Feeling Extra{Curricular}

Extra curriculars at school have been put on hold the past two years, because, Covid. This semester we got to have a tournament with other schools! Woo hoo! Unfortunately, parents could not attend, but I was lucky enough to get a few pics sent to me. Here is my defense-playing futsol girl.

This is our girls middle school team.

Daisy and her bestie, Astrid.

Goooo, Tigers!

Eli played futsol, too. Here they are between games.

Lijee is my back row child; the other two are always on the front row but he is tall enough to be on the back row.

Zeke had a volleyball tourney too, but I was not sent any pictures from that. The PE teacher's wife attended with him and she sent us moms pictures from the day. The high school's teacher representative did not capture any pictures for us, and of course the kids did not think, "Hey, my Mom probably wants some volleyball pictures of us."

[November 13]

Mumma Mia! - Masan Gagopa Chrysanthemum Fest

How have I missed all these chsysanthemum festivals the past few years? Mum festival number three- check!

The 마산가고파 Masan Gagopa Chrysanthemum Festival is centered on the mum because it is the flower that the Masan district is famous for cultivating. 

There is a Chinese folktale about a prophet who told a man to take his family up on the mountain and drink chrysanthemum tea because calamity was going to strike his house. The man did as he was advised, and upon returning home he found all the farm animals were dead. He realized his family avoided death by obeying the prophesy of drinking tea on the mountaintop.

Drinking tea made with these flowers is done today not because of the Chinese folktale (well, maybe just a little bit), but because it is said to offer relief from a variety of aliments, including colds, sore throats, headaches, vertigo, boils, anxiety, allergies, high blood pressure, and more.

These little guys are spider mums.

Incurve is this variety, where the petals curve inward.

In China, chrysanthemums have been grown as decorative flowers for about 3,000 years. Native to Asia, there are over 40 different wild chrysanthemum species recorded. However, there are over 20,000 chrysanthemum cultivars (different varieties) from all over the world! 

 What I have learned about the 20,000 varieties of chrysanthemums is that while the range of their looks is extremely varied, there are subtle differences in some of them, and the names/pictures on different websites do not exactly match. Keep that in mind as you read some of the names I have added--they might not be correct, so don't hold that against me. That being said, the long, skinny petals earn this variety the name of spider mum.

Symphony is the yellow spider mum, while Evening Glow is the bronze colored one, according to my research. 

Under The Sea theme had clams and sea horses.

I think this might be a quilled variety.

Laura, Trish, Sofia Ashlee and Leana

These in the middle are called Regal Mist Purple.

Angel is the purple with yellow center. The yellow with the big button center is a cushion mum.

These guys with the big button center are called anenomes.

A sign was posted here that did not translate well. I believe this display is called천향  'Cheonhyang (Heavenly) Woman's Heart.' It has been cultivated for 15 months, being transplanted 6 times and pruned 13. It also said  1,540 flowers are used in this display. A similar display in Changwan using 1,315 blooms made in into the Guinness World Records in 2009, so maybe this one will replace it? But if a display like this used 1500 flowers, how the heck many were used in this whole festival? Mind boggling!

This is the dinosaur theme.

Icy Isle are single mums that look like daisies but the yellow center is slightly larger. They look so similar because they are in the same family as daisies. The little guys beside it are pompons.

Like roses, the colors of mums represent different sentiments. White = sincerity, truth and gratitude, yellow = disappointment, unrequited love, wishing for wealth, and of course red = love.

The white one with a yellow center is called an Anastasia White quill mum, while the yellow-on-yellow is a Bolero.

It's Lady Liberty!

What's almost as amazing as these displays is the fact that it was free, just like most festivals and attractions. Just something that Korea does for the enjoyment of its people.

While going to lunch in downtown Changwan we even found cute mum displays in the street.

I noticed bricks in the pedestrian street with English names on them. Then I learned the street is called 상상길 Sang Sang Gil. "The wonderfully colorful road for all citizens of the world" is created with bricks engraved with the names of 23,000 people from all around the globe. In 2015 the Korean Tourism Organization issued an open invitation called 'Write your name in Korea.' Three hundred thousand applicants sent in their name for the project. Sang Sang Book, located in Changdong Art Center, holds the names of those that were not placed on the gil (street). "Sang Sang Gil and Sang Sang Book, which cannot be found anywhere else in the world, feature wave-like patterns in the five representative colors of Korea, and have become the landmark of Changwon and Korea."

A Mexican restaurant called for margaritas.

 I was driving, so here is my drink. Korean Coca Cola looks a little different but tastes the same.

[Nov 10]