Drum Festival

This weekend I planned to go to Daegu with a group of people from Jinju. I wasn't really looking forward to it because they didn't have a solid plan of what we were going to do, other than go to bars and dance clubs and, to paraphrase Danny Glover, I'm getting too old for that shit. I also didn't want to go shopping or to a cat cafe, which were other ideas being thrown around. I had emailed Jeff a long list of upcoming weekend plans so we could see each other again before he leaves. As of Friday afternoon, he still hadn't responded, so it looked like I was going to Daegu.

On Friday right before my last class, I get a call from Jeff asking if I want to go to Seoul and go to a drum festival. I jumped on the deal. We were also possibly going to try and do the bus tour that I didn't do with Cindy. I had dinner with Cindy and then met some people at Wine bar but left around midnight because I had to get up at 5 am to catch the 6 am bus. I got less than 2 hours of sleep and probably caught another 30 minutes on the bus. So I was kind of sleepy when I got there. I took the subway to the army base in Seoul. Yongsan is HUGE - we took a cab within the base to get to the club for lunch. Apparently it is part Army base and part Korean park, or something like that (at least according to my guide book). The base is really close to the subway and to "downtown" areas of Seoul, plus it has lots of stuff to do on the base itself.Jeff was staying on post and I dropped my stuff off there and we went to brunch (he had breakfast, I had lunch) at the Navy Club. We watched the last quarter of BYU football while we ate.

Large boat and fountain outside of the Navy Club

Pirate keeping guard next to the door of the club

Pretending like we went to Memphis for Sara

After lunch we went to Seoul station, which is where we thought the drum festival was supposed to be. We got there and...no drums. No stage. Nothing that looked remotely festival-like. So we walked around the station (it's quite a large station housing Korail trains and a subway train). The place generally smelled like pee and we found out why when we walked down the stairs and saw a guy peeing in the corner. This is also the only place I have seen homeless people sleeping on the streets in the entire time I've been here. After walking around and through the station, we ended up going to the information counter inside and asking where the festival was being held. Turns out, it was one stop away on the subway at City Hall.

Statue in front of Seoul Station. This guy was thrilled that I took a picture and gave me a thumbs up to see if it was ok.

We jumped on the train (it was super crowded) and walked up to the event. It didn't start until 2, so we had about an hour to walk around. Luckily, one of the palaces that I wanted to visit was across the street. We went to Deoksugung palace (Palace of Virtuous Longevity) and walked around the grounds. Korean palaces are different than European ones. You can't really walk inside them, and there's no furniture etc. to look at. Basically, they look the same as fortresses. The buildings are interesting to look at, and the ceiling decorations are very good, and generally the grounds are very nice, but it still feels a little disappointing because you don't get that sense of grandeur that you get in France or other countries.

Lily pond to the right of the main gate. We went the "wrong" direction and ended up doing the tour backwards from the guide book.

Jeff took a rest on this while I looked at the ponds and read about the palace.

We walked around and saw all the buildings. We did not pay the extra to go to the art museum, which had an American art exhibit. The entire walk around the park took 20 minutes. We sat on a bench and watched a crippled pigeon and a regular one for around another 20 minutes.

Wall inside the palace grounds

Building on the left is Junmyeong-dang and it's where state affairs were conducted. The other is  Jukjo-dang is where 2 kings were crowned.

This is the English style rose garden and fountain with seals. Why? Don't know.

This is the back of Seogeo-dang and it's unusual because it has 2 stories. It's also where some king died. It had a throne inside and a very cool ceiling with dragons, but you couldn't take pictures inside.

The only picture Jeff wanted to be in

Heungcheon-sa bell cast in 1462

Dragon on the stairs. Their teeth were funny to me. Like happy dragons.

Again, this was a time I wish my other sibling had been present for picture taking purposes. Instead we found this replacement for her.

Then we went to the main gate to watch a changing of the guard ceremony which seemed quite elaborate. I do enjoy Korean drums, but those horns they play are mega annoying.

Us and the main guard. Jeff's eyes were closed in both pictures.

After the changing of the guard, we walked across the street to a large open area and the drum festival. They didn't have chairs or anything set up, so you either had to stand or sit on the ground. Luckily we got there close to the start and sat near the stage. Unfortunately, it was to the side and a rope was in the way. But we could see most of it. Koreans are really weird about sitting on the ground. They have no problem with it, but have to put a piece of paper or a handkerchief or something under them. They stared at us for sitting straight on the ground. After about 10 minutes, a mom and her kid left and she poked me on the arm and offered her piece of cardboard for us to sit on. We watched about 6 groups perform and then decided to give it a break and look around. When we got up, there was a mini fight over who got our cardboard.

Fountain next to the park. The water shoots up at random times and at random heights.

The first group of people we saw were a bunch of guys dressed in white. They were pretty entertaining. This view is probably the best of all the videos because I was standing in front of the stage. Later we moved over to the right. My favorite group was a group of kids. They were a mix of Koreans and foreigners (see the white girl?) but they were also the most entertaining. They had people spinning plates, they jumped off the stage and played water drums and there was this guy spinning a ribbon on his head. After them, came this group of people who had a little dance vibe going on, but the horn noise always makes me want to stab my eardrums out


They didn't have the typical food and random crap stands that other festivals have, but they did have a huge tent with all kinds of drums and gongs and chimes that you could play with. Jeff was like a kid in a candy store. He hit all kinds of things. I played some as well, but there were so many kids around that you couldn't get a good whack on some of the more popular (i.e. more fun) things.

Group of drummers and a baby

Big drum

He tried to play a song of some sort on this one. A random lady kind of stared at him.

Another big drum

After playing the drums, we walked across to the other side of the street to try and find another palace that was on my list. We ended up walking in a giant circle underground and then, in one of his flashes of stupidity/brilliance, Jeff bought some plastic stools from a family mart and we headed back to the drum festival. He was really proud of the stools. We watched another 5 performances or so, then decided to call it a day. We hopped in a cab (stools and all) and went to Itaewon for dinner. Jeff got in an argument with the waitress at the pub over stupid seating policies. We ended up going back there anyways and sitting at the bar. Rugby was on and it was slightly crowded. I had sheppard's pie and Jeff had Guiness stew. Both were very good.

After dinner we walked back to base, and we passed a small group of women dressed in traditional clothes doing a fan dance. Jeff looked at me, then at the stools and we decided to plop down and watch for a bit. People did seem impressed with our seats, although the plan somewhat backfired when people stood directly in front of us.

Fan dance on the street corner

Last use of the stools. I missed a traffic light and Jeff waited on the other side of the road.

We walked back to where Jeff was staying and the sun started to set. There is a great view of Seoul and Seoul tower from the hill on one end of the base. We got to the house and my favorite part of the weekend happened. Jeff was packing and complaining that he had too much stuff. He was in town for 3 days (Thursday - Saturday) and had a huge suitcase plus a backpack. I told him he packed more than mom (which is saying something because our mother needs to be prepared for anything from tropical weather to snowstorms at any given time). He then listed all the clothes he needed for the 3 days including formal attire, regular ACUs, golf clothes and civilian clothes. I started laughing. Then he said, "The worst part is that each outfit needs its own pair of shoes." That's when I lost it and laughed for like 5 minutes. Oh and he also had 3 hats and a set of golf clubs. We ended up walking down a hill to the Dragon Hill lodge to catch a cab to the bus terminal. We crammed in the cab and the driver was really nice. We then put the stools to use one more time waiting 15 minutes for our bus. We watched 3 episodes of the office on our way to P-taek. Then we piled into another cab. This cab driver was nice too and showed me pictures of his wife and son. He then gave us each some mandu.

Seoul tower at sunset. It lights up about 10 minutes after this picture.

We were both really tired at this point and watched some TV and fell asleep. I woke up midnight and watched some GameDay. I do not like the new intro as much as last year's. I do very much like the fact that David Pollack was on it at the end. I then stayed up and watched the first half of the UGA game. When we had a commanding lead, I fell asleep (around 2-3 am). Then Jeff woke up and watched some more football and I slept on the couch for awhile. He went to base to get his car and check some email and I think he went for a run. I made breakfast and we watched some more football. Then he went out for about 2 hours and I did laundry. Then we ate pizza and went bowling and came home and watched The Office. We got up early to watch some NFL football and so I could get to the bus early.

As usual, it was a good weekend and I am dreading the day when he's not here anymore.