Nongae Festival

The wooden see-saw and acrobats

Nam river from the Fortress (pretty flowers:)

We will one day get around to paddle boating

One reenactment of Nongae

Concert (some little girl ran out and was dancing)

Sweet sound board

Uninspiring food festival with a giant bug on the rice thing

Fortress at night

Bull fighting

Interesting sculpted wall in Jinju

Jinju at dusk

This past weekend was the 7th annual Jinju Nongae (Pronounced Nongay) Festival.  There was a night of drinking followed by an afternoon of bull fighting and walking around the Jinjuseong (Fortress).  The bull fighting was sort of interesting but also kind of boring and sad.  It is where two bulls fight each other, there wasn't a lot of blood so that was good.  Basically, two bulls are brought out from the pens and faced towards each other.  They struggle for sometime and then one bull eventually gives up and runs away and so the other bull is the winner.  It was pretty funny when some of the bulls really didn't want to fight at all and would just walk away and stand and the men in the ring would be pulling them together to try and get them to fight.  It sure was an experience.  

Nongae was a Korean entertainer  during the Japanese invasion back in 1592 or somewhere around then.  She seduced a Japanese General to a rock outside the fortress and threw herself and him into the river to drown him.  The rock is now called Uiam or Righteous Rock.  During the weekend inside the fortress there were concerts and reenactments of Nongae's jump.  On Saturday night they had a reenactment where two people actually jumped in the river and the whole thing was broadcast on a big screen TV just inside the fortress walls.  They also had a giant blow up air castle type thing that was blue and kids could climb up this big ladder that led to the top of the rock and jump off, they even went so far as to have a Nongae and Japanese General doll that you could hold onto while jumping off the "rock" into the "river".  Saturday night there was also a concert which, looked like a dress rehearsal but I think it was the real thing because when we went back on Sunday it didn't look like there was going to be another concert.  However, Sunday there were three acrobats jumping on a extra large wooden see-saw and doing tricks as they jumped.  It was also the first annual Jinju Food Festival.  This isn't actually as exciting as it sounds, there were a number of tables with some pre-wrapped food that you could look at and a few things to taste.  

Look at that girl's awesome guitar!