Despite our hectic schedules as we settle into the new school year, Lorna and I found time this weekend to venture across Jeollanamdo to the island of Jindo. Every year, a festival is held to honor the legend of Grandmother Ppong and her escape from the island.
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| A statue of Grandmother Ppong and a tiger to commemorate her escape. |
Long ago, on the island of Jindo, a group of villagers were constantly under the threat of vicious tiger attacks. One day, they finally made their escape from the main island to the nearby island of Modo. Unfortunately, in their haste, Grandmother Ppong was left behind. All alone on the island and desperate to be reunited with her family, Grandmother Ppong prayed fervently to the Dragon King. One night, he visited her in a dream, telling her he would create a rainbow reaching all the way to Modo Island and her family. The next morning, Grandmother Ppong rushed to the sea to find it had indeed parted, creating a path for her to safely escape the tigers. Halfway across, Grandmother Ppong collapsed, too old and exhausted to make the rest of her journey. But her family had also been visited by the Dragon King, and and hurried to meet her on the sea path. In the arms of her loved once, Grandmother Ppong said, "The Dragon Kind has granted my wish and reunited me with my family once again! I could not ask for anything more in life!" before passing away.
Each year, locals, Koreans across the country, and many foreigners venture down to the island of Jindo to participate in commemorating Grandmother Ppong's escape from the tigers of Jindo and her faith in the Dragon King. While I was initially wary of crossing a sea using the precious little footwear I have here in Korea, Lorna assured me waders could be purchased at the festival. So, we hopped in the car and made the 120km (75mi) drive across the bottom corner of the country.
The event itself is a good 20min drive into the island itself, and we easily found it by following the trail of cars and buses. The sea parting itself wasn't to peak until 6:10PM, so we had plenty of time to kill arriving at 12:30PM. Right at the entrance, there was a man selling the infamous waders used to cross the sea. We nabbed a pair early on and tossed them in the car before heading in to check out the stalls.
Local Tip: They all cost ₩8,000, so it doesn't really matter where you buy them. The stalls were all throughout the grounds and they didn't look to be running out, even right up until the parting!
Somehow, we managed to stumble into the international tents almost immediately. Stalls representing Korea, Peru, India, America, Russia, Turkey, Germany, Japan, and others advertised food, drink, and occasionally crafts. Ironically enough, the American booth was the least accurate out of all of them, selling Korean-style ice cream (served in a large, V-shaped corn tube instead of a cone) and Korean-style potato tornadoes. Longing for my days in Japan, I immediately grabbed some takoyaki while Lorna went for the Korean chicken.
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| Clockwise from top: spicy Korean chicken, Japanese takoyaki, and Japanese okonomiyaki |
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| Grapefruit juice, straight from the source! |
We brought our snacks to the seaside, but were soon interrupted by a parade coming our way! Drummers, dancers, and students in animal costumes lined up, preparing for the 3PM procession across the shoreline to the sea-parting point. Some of the middle school students next to us shyly struck up conversation with us, and we ended up chatting with them for nearly an hour. They were very punchy (typical of Korean kids) and kept tugging at each other's costumes and cracking up. One poor boy who was an orca kept inadvertently whacking everyone with the tail of the whale worn on his head. When we went to take a picture, one of the girls asked a boy dressed as a crab to snap it...only to have him sadly look at his hands--incapacitated by the costume's claws.
