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Published: October 25th 2009
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Hot air balloons.
Like 'em? Cuz I sure as heck do!
It was an incredible weekend of long walks along the Gapcheon River, paragliding, movies & binging, mask making, and best of all: hot air balloons.
This weekend was the 6th annual Daejeon International Balloon Fiesta. It was a 3 day event filled with paragliding and hot air balloon competitions, free balloon rides, night shows, and cotton candy.
On a warm Saturday afternoon, Chantelle and I walked along the Gapcheon River towards the area of Expo Park, where the event was being held. We knew we were getting closer when we started to see colourful paragliders zooming around the river. We spent a good amount of time watching paragliders attempt to successfully get off the ground, laughing when some failed (yes, we really are jerks) and cheering when those succeeded.
While we waited for the hot air balloons to set up, we sat down to watch some performances on the main stage. First up was a bunch of adorable little ballerina's jumping around the stage in their heavy make up, bright tutus, and sparkly props such as hats, canes, and fans.
The next set
of performances featured the Korean navy. As the navy band played their instruments to the beat of "In the Navy", representatives of the Korean navy performed some sort of gun show, impressing us with their gun flipping and quick movements. You pretty much had to see it to believe it. I'm embarrassed to say that I got quite into it, hooting and cheering along with the audience. I mean, come on, a bunch of young 'uns in uniform doing stuff like that? You gotta be crazy not to cheer!
For each day of the event, the poster declared that 1000 free hot air balloon rides would be given away. Therefore, Chantelle and I were quite excited to get a chance to go up in the air. However, we didn't end up going on Saturday due to the long line ups and the assumption that only kids got to go up in the balloons. A bit disappointed, we headed off in search of dinner at Rosetta's.
After dinner, upon hearing the sounds of someone speaking into a microphone and thinking some kind of show was going on, we raced back across the street towards the river in the dark.
We were in awe as we saw loads of paper balloons being lighted from within and floating up up into the sky, lighting the darkness of the night with its soft glow. As we sat on the steps in front of the river, I felt a sort of calm wash over me...much like that night in Busan as we sat on the rocks by the ocean as the sun went down. It was in that moment that I thought: This is why I came here to Korea. This is the kind of thing I wanted to experience.
We were soon to be impressed yet again as catchy upbeat music came onto the speakers and soon all ~8 hot air balloons were inflated on the ground ready for the night flow show. It was thrilling to see so many enormous balloons up close and all together and even more exhilirating as they were all lit up at the same time fireworks began to go off in the night sky.
What a view. What a moment that I wish I could share with you all...but that my amateur camera just can't capture exactly. I felt so...happy and content.
After
our exciting night at the river, we happily walked back to Chantelle's place in anticipation of our Halloween binging night. We stopped off at Emart to pick up some junk food before heading back to her place and watching Nightmare Before Christmas. I had stopped off at Krispy Kreme (right next to my place) earlier to pick up some special Halloween "Krispy Skremes" donuts decorated in the shapes of a spiderweb, pumpkin, and alien head.
We vowed to head back to the river one more time early Sunday morning to catch the hot air balloon competition occurring at 9am.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On Sunday morning, we met up and trudged back to the river to find, well, almost no one there! Maybe everyone was still in church, we thought. Disappointingly, we didn't see any hot air balloon competition...cancelled because the weather was too windy and therefore declared unsafe. However, we DID finally get to go up in a hot air balloon, one that appropriately said "It's Daejeon!". It was a short lift off the ground, but I was so satisfied as this was the main thing I had wanted to do this weekend, after all!
Afterwards, Chantelle said
she wanted to check out the arts and crafts tents located further down the river. As we walked towards the tents, we passed by a group of people attempting to inflate the large "Bacardi Breezers" hot air balloon in the shape of a strawberry daiquiri. Talk about dangerous! With no ppe on, these helpers were standing almost right in front of a huge propane tank, stretching out the opening of the balloon, as the tank spewed hot air/gas into the balloon.
Once we got to the tents, we sat down to make masks. I was quite hesitant to do one as I'm not exactly the most artistic person out there. I mean, even my drawings of stick men are a bit hopeless-looking. However, I have to say I did a pretty kick ass job on my mask! We got so into the task, that 1.5hrs went by without anyone talking and voila! Pretty masks!
We took our masks back to the stone steps by the river and watched kids flying kites while we enjoyed the warm sun and breezy air on our faces before heading back home.
Next weekend: autumn foliage caving & a trip to the
DMZ!
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Tracy Cao
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TOO COOL
wow, you finally were able to fulfill yoru hot air balloon wish (you obviously wouldnt of been able to do it here!!) Loooks like lots of fun. What did you paint your masks with???? looks cool!!!!