Seoul Fringe Festival

The Seoul Fringe Festival is currently taking part in Hongdae. Its organised along the lines of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in that any artist can take part in the event. The official English website can be found here.

Last weekend, Robyn and I had a wander around Hongdae to watch some street performances, but failed to find much of note, due to a lack of signposting along with the Korean disdain for street names and an English map which marked venues, but indicated no nearby landmarks, so they were nigh on impossible to find (or it could be that we are both useless at reading maps)! We couldn't find Honggik Park (one of the main venues for outdoor performances) at all...

We went back to Hongdae on Sunday to see a Fringe event showcasing five Korean rock bands - Selly, Rubi Star, Renata Suicide, Dusty Blue and Pennylane. You've got to love the descriptions in the festival programme -

Selly - their music "stirs peoples emotions and touches their hearts with implicative emotions".

Rubi Star - "expected to be the next star band for its infinite potential".

Renata Suicide - "addictive heterogenous rock" which is "gaining popularity among manias"?

Dusty Blue's write up is the most baffling - "green paper covered with dust is still green, any dust cannot change its color". Huh??

Pennylane - "unique music combining 80's style pop and emotional modern rock". Ok, that one is quite normal!

All the bands were really good and gave me a bit of faith in a music scene dominated by poppy girl groups and boy bands. Its just a shame that the gig wasn't better attended - at no point was there more than 50 people watching. Maybe it was the lack of a bar...I've never been to a gig where there was no bar (not even soft drinks). It was probably a good thing as the loos were the squatting variety!

Selly

Rubi Star

Renata Suicide

Dusty Blue

Pennylane

The Fringe Festival ends this Saturday (29th August).

Seoul sightseeing

On Lisa's last weekend, we went into Seoul and stayed overnight at the Ibis in Myeongdong. It rained heavily on Saturday, which was a good excuse to look around the shops!

In the evening, we went to see a dance musical called Sachoom at the Nagwon Theatre in Insadong. The receptionist at the Ibis booked the tickets for us and we got them discounted from 50,000 won to 35,000 won! Sachoom is an abbreviation of the Korean phrase sarangha-myeon-chumeulchueora, which means “dance if you are in love.” The show was really fun and energetic mixing different contemporary dance styles and the glistening muscles of the male dancers didn't hurt either!

Me and Lisa at Gyeongbukgung Palace

Sunday was a much nicer day, so we went to Gyeongbukgung Palace and arrived just in time to see the changing of the guard ceremony (at least, I think that's what it was). It was the third time I've been to Gyeongbukgung, but the first time when the sun was out, so I took plenty of photos! Despite the hordes of people and fake facial hair (the guards, not me!), the ceremony was quite compelling, especially with the atmospheric music and it gave an inkling of the ornate rituals that existed during the Joseon era.

Changing of the Guard ceremonyAfter looking around the palace buildings, we strolled through Insadong then took the Seoul city bus tour (which managed to cram far too many people onto the bus and thus we could only see things which were on the right hand side of the bus due to all the people standing in the aisle, sigh).

Fan maker in Insadong