Itaewon Global Fair

I saw the signs for a "global fair" that was happening in Itaewon over the weekend, but I wasn't too terribly interested in it. These kinds of things tend to be a little bit one-dimensional here. But, on Sunday some of my friends wanted to walk over to Itaewon to get lunch, so we inadvertently walked through the middle of the global fair. As expected, most of it was about Korean food and culture, but there were a few cool highlights.

Namsan is starting to look really beautiful. I especially loved the line of yellow trees at the baseline of the mountain.

There was a place that sold food from a Middle Eastern country that escapes me right now, but they were cooking a massive pillar of chicken breast that would later be sliced off the rotating spit and made into kebabs. 

There was a place where kids could experience playing traditional Korean drums. It was kinda funny. Most of the kids were Korean, but there was this one little girl who was a foreigner. There were all sorts of people crowding around and taking a picture of the foreign child doing something that is traditional Korean... 

There were a surprising number of people there for the global fair. I was surprised that there weren't very many foreigners in the crowd. My friend and I kinda stuck out more than we usually do in Itaewon. 

This is another traditional Korean activity. You basically toss the arrows and try to get them to stay in the container. This is much harder than it sounds, I assure you. 

Becky is trying her best to get an arrow into the bin! It actually went straight in, but then it bounced out again. Sad day. 

There was another traditional Korean cultural experience awaiting us. They let you choose from a list of traditional proverbs, and they would write it in Korean calligraphy for you to take home. This is the beginning of my calligraphy experience. 

This is the middle of the calligraphy experience. Unfortunately, I didn't actually get to see the end of the calligraphy experience. A man with a TV camera came up to me and started trying to talk with me. We did a little interview that was partially in Korean and partially in English. Neither of us spoke much of the other's language. After a bit of confusion about what he wanted, and some hemming and hawing while I thought, I was able to do a brief introduction of myself in Korean, and say the Korean version of the proverb I'd chosen, then I translated the proverb into English. I don't really know how much of it he filmed, or what he was filming for. But there we have it. I've officially done my first bi-lingual interview.