Saturday in Icheon

Saturday we went down to Icheon, childhood home of Master Lee, for Rachel's Tae Kwon Do demonstration. It was a long trip, and since the team is not school-funded, it involved taking the subway to the bus station, then getting on a bus for an hour, then walking 2 km from the bus station to the spot for the demonstration. They actually had two demonstrations Saturday, one at the festival grounds of the 3rd Annual Ceramic Bienale, which is a festival that displays Korean pottery, traditional and contemporary, and also teaches you how it's all made. The second demonstration was downtown Icheon, on a street corner basically, in a shopping area. The first demonstration went so well! Everything went so smoothly, no one made any mistakes, and the crowd was huge (lots of kids) and loved every minute! Master Lee's mom made everyone lunch, and we feasted on kimbop, pickled radish, bbq and fried chicken, and lots of fresh fruit. It was yummy! While the kids were taking a break (resting their feet which were pretty battered from performing on brick), Chris, James and I walked around and looked at all the pottery, and checked out the square where they were having what we guessed was tea tasting. Either that, or they were just serving tea! Don't know for sure, but I didn't get a picture, because Rachel kept the camera. There was a large square of fabric set down and there was a tea "station" every couple of square feet, where a woman in a hanbok (traditional Korean garment) was kneeling with a little wooden table and a hot plate, and making and serving tea. There were also lines of fabric in the middle of the square-totalling maybe 50 women serving tea. Families of 3 or 4 would kneel in front of the woman, talking while the leaves were steeping. In the background, a band of women were walking in a circle and playing the Korean drums. The loud banging of the drums seemed to clash with the peace and calm of the "tea party", but no one seemed to mind.
We headed back over to the group and found out we were going to be walking the 2 km back into town for the next demonstration. We walked to a cute little shopping area where 2 roads converged into one, and the triangle that was formed as a result was the spot for the next show. All of the kids were pretty tired by this point-I think this was the first time they had done 2 in one day. They were good sports though. While the kids were taking a short break on the sidewalk, a crowd had started to gather. The TKD uniforms do stick out quite a bit. Almost immediately after the kids had started warming up, the crowd doubled, then tripled in size! There were over a hundred people there-young kids, twenty-somethings, and older men and women. There were also restaurants on the 2nd and 3rd stories of some of the shops, and people were watching from the windows. Several of the stunts had to be performed a couple times, because the kids were too tired to get it on the first try, but they laughed it off and the crowd laughed with them. Everyone enjoyed the demonstration, and overall they were great!
This might be the last big demonstration of the year, so I'm glad we got to go, and glad I took lots of pictures. I put a couple on this blog, but you can click here to see the rest!