baby changster: Nonsan Strawberry Festival

Korea has many, many different festivals throughout the year ranging from flower festivals to tea festivals to lantern festivals. There is a mud festival, a mime festival, and even one for fermented seafood. Well, one that sounded fun was the Strawberry Festival in Nonsan, which is about an hour and a half south from us...without traffic. Rosa and James came down from Seoul so that we could all go together. Traffic was really bad on the way down, but we had a van, which meant carpool lane for half of the way. That cut the time down a lot. After beating the traffic to get to Nonsan, the next part was finding a parking spot. Street parking along every road within about a two mile radius was packed. We just happened to come up to a car that was leaving, so we got a spot fairly quickly. From there we walked towards the large, red, strawberry shaped balloons to what we naturally assumed was the festival.

The event was held by the river in a valley of sorts. As we crossed the main road and looked down the hill, we were amazed to see so many people and tents. People were walking around carrying boxes of strawberries and kids were eating cotton candy and different snacks on sticks. We all went down and started peeking into the tents. Some were vendors selling 떡 and 떡 moulds to create different shapes and designs. Some were food tents. Some were craft tents where people could decorate bags or make bamboo boats or other activities. Then, there were the tents selling the strawberries. We bought a few, of course, to eat on the way home. Elizabeth got to sit at the handkerchief painting tent with Sana and showed off her skills with a brush.

There were several spots throughout the area that were great photo ops. Naturally, we couldn't pass those up, so Elizabeth got to sit on different strawberries and pose for the camera. It was a lot of fun. -T

The view from the top of the hill.The large tent had an exhibit of different strawberry related items and a small garden.

These 떡 chefs were showcasing their strawberry themed creations.

This was the entrance to the large tent. It was a bit weird to walk through a large strawberry.

This was the handkerchief painting tent. Elizabeth was really excited to paint. But first, she had to trace out the strawberries to paint...with Mommy's help of course.