Yesterday was the annual Andong International Mask Festival. It looks like we're probably going to be here this time next year afterall, but just in case, I wanted to make sure that we made it to this event. It's a pretty big deal here. Andong is beautiful and is one of the art and cultural centers of South Korea. The mask festival showcases all of the traditional Korean masks as well as bringing in other cultures to perform traditional dances. It was a lot of fun and a great experience for the kids.
A few years ago I was going through an early midlife crisis with my looks and I wanted rhinoplasty because, as I told my family, I felt like I had a big nose and beady eyes. Well, of course in my family when stupid words like that come out of your mouth, you will NEVER live it down. So as we past these giant mask displays, I just stopped to take a picture. Brian said, "Oh, I guess you were attracted to this mask because it looks just like you." Chloe piped in, "Yeah, with a big nose and beady eyes." Ahh, well, I had it coming to me :)!
The sign on the bottom of this booth says: Gwajah, which means cookies. They were not cookies we were going to eat.
All the local teenage talent came out to perform on this stage. This particular performance was Korean belly dancers.
I cannot believe how tall my kids are getting. Oakley is pretty much the same height as me now. He has grown four inches in a year, and I think he's just getting started. His hip bones are already two inches above mine, if we measure length of legs.
I love this traditional mask. It reminds me of my husband and most of his siblings (except maybe Alicia) because they have this cute wrinkly smile. Brian will complain to me how wrinkled he's getting and I will laugh and tell him that the wrinkles you've had since childhood don't count.
Like almost all of our Asian outings, we were followed by photographers. All of the newspaper photogs wanted pictures of Americans at their festival. This one guy (the one in the blue jacket) grabbed Brian's hand and walked him up to this spot and showed him the pose he wanted him to strike. We're usually pretty good humored about it, but it really does get annoying. When the kids were making their masks, there were four photographers there just hounding in them and trying to pose the kids hands. I was getting pretty irritated and wanted to tell them to back off, but I knew that'd be lost in translation.
Koreans are so anal retentive about safety. This booth at the festival was dedicated to training participants how to react to mass casualties. Not that I'm against it, but it is sort of funny to see this right next to the face painting and snow cone booths.
These were carriage rides operated by little stuffed animal robots. Seriously, they were creepy. it was like Chuckie got a day job or something.
After making our own masks, we went to see traditional Korean mask dance. It was pretty cool for about 15 minutes, but because it was a play and we don't speak Korean, we were over it pretty fast.
This part of the play was about a man and a dog. I kept waiting for the scene where he eats the dog in some delicious Keygogi--but no such luck. I think that would have been highly entertaining.
Yes, we ate lunch at this cafe, but unfortunately we weren't gutsy enough to order the kneebone stew. Maybe next year.
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