Incheon Global Fair and Festival

This past weekend was the Chuseok holiday in Korea. That meant I had Friday off. So instead of being a bum I went with Kat to the Incheon Global Fair and Festival. It was an interesting experience.

The city of Incheon was created by Korea by dumping a lot of fill dirt off the west coast of Korea. Much of the city has been completed, but the area where the festival was held is still being built. It was cool to see a city that only exists so far on paper, minus a few buildings built to promote the city.

The theme of the festival seemed to be the future and Incheon's role in the world. There were many exhibits, like a world culture area, a robot zoo, a teddy bear museum, a green technology area, and some buildings built by some of the large companies in Korea to showcase their future work. There was also a building showing off different proposed designs for the city. During the festival there was also a parade with different culture groups performing, even though they were a little stereotypical.

There were both some perks and drawbacks to being a foreigner at the festival. When I went in I had to use a separate gate and have my temperature checked, and then scrub down my hands with sanitizer. On the plus side, I did get coupons for free food, plus at a booth for foreigners I was able to receive a free mug and a notebook. At many of the exhibits I also got preferential treatment (like at one booth where they were having some game and me and Kat got to jump to the front where we were able to win some free bodywash and hand lotion from a power company). Many of the companies gave out free stuff, like some canvas bags from Hyundai which I have been using for my groceries (since you have to pay a fee to get grocery bags), and a bunch of cell phone charms (including one that has a plastic coin that you can use to rent grocery carts at the store).

It was nice that we went on Friday, since that is considered a travel day for Chuseok and there weren't many people there.

On another note, I caved in and bought a DSLR camera. The pictures were taken using it. As you can probably tell, I still haven't worked out all the settings. Expect more pictures once I figure it out.