The US-ROK Friendship Festival is growing — but not so much as a celebration of the friendship theme — but rather as a local showing of food booths and shopping. All kinds of foods from roast pig to Korean pancakes to Thai and Filipino foods to hamburgers. The local organizations from the Sameul Club to the Lions Club to the local Baptist Church, as well as the local VFW Hill 180 Post 10216 were all represented with food booths. But the bottom line is that it is always good to see a festival OUTSIDE the gate that says to the GIs — We appreciate what you folks are doing for Korea.

All along the mall from the Main Gate to the Kyongbu Railroad tracks were lined with booths. There were game booths and stalls for clothing and Korean foodstuffs. On the mall, the most popular booth was the USAF fire department booth that was handing out free toys (frisbees, plastic firemen hats, etc.). There were loads of Korean families rambling along the Mall and this year there were children rides. It wasn’t quite a carnival atmosphere — and more a food fair. Nothing really special. There were a few roving clowns to try to give the event a festive feel.

(Top) Game booths along back of Mall (Bottom) Food Stands along back of Mall

(Top) Clothes stall along back of Mall (Bottom) Korean herbs for sale

(Top) Korean condiments for sale (Bottom) Yut candy “beggar” performance

The only real fun place was one of the beggar shows that sell yut (Korean rock candy). He was really working hard dancing and beating on the drums in time with the Korean music on the PA system, so we bought a box for W3000. Being the old-style Korean music, it attracted the old drunks who were dancing — and some of the old ladies as well. It was kind of funny when the old ladies would slap hands away of the drunk old men who tried to dance with them. A lot of people simply stopped by and joined in the merriment with the scissors clanking — a traditional part of the yut salesman — or assisting on beating the drums. There was another beggar show at the end of the Mall, but this one was a man dressed up as a woman — and frankly the show wasn’t very funny.

(Top) Food booths and flowers for sale (Bottom) Food booths

(Top) Food booths (Bottom) American USO band on street

What was missing this year was the large stage setup that was present in the past two years. In the past, the Osan AB leaders and Pyeongtaek City officials would all show up to make speeches. This year seemed to be very low key. Instead, a small performance area — the same as in previous years — was near the main gate but it was more like a street performance crowded in by food booths. Various community groups performed, but when we were there, there was only an American USO group performing. Rambled around the Mall area and the side alleys were all but deserted. Felt sorry for the merchants in those stores as there was no business at all.

(L) Roteserrie chicken truck (R) Game booth

The activities were very limited — and boring after a while — so I went home, but I came back later that night and walked around with the daughter. We went to a fortune teller who for 5000 won used tarot cards to foretell that I wasn’t going to die. Gee, I wonder what would have happened if she said I was going to croak? Surprisingly, she was doing a brisk business with a 20,000 won for a FULL fortune and 5,000 won for tarot cards only. There was also the assortment of professional beggars — and even a Buddhist monk was out there soliciting money. Also seen were the typical trucks that peddle stuff from fruits to rotisserie chickens that one sees on the side streets of Songtan in the evenings. Actually I missed my favorite street cart, Mis Kim’s Burgers, that has “hamburgers” for W1300 (actually an egg burger where the “hamburger” is mostly bread and mystery meat). Anyway the normal street carts were all shutdown.

I wasn’t very hungry after eating a big bowl of Kuk-su (vermilli noodles with bean sprouts) at a Vietnamese restaurant on the mall so I didn’t really want to eat. However, the daughter was hungry so we had some Korean pancakes for 5,000 won each. Later on bought some corn-on-the-cob for 2000 won each — what a rip-off!!! Played some games with the daughter on the strip — toss a coin into a dish — and lost as expected. Never was any good at pitching pennies. Later we played a darts game to pop the balloons and for ONLY 4,000 won, we won a 500 won stuffed pussy cat — that Shelly our dog immediately ripped apart when she got her teeth into it. Expensive way to pass the time, but it was fun none the less. Enjoyed it.

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