Fringe, Sandcastles, and Planes

A busy weekend in Haeundae!

Fringe Festival

A arts festival with music, water fights (not sure how that’s artistic) and a parade. Something’s up with my camera so I couldn’t get video of any of the music. And I missed most of watching rugby later at night.

The water fight was interesting because there were two sides but people just seemed to be shooting anyone, including one person who was standing outside the barrier shooting in–cheating! There were sprinklers attached to trees as well and they were spraying outside as well!

Later, after the air show, I saw a parade from the Lovin Hut “vegan” restaurant–they sell steak and my pasta had ham in it but maybe it was fake–so it was a great view as it was on the second floor.

Doko signs held by kids dressed to the tops in their Tae-Kwan-Do finest. Above was my favorite sign because it seemed to show a transformers battle. Superheros

A band

Not sure what this is other than intense costumes. The theme was Hollywood (for this and the sandcastles) so that explains some of the costumes….

…but not the triple head ones–why do they have two heads on top of their heads???

Fancy dresses

Chinese DragonAnd zombies. Because why not?

Sandcastle Festival

Westerners wouldn’t really call these sandcastles, as the professional ones are more carving than anything else. The theme was Hollywood so they were all film based, other than on of Psy, of course. I wondered why he was there other than being a Korean hero. I can’t stand him anymore.

PSY, Superman, Spiderman, Batman and the Hulk. These were all a bit too kiddie and animated for me (when did Superman wear braces?) for me, but they were the only ones in color.

King Kong, Star Wars, and more Superman

Cars

Titanic and James Bond….don’t think they were going for this look

Charlie Chaplin

Marilyn Monroe

and Shrek

The non professional ones were more like sandcastles, not all though. There were some really good ones! People were going around and watering them as well to make sure they didn’t fall apart, which seems like a huge time commitment. It was set up for kids but it was all parents doing it.

a pretty good house

snake

The flying penguin who I never remember the name of

Hello Kitty

Lobster

Air Show

Not much to say here, other than they are new to doing shows in Busan and called the Blue Eagles. They made a heart and the middle of the Korean flag.

Fire Festival

As it is the first full moon after lunar new year (Chinese new year to most Westerners), there was a fire festival today. All over the beaches of Busan there were fires set where people threw all sorts of stuff from paper planes to plastic bags so heavy it seemed like people were struggling to throw them in. The fire started at 4:50 (sun was still up which my friends and I thought was odd) but went well into the night.

There was also lots of holes with candles in them and a set up for candles where you paid for one and they put it out to spell…something. We didn’t get to see all of it.

There was also a dance going on where the music made my brain bleed after 1 minute because it was the same thing over and over again, and the lyrics only took up 10 seconds or less. This lasted for about half-an-hour…the dance was interesting to watch (I say interesting because we couldn’t figure out what it really symbolized) and kept changing up what they were doing. There was the red side and the blue side and sometimes they were apart and sometimes together–there were even kids who came from each side and seemingly got married after walking on the backs of their sides. Then there was a girl in white who danced in the middle and brought them together one last time.

Above is where the kids walked, below is where they stood after. I took a video of them doing it, but some of the other dancers did it again after so I took photos then (thinking the walking on backs part was over)

Of course, at the end, Gangnam Style was played on repeat. And everyone went crazy.