Spring Fun Time in Seoul

Hi Seoul Festival 2009 judged a great success with various events unfurled to introduce Seoul's legacy as Korea's capital

The Hi Seoul Festival 2009 closed its nine-day celebration on May 10 with Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon's closing remarks at Seoul Plaza. Mayor Oh said he could reconfirm that the Hi Seoul Festival has become truly a Seoul citizens' event as he witnessed the passion and high spirits of the citizens and other participants including many foreign tourists displayed during the nine-day run of the event.
He said from this year, the festival will open on every first Saturday in May and Seoul City will do everything to make the event more interesting and diverse for the sake of participants.
Under the slogan of "Seoul's Spring Blossoms with Hope," the event was meant to invigorate the spirit of citizens and foreign tourists attending despite the difficult economic conditions and give them hope through the various festive events unfurled at Seoul Plaza, five ancient palaces and Cheonggyecheon Stream.
This year's festival, the seventh annual fair, had as its main theme "palace"("gung" in Korean), the same as last year, to show the ancient legacy of Seoul as a city with history stretching for over six centuries, providing the event with a step to become a truly global festival.






















According to figures compiled by Seoul City, some 1.81 million visitors including 230,000 foreign tourists showed up at various venues of the festival including the old palaces, Seoul Plaza and Cheonggyecheon Stream, cutting through downtown Seoul, up 24 percent from last year's spring Hi Seoul Festival 2008.
The opening day of the festival, May 2, was marred by demonstrators and the opening ceremony had to be held on May 3, city officials said, which meant that the festival marked a great success in terms of the sheer number in attendance at the various events held during the festival, outnumbering last year's attendance figures.
What attracted the most attention was the "Love Coin Field," co-sponsored by Seoul City and the World Vision, under the 'Spring Tower' set up at Cheonggyecheon Stream as a symbol for the popular landmark in Seoul, which ended up collecting 330 million won in coins in all kinds of denominations. Seoul City will donate the money to help hungry children.
A large crowd also partook in other events including an outdoor concert held at Children's Grand Park from May 3-9, the "Stage at Nungdong Forest," where some 10,000 people enjoyed classical music every day. Also attracting a huge crowd of both citizens and foreigners were such popular events as "Wire Rope Crossing of the Han River," "Earth Village Romp," and the "Marathon for Women." The annual festival was a great success due to some 500 volunteers including Chinese and Japanese students in Korea who helped run the festival through such efforts as public relations, the management of events and especially as guides for foreigners. The fact that the festival ended as a resounding success this year is more meaningful when considering that the total budget this year came to only 2.5 billion won, down from 3.5 billion won last year. Seoul City thanked citizens groups, public organizations and businesses for their cooperation to make the annual event such a wonderful undertaking.
The festival this year had a deeper meaning, more developed than the Spring Festival that it inherited, with the focus on Seoul's palaces, the global cultural legacy, as its identity. The annual event automatically took place on the first Saturday in May so that Seoul citizens and foreign fans will remember the date and look forward to the palatial festive event every year.
The Palace of May was the landmark structure, made of dragons flying into the sky, built on Seoul Plaza. Architect Chang Yun-kyu designed the structure to symbolize the environmentally friendly Seoul with fabric ribbons some 200 meters long blowing in the spring wind as if the dragons were flying to heaven. The palace had dragon-shaped screens to shield the kings from the sun, who in this case were Seoul citizens participating in the festival.
Many events took place at the May Palace including the opening and closing ceremonies for the festival, and the eight-color dance and eight-color playground during the event's nine-day period. Seoul Plaza was turned into a stage for various exciting and merry events. Organizers expected all of the participants to enjoy the event and recharge themselves with a renewed energy needed to carry on with their everyday lives.
The opening event was the Pink Blossom Road, which showed Seoul's past, present and future, followed by the opening of the Palace of May to kick-off the Hi Seoul Festival in the evening. The event was held in the evening for the first time and allowed participants, hordes of Seoul citizens, to join the parade instead of watching from the sidelines, as if it were a carnival with flower blossoms floating everywhere in big waves.
Events took place in the five largest palaces in Seoul, all built during the Joseon Dynasty (1395-1910), to tell each one's story, including Deoksu-gung Palace, Changgyeong-gung Palace and Gyeongbok-gung Palace, where kings ruled for nearly 600 years.
Cheonggyecheon Stream, an important landmark in Seoul flowing through the center of the city, also staged a number of great events under the theme of "Sharing Cheonggyecheon," including "Seoul where I Lived," "Pink Blossom Sharing Marketplace," "Love of Coin Field" and "Your Concerts." These events were dedicated to telling the stories of Seoul mostly centered on the modern era as their titles suggested. They started from the time when Korea was liberated from Japanese rule following the Japanese defeat at the hands of the Allied Forces led by the United States military during the second World War in the Asia-Pacific region. The events also included concerts of both classical music presented by symphony orchestras and pop music played by various pop music groups and singers to enliven the festival and to serve all classes of music lovers, young and old.
Also performed at the Palace of May were the "8-color Dance Fest" and the "8-color Play Yard," which were designed to boost the dreams of the future for Seoul residents.
Chairman Ahn Ho-sang of the Seoul Cultural Foundation said, "We have had difficulties in the past. But we built a great economy with our bare knuckles, a feat hardly seen in history ― in fact a great miracle. This Hi Seoul Festival was designed to recall our capacity and to encourage the 10 million Seoul residents." Also on the card were a number of events to show Seoul's beauty spots: At Kyunghee Palace was a performance of the musical "Empress Myungsung," about the life of the empress, the wife of the last king of the Jeoseon Dynasty who was murdered by Japanese ninjas in the early part of the 20th century, and an old palace musical "Daejangum" for three weeks from May 1. Also on the schedule were the Seoul Spring Chamber Concerts, the Earth Village Performance, among other exciting events. nw

Night scenes at various locations in downtown Seoul including Seoul Plaza and Cheongyecheon Stream flowing thru the center of the ancient capital city.

(photo clockwise) A traditional dance troupe performs at Deoksu Palace; A foreigner is fascinated with Korean traditional musical instrument during the performance of a Korean traditional music band to enliven the Seoul spring festival May 2-10.; A foreign lady tourist marvels at a pamphlet for the fest in front of Seoul Plaza.; A wire rope walker walks across the Han River on the wire rope during the festival.; A reenctment of a king's procession at a royal court during Jeosun Dynasty: