It’s Festival Time

16.10.06

Well kids, its festival time again here in Sokcho. So far this year we have had the Korean music festival, it sucked unless you like k-pop or a Korean rap duo affectionately called the Krappers, the Mushroom Festival, very cool, and now we have the Sorak Festival.

The Sorak Festival has been going on here in Sokcho for the past forty one years, in fact it started just after the Korean war when the park itself had been ravaged by four years of war and destruction and was covered not with verdant greens and pretty trails but covered with the blackened stumps of trees and the stench of the thousands of men, Korean, Chinese, American, and others who had died while struggling in the picturesque park for control of the Korean peninsula.


The main part of the festival happens not where you would think, at the park, but instead right across from my school, at Expo Park, along the lake.

The festival grounds in the summer are vacant lots with a few restaurants around the large saltwater lagoon that the town surrounds with the bridge to nowhere off in the background.

Karen and I headed out around eight when we were done with work to sit outside the Family Mart by Expo Tower and drink beer while we waited for the rest of our posse to show up about ten.

We had a nice wait, sitting outside on white plastic chairs on a pretty, warm, clear, evening, watching the world pass by. We sat drinking cold Cass and O.B. while in front of us the festival spread out in all of its glory.

Directly in front of us was Expo Tower, all lit up for the occasion. The tower itself is about twenty stories tall and towers over the park.

Behind the tower is the stage that will have semi-big names, for Korea, on it this weekend. Currently it sounds like someone is being beaten to death on it, maybe it could be someone singing, but if they are, I think that their record company will be filing for bankruptcy at some time in the near future.

Behind that is the main night market, a pulsating mass of tents and humanity selling all sorts of the things from Inca clothing (?) to a man touting the beneficial affects of putting wedges of cucumber on his forehead.

There is also food at the night market, which we will enjoy later, famous black Jeju pig, slowly roasting on spits over cherry wood, honey and cinnamon pancakes cooked, bam, bam, bam, six at a time in a special machine, hand made by a sweating old man in a Quicksilver shirt, hot dogs, fish, squid, and shrimp, all roasted over charcoal, and many other things.

Around ten, the rest of the crew showed up, Kelsey and Helen from Dari, and Kirsty, from a late class at A.P.

We were having a few more beers when, boom, boom, boom, without warning, the fireworks started. They weren’t very good or spectacular, but we had a great view of them. They shot into the air like mortars and exploded in reds, greens, and blues, then, after just a few minutes, they were over and we headed into the carnival.

We hit the pig palaces, eating with pleasure the juicy pig, over priced at twenty five thousand a plate, but we knew that we were not getting spit roasted pork again any time soon, and sopping up soy sauce with squid pancake, all washed down with shots of soju.

After eating we wandered out to the shooting range, where, wonder of wonders, you could shoot plastic balls at targets and win liquor! I had never seen this type of excitement at a carnival before and I worked hard at winning a bottle of North Korean soju that I shared with my compatriots.

After wondering through a huge tent filled with name brand clothes, brimming with Koreans looking for bargains when there weren’t any to be had we headed through the Banzai tree display.

The trees and flowers on the stands were great. Tiny trees molded and cut to minature size. You could see that some were incredibly old and weathered. Someone had sat and cared for these trees for years, constantly cutting and trimming them to reach the ideal size and shape that their masters desired.

Then there were the flowers. Orchids, Lilies, Morning Glories, all kinds of flowers just sitting in the rapidly chilling air, their colours brilliant with little spots of dew on them as they all vied for the first place ribbon.

Finally, after a few hours, we called it quits and headed back to our seats at the Family Mart to have a few more beers before we began the long walk home.

A note about the pictures

1 and 4. Fireworks in the night air over Yongan Lake.

2. A wonderful flower, either a lilly or an orchid, I am not sure which, just a nice picture.

3. Extolling the virtues of putting cumcumber slices on your head.

4. A nice shot of a Banzai tree.