Gurye Maple Festival & Koreans Chasing Down Some Fish

So a maple festival seemed like an intriguing bit of local culture that may have yielded me a reminder or two of things back home, maple things here and there and whatnot. What it turned out to be rather, was a super Korean event that in no way reminded me of anything remotely Canadian. I expected maple flavoured things (makgeolli for one), but found that if there was any connection to maple trees in this festival, I have yet to discover what it might be. I did however get some good pictures, and if you've ever desired to see a swimming pool simultaneously full of both Korean people and live fish, well then brother, I've got you well taken care of.

So the Gurye mini-town of Piagol hosted the festival, and it was a 40 minute or so bus ride out of town to a particularly scenic part of the region. We began with a relaxed hike up a well-populated trail, just checking out the colours and not intending to put a whole lot of effort into this particular hiking day.

Koreans match the season quite well colour-wise

We came to a stop along the path where they served free bibimbap and makgeolli, which was quite kind of them to do

The lighting of a fire for some reason

Luckily this guy was there to make sure it all went according to plan, and to bring high fashion to the table

No matter what kind of hike it is, Koreans are prepared with enough expensive gear to make it seem as though they're setting off on their final journey toward hiking Valhalla 

Oh hey, what's up?

So that was the hiking end of things, which didn't go on for all that long before we decided to head back down into town and see what the main part of the festival was all about. On the way we stopped into a temple by the side of the road, and while I won't linger long on that, here're a few photos that captured that pretty well. 

An art display at a temple, surely full of profoundly spiritual works of Buddhist philosophies

Oh, nope.

Too cute to pass up on a picture

His focus is that of a warrior. His pants are those of a flood victim. 

So as for the festival, all in all, not a lot was going on. Mostly people were sitting around at tables eating lunch and conversing, while a man in a red blazer and painted on eyebrows danced with old women on the stage. Then we found this:

Someone lost a contact lense

Yea, they're in there catching fish with their bare hands for shits and giggles

This kid was pretty proud

Fish in a bag, for now, but it got out and an old lady grabbed it and took it for her own, to which the child responded by crying, which I also have pictures of, but it's sort of sad. Old women in Korea are ruthless. 

Cook them up poolside for added fun

The most serious mortar and pestle I've ever seen. She was peddling a medicine made from the powdered skulls of her foes, I think. 

We ended up having a seat by the stage, and noticed a stand set up where people were going up intermittently to collect some sort of prize, which I think was a draw of sorts they had all bought tickets for. Anyways, the prize was a bag of persimmons, which looked awful nice. We hadn't signed up for jack all, but after a while of a table of foreigners looking over in a not so subtle way they decided that we must be so intently focused on those persimmons that they may as well give us a free bag, lest we burn the place to the ground or something. I hadn't even brought a lighter, so that was never really an option to begin with, but I guess they didn't know that. What I learned was that if you're an obvious foreigner and you want something, the best course of action is to stare at it for a while and hope that someone will just sort of give it to you.