Crab Festival
Trip Start
Feb 01, 2008
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3
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Trip End
Feb 01, 2009
Bundang, South Korea, Korea Rep.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Now I've got you wondering. I went on a tour to the 'Uljin City; Snow Crab Festival'. Uljin is on the east coast of Korea. When we first got there, we saw the festivities of Korean dancers and Snow Crab Queen and King. The queen and king were chosen children who wore traditional Korean clothes for the celebration.
As we were walking around for our free time, we tasted a variety of Korean specialties most of which I do not know the name of. We also watched male comedians singing, dancing and dressed like clowns or so I was told, (seemed more like cross dressers to me than clowns) but very funny. It was interesting you would think for clowns performing there would have been more children but the majority was older men and woman
90 meter Kimbap
. Throughout the day children would pass us saying hello and I love you. It was sweet. We then met up with the travel group to get on a boat and head out to sea. We were adventuring out to sea to set some baby fishes free. We were told that when we throw them out to sea, we were supposed to make a wish. All wishes were to come true, and I am hoping my does. This is a special tradition in Korea.
The main activity of the day was the Guinness world record attempt for the longest kimbap in the world. Kimbap????? A kimbap is similar to sushi without the fish (even more confused???). Well first is a layer of seaweed (kim), which although sounds nasty I have grown accustomed to having it in my diet. The second layer is rice and a range of fillings (egg, radish, cucumber, ham,) depending on the type you want, as this was a snow crab festival the filling also had snow crab. It is then rolled like a sausage and cut into slices. They usually are about 15cm in length. Ours was 90 meters long or 270 feet.
Ok back to record breaking. We attempted to make a 90 meter kimbap. We were on a foreigners tour and it seemed we were the unexpected guests of Honor. Felt a bit disturbing actually. TV crews were all around us and one of the girls I met on the trip was interviewed 4 times due to her blond hair. It took about 200 people to make the kimbap and it was an official world record.
We then ate at a restaurant were we ate crab and es cargo (snail). We got a brief lesson on how to break open the crab and to drink the juices of the crab. I decided against drinking my crab's bodily fluids even though they said it was the best part. I did try es cargo for the first time and it was actually very tasty. The crab was also delicious!
An eventful first Korean festival, a bit cold and rainy but one I will remember :)
