The Friendship Fair

Spring in Seoul brings many festivals and events. People are dying to get out of their tiny little apartments after the long cold Winter. We decided to go with some friends to a festival called the Friendship Fair. We had heard that it was a good one to go to mostly because it had a wide variety of foreign dishes to sample. This festival is all about getting to learn about other cultures.

The embassies are each given a tent, where they can provide information, or sell goods from their home countries. Then as you walk down another street you see that each embassy has also been given a tent for food. Here you can walk around and, for a small price, sample a wide variety of foods from Europe, Africa, South America, the Middle East and Asia. This was incredibly exciting for us because most of the food options were the "real deal". It is very difficult to get international foods in Seoul, that have not in someway been hijacked and "koreanized," as we call it.

So we walked around stuffing ourselves with food and enjoying some of the street theater that was going on. Some of the embassies had people in costumes doing traditional dances and whatnot. And I have to say that I have not seen so many foreigners in once place since being in Korea! It was a great day all around, with sunshine, good friends, delicious food, and a smorgasbord of cultural offerings!

One fellow even decided to get in the mood and dance! It was awesome! :)