Asian Festival

Benj and I decided to explore the annual Asian Festival. Let me just tell you, it was quite an adventure. By the time it was over, I was glad to be home in my own house.

The adventure started on our way to the festival. We parked our car a couple of blocks away and started walking to Franklin Park. We saw a lady across the street and it seemed like she was choking. She was older and was hobbling on a cane, and Benj ran across the street to see if she was ok. I ran after him and we soon realized that she wasn’t choking, she was bawling with big fat tears rolling down her face. We asked her what was wrong and she said that she was diabetic and was out of food and money until a couple days later when she would get paid again. So I pulled out all the cash I had in my purse (about $7) and gave it to her. She was so grateful and walked over the a near by store to get some food. Once we got to the festival we realized that all the food booths, which smelled and looked amazing, only accepted cash. I had just given all my cash away!!! And I was starving! What to do? Benj decided to walk down the street and see if he could find some place with an ATM! Success! After walking a ways he was victorious! We got a spicy Korean chicken stick and shared it. Before we got more we decided to walk around and see all the booths first.

My favorite booth had really neat carved dragons:

And chopsticks:

I bought some chopsticks, hair pins, and a little wooden sauce bowl.

Then we saw these amazing athletes playing a game called Takraw, which is played in many parts of Asia. There are three players on each side of the net. The goal is to keep the ball in the air without using your hands. You get three hits before you have to send it over the net. It is like Volley ball without hands. These guys were phenomenal. They block with their feet. The do flips and spinning kicks to send the ball over the net.

 

 

This guys is doing a flip to kick the ball back over!

We also got to see a little bit of cultural dancing.

Things started to get a little weird at the festival. A crowd started forming randomly and then they all just started running in a stampede. Then it just stopped. The security guys were acting all nervous and I over heard one say ”…can’t control the fights…” We decided avoid conflict by entering one of the stages to watch some dancing and just steer clear of commotion.  As soon as we started walking into the building, another stampede started running into the building. The people in the building were forcing us out. It was a little scary. The stampede subsided and we decided to just get some more food and then leave. As we were paying for some yummy Laotian egg rolls and some Indian Samosa’s, a police got on the intercom and said, “This is officer so and so. Everyone needs to leave the park immediately. If you do not leave right away you will be violating such and such codes and will be arrested.” There were cop cars screaming in and a helicopter circling around above. We heard a cop telling a lady that there was a gang disturbance. We ran to our car and got to a safer part of town ASAP! It was a little scary, but we made it.

For all you back in Idaho, don’t worry about us being safe. This was a very random thing and usually we are never even close to the parts of town where violence happens. We live in a very safe part of Columbus.