Daegu Sharing Life Festival and Seomun Market

As I said in the last post, we went to the Daegu Sharing Life festival with our friends on Saturday. The festival is to promote cultural diversity in Daegu. The 5 of us were a team for the photo scavenger hunt. We took the train to banwoldang station, met with everyone at the underground fountain, and hoped in two taxis to take us on a quick trip to Gukchae-bosang memorial park. It was our first taxi ride, and everyone was kind of counting on me to lead them in the right direction! I was a little worried, but we all got there easily. We checked-in, and we all got free white sharing life festival t shirts, which was awesome. While we waited for the event to start, the whole team decided to go out for lunch, and we ended up at a kebab place in downtown. It was actually delicious, unlike the Korean mexican food we got at Dos Tacos last weekend. Gianni and I got some wraps with lamb that came with french fries. Also, I found out at the street right outside the park must be wedding dress street. There were like 10 wedding dress shops right there, so I might have to do a little looking...

After lunch, we headed back to the Sharing Life Festival area where things were getting underway. Before starting the scavenger hunt, we got to hear a Korean band called Project DAN play traditional Korean instruments. They played Hey Jude, and it sounded really cool.


Things got underway, and we were given a list of all the pictures we needed to take. Our team decided to do all the tasks that were in the park where the festival was, thinking we could get more done that way. Sometimes we had to find Koreans to help us with tasks, but other times the list said "strangers," so we could use people we didn't know on the other teams. We made a human pyramid with one team, and Sian was really nervous to be the top! The best experience was when we did the can-can for a few old Korean women and made them clap and cheer for the task. One of the women even started dancing with us! It was adorable. Because we chose to stay in the park, we also got to do all the cultural booths. There was soap molding, paper crane making, writing chinese characters, playing traditional Korean games, wearing hanbok, and making braided bracelets. The challenges were really fun. We had two hours to complete as many tasks as we can, and we seemed to complete a lot. Still, there were a lot we didn't do. There were many tasks that involved finding a specific Korean person that we just didn't get to. We did find a matching Korean couple, which brings my couples clothing count up to 8 so far! We got the guy in the couple to dong chim Matthew, which was hilarious! I don't know if you remember, but dong chim translates to "poop needle." We heard about it at orientation, and its basically making a gun shape with your hands and shoving your fingers up someone's butt. Elementary school kids like to do this to each other and their teachers. Anyway, we only had the guy pretend to do it to Matthew :) Hysterical still!

After the scavenger hunt, I turned in our memory card, and we were able to try out some of the food from the different cultures represented. It was good, but we have no idea what any of it was. After about an hour, they were ready to announce the winners of the scavenger hunt. Team Hot 6 took SECOND PLACE!!! We were soooo excited! We were only 2 points away from the first place team also. We won a bunch of cute socks, which they sell all over the place here. They love their socks in Korea. We had a great time with it, and I was so happy with the result.


The last part of the festival was a holi party. Holi is a holiday in India where they throw colored corn starch into the air and at each other. They also had paint at this festival. I hung back taking pictures for a bit, but then I got in there myself. People were hurling paint and corn starch at each other like crazy. One of the guys from another team with the paint was a little too aggressive with it. Kind of mean. But whatever, it was still fun. The organizers of the festival put wet wipes everywhere for people to clean off as much as they could. Matthew, Maria, Gianni, and I went into the bathroom to change into our other shirts and wash off also. After such a great day, we went home and relaxed the rest of the night.

There are a few new albums on the photos page, so check those out. We have decided that there is going to be a new "foodventures" album with photos and videos of all the foods we are trying. Also, there will be a random album with things I notice around Korea, so definitely read the descriptions on those to figure out why I posted them.