apparently October is festival month!

First there was the Jinju Lantern Festival , then last weekend was the Andong Mask Festival and this weekend I went to the Asia Song Festival . October really is over run with Korean festivals! I've already posted about Jinju so I will start with the Andong Mask Festival. Andong is relatively close to Daegu so we just went for a day trip. When we got off the bus, our taxi took us all the way to Hahoe Folk Village which is a secondary site of the mask festival. At first we were a little annoyed because this wasn't the main site of the festival, but we soon realised that the village was a beautiful place so wandered around to make the most of it. We chanced upon a procession of the mask performers which was pretty cool because we got to see them up close and have our pictures taken with them. They were funny because they stayed in character the whole time, some of the characters were very unusual as we learnt when we watched the performance later on. The show took place in a traditional building with seating around a central performance area. We were given an English guide which made the experience much more worthwhile. The show consisted of several stand alone scenes which were loosely related. One was a butcher who fought with a bull and ended up removing its heart and testicles! There was a widow lamenting her misfortunes and going around the audience begging for money. And then the most 'unique', a young woman who gets caught short so relieves herself in the middle of the stage but is caught by a monk who then sniffs the urine. He defends himself by saying...'I may be a monk but I'm still a man'!!!  

We then went to the main festival area which wasn't actually as good. Fate! But we did make our own masks which was fun!

This weekend, I've continued my 'no (or little) party resolution'! On Saturday morning, I went out with Nikki and Megan (friends from my parent's class last semester). We had an amazing meal at a place I will definitely need to go to again and then drove out to a lovely coffee shop in the countryside owned by a Daegu designer. Take a look at how pretty this food is!

I then headed straight to the Asia Song Festival which was in Daegu this year (2011 has really been a great year to be in Daegu). Saw loads of kpop stars as well as some jpop and other Asian music starts. The Beast    fan club spelt out Beast with glow sticks which looked awesome! That's some dedication.

And finally, Sunday bike ride to the Moon Clan residence with Jefa and Phil...