Gwangju Chungjangro Festival

This is a pot of cooking silkworm larvae. For the past few days there has been a big festival in the downtown neighborhood Chungjangro, where the Democracy Bell is displayed and the busy shopping district is located. Streets are closed off and stages are set up, and vendors of all kinds of food and crafts are jammed onto the crowded sidewalks. We spent most of the day there yesterday, but sadly didn't bring the camera, so I don't have any pictures of the cute children's traditional Korean musical ensembles or the little kid's English school version of Wizard of Oz, or the hip hop dance groups, or the dual-accordian & saxophone band. Today it was raining, and seemed less crowded. We passed on the larvae & ate some fried squash & potato, and a tiny roll of noodles wrapped in seaweed, then batter fried. Some cold drinks, and we walked around for a few hours.
This puppet show featured a snake trying to eat some frogs. It was more annoying than entertaining.

An exciting Taekwondo exhibition! Lots of board breaking & high kicking, and I took a bunch of really blurry photos. These guys were just too fast. They had loud rocking music playing, and interspersed with the mock fighting & stunt kicking (kicking a rose out of one guy's mouth, human pyramid climb & kick) were choreographed stage numbers with tuff dance moves as well as martial arts.

This band was very good; two drummers, a guy playing a reeded wooden flute with metal horn end, and a bandleader who sang, clapped, danced, and played the hand held gong. Very nice sound from the flute/horn and big drums, with the smaller drum & gong propelling the whole song along.