Gimhae Gaya Culture Festival

Another festival, this one a bit closer to home. Gimhae hosted the Gaya Culture Festival for one week. It was actually a pretty good festival, and I regret not spending more time there. They had a wide variety of entertainment, a decent food selection, and a various craft activities for the children. Although there were a few Korean twists that you wouldn't normally see at a festival in the States. For example, the hand acupuncture booth which was doing good business. I did spend a few hours getting paid to walk around and speak to people in English. Mainly school kids. After my shift, I managed to check out some of the closing activities.

One of which was a massive tug-of-war contest. The central rope stretched for a couple hundred yards. From this main rope radiated side ropes which people pulled on. To add to the effect, they had school groups dressed up in traditional Korean uniforms and groups of drummers in, what appeared to be, clown costumes.


Here is some video footage of the actual tug-of-war and the post tug-of-war dancing.


After a couple of rounds of tug-of-war, the post battle celebration began. Cutting away a piece of the rope seemed to make for a valued souvenir. Unfortunately, I didn't bring a knife with me. Maybe next year.