Well, it is about time I got on here and posted about all the fun things going on over here in Jeju. From Sept. 28 - 30 the 12 Anual Seogwipo Chilsmni Festival. Seogwipo is the city we live in and is the second largest city on the Island of Jeju. The Chilsmni Festival celebrates the ocean and herb of eternal youth. It is very shamanistic in many aspects. The festival features a parade, folk performances, a singing contest, a historical reenactment of the procession of the magistrate, and lots of other fun.

Last year we went to the festivities on Friday and Saturday. We were able to see many of the traditional reenactments of shamanistic ceremonies. Then we were able to see some of the singing contest and a fire show. Clark was even able to go out in a fishing boat and go troll fishing with some of the fishermen. It gave us such a look into the traditional Korean culture. So, when we saw the city setting up again this year we knew we had to go!

We had visitors staying at our place for the weekend, so we all loaded up in the van and headed downtown on Friday not knowing what we might find. We were pleasantly surprised when we ran right into the opening parade. We were able to park our van right along the parade route and watch from the comfort of our own seats. LOL! Clark did hop out and take tons of pictures. You can find them at the bottom. As the parade ended, we decided to drive down through the harbor where the festival actually takes place. It wasn't in full swing yet, so we took our visitors to do more site seeing around the island. We never made it back to the festival Friday evening.

However, on Saturday we headed there right after lunch and spent 3 hours there. The very first thing we came across was Heanyo (famous free diving Jeju women) having a relay race. These women are known for their hard work and you very rarely see them laughing and smiling. God has given me a special heart for them. To see the smiles on their faces as they raced one another and cheered each other along was great. Each region of the island has their own group of heanyo. Each group was represented here at the festival by 3 divers. The rest of the divers in each group were wearing matching shirts and sitting together to cheer their representatives on. One even got so tickled at herself that you could hear her laughing the entire time she swam. Her laugh was so contagious that everyone who was standing close enough to hear her was soon laughing too. When the race was over the winner, still in her wetsuit and fins did a celebration dance for us! It was too funny! My oldest girl couldn't resist it and ran up to join in. The Heanyo grabbed her hand and tried to dance with her. I don't think she was expecting it because she jerked her hand back and ran to hide behind me...LOL! I wish I would have gotten a video of it!

After watching a few races we decided to check out all the booths. There were different booths all over the harbor with wonderful (and some not so wonderful) foods to taste. There were also all kinds of traditional handmade crafts that you could try to make, watch someone else make, or even buy. My favorite was the hand dyed scarves. They were dyed with onion skins. The smell was something else, but the process was amazing to watch.

The baby fell asleep in the sling and slept most of the afternoon, but my oldest girl checked everything out! She ate dippin' dots, she jumped on the moon walk, she got stopped by hundreds of Koreans to be told how cute she was, she ran ALL over the place and had a great time. Our friends had a wonderful time experiencing true traditional Korea! I once again learned a lot about the culture that God has called me to live and serve in. It was a great day!

Here are some pictures of the day. Of couse I uploaded them in the wrong order again ont photobucket so the heayno races are first and the parade is last. Click on the photo's to make them bigger!