A festival in Gwangju and a cat cafe

Who knew Gwangju would be so good at throwing festivals?

I went downtown Wednesday night to meet friends for dinner and ended up at the opening ceremony for the Chungjang Recollection Festival. I was once again reminded that festivals in Korea are awesome and it was a pretty rad start to a four day weekend. This festival celebrated Gwangju's downtown area and this year was themed 70's and 80's. Apparantly there were booths and performances that were supposed to illicit feelings of the past...if that happened it went over my head. The main street shut down for four days for concerts, street performers, food tents, art, and a big parade on Hangul Day. Hangul Day is a national holiday in Korea and celebrates the creation of the Korean written language, Hangul, by Korean monarch Sejong the Great. Interestingly enough, South Korea celebrates the day in October while North Korea celebrates in January.

I've  never seen the downtown as busy as it was over those 4 days. It was hard to move and a little intimidating. Not only were people enjoying the festival atmosphere but there were also massive sales at all the stores (regrets- all I bought this weekend were more hangers for my closet). I was elbowed more times than I could count by older Koreans (I think once you're over 60 you just stop caring about asking people to move and you just shove them out of the way), but overall had a great time people watching. We saw different dance troupes, performers from Ecuador, traditional drum shows, singers, Taewkondo exhibitions by adorable children, and more. Here are a bunch of pictures to prove I was there:

Group from Ecuador performing traditional music. Super popular

Street performers wowing and confusing the crowd by 'levitating'

Cuties watching the parade dressed in Korean high school uniforms from the 70's (I think)

Man holding a duck- waved it around and delighted kids. Poor, poor duck.

Clothes from the 70's and 80's? i don't know. Teens didn't look excited to be in the parade

Men dressed as muscular ants because Korean parades

Local Taekwondo schools performed

Traditional drum performances during the parade

Ladies looking lovely in Hanboks (traditional Korean clothes) in the parade

Traditional candy using sugar and honey. Kids stamp a design and then use toothpicks to slowly/painstakingly cut the design out without breaking the rest of the candy. If they can get their design, they get another candy for free.  

At one point during the festival we were getting overwhelmed by the crowd and a little tired. What do you do in such a situation? You go to a cat cafe! A cat cafe is a coffee shop that is filled with cats roaming around and willing to play with you. It was the greatest experience ever...until I make it to the Dog Cafe down the street. I think I'll actually cry of happiness when I get to drink coffee with dogs.

A shot of the cat cafe in all its glory. Lots of hiding spaces for cats, cat toys and happiness

My friend Nygel and I posing with a (judging) cat

That lighting...happy people after playing with cats.

 Overall it was a really great weekend and it made me love my city even more. It may be on the smaller side and be considered the country by the rest of Korea but I'm really happy I ended up here. The end.

Peace!