really put on a show!) Another girl saw me and Jesse busting out fire spinning and she had her glow balls with her. She was from Australia and I desperately wanted to spin fire with her. I miss it, especially with such driving rhythms. I didn't take my camera out much. I was happy dancing and talking. But I do want a costume like this:




Also the awesomest guy in the history of awesome came on pretty late and stunned me. First playing with 3 drum sticks in each hand with crazy rhythms and a wall of sound from 1 guy. He was playing the drums with his long hair too! Then he did fire spinning drumming! That girl already left - she would have been so happy. Then rocked it on this awesome hammered string instrument: (I hope the video works - it is crapquality but you can tell) he also played some drums with mad water as a finale. It was so good. A group from England went on after him. They were also cool but no one wants to go after this guy.



{video not working yet - sorry}




On a completely unrelated not, Seoul has a lot of these 'punch-this-thing' games. The first one I tried (and most of the ones by my house,) is called 'Girl Fighter.' They also have soccer 'kick-this-thing' games.

Renae punches the living stuffing out of a bag...






!!!! Amber got THE HIGH SCORE!!!!!! Holy Moley!!!! There are people who have been punching this thing for years and she rocked all of them! She put me and all of the Koreans at the batting cage to shame! Oh yea, there are just batting cages randomly outside some places.


Awesome Amber!