Friday, June 18, 2004
The night the sky was on fire...
Last Saturday there was a Firework festival in Pohang. And I waited till today to write about it, cause I wanted to do it along with the pics.
It was the most exquisite firework show I've ever seen in my life. Actually calling it "Fireworks" would be derogatory... it was an experience. A lifetime experience, I'd say.
Imagine this (if you can)....
Jam!
The streets around leading to Bukbu beach were jammed. The first traffic jam I've seen in Korea till now, and from POSTECH to the Bukbu beach usually would have taken us 5 or 10 mins, that day it took us 2 full hours! Just in time for the show.
Spent another 30 mins to look for some place to park the car (Avishek's car). It was the first time I was seeing traffic rules being broken in Korea, people were breaking signals, changing lanes, making U-turns in the middle of the road. In short - it was chaos!!
Korean Mela
We were disappointed at the first glance. As they say, never judge a book by its cover, and they're right on their money! At first it looked like a Korean version of an Indian mela. The road running right next to the beach was swarming with people. There were stalls of games. The regulars were there, like shooting balloons and toppling pyramids of cans. But where else have you hooped a bottle of Chivas Regal or Johnny Walker :-D And plus, there was the stench of boiled cocoons (yes, I'm serious), live octopuses, squid and crab and freshly severed fishes :-p It's anything but food - I'm telling you.
It started...
Anyways, right at 9:30 PM (Koreans are very punctual) it started. The show I'll remember for all my life. I was standing on the beach, and right in front of me was the vast pitch dark sea, onto the left was the silhouette of a small hill, and onto the right was a huge building (some resort) behind which thousands of lights of the Posco steel factory glittered. This itself was a scene in itself... when suddenly the whole sky was lighted with a huge ball of fire accompanied with a loud sound.
The music started (there were speakers on the beach) and one after the other the sky was lit up in various shapes and colours. It was the best light and sound coordination I have ever seen.
What made it a lifetime experience was not the fireworks alone, in a moment I saw that the building (the resort on the right) was being used as a massive screen! Various scenes and graphics depicting Korea were being projected onto it's walls!
A three dimensional hologram in the form of an old man ;-)
PS: Watch Rudraaksha to get the joke!
There was more to come. After about 20 mins of this amazing show, everything stopped. And then on the horizon appeared a greenish face of an old man! It was a hologram, a light effect, I dont know how they fucking did it! And it moved. The mouth movement was synchronized with whatever he was saying in Korean.
At 10:00 PM, after 30 lovely minutes, the show came to an end with the words "I Love Pohang) lighting up the sky!
I wasn't able to capture the building being used as a massive screen but I think the pictures above will be some indication to what an exquisite show it was!
It was the most exquisite firework show I've ever seen in my life. Actually calling it "Fireworks" would be derogatory... it was an experience. A lifetime experience, I'd say.
Imagine this (if you can)....
Jam!
The streets around leading to Bukbu beach were jammed. The first traffic jam I've seen in Korea till now, and from POSTECH to the Bukbu beach usually would have taken us 5 or 10 mins, that day it took us 2 full hours! Just in time for the show.
Spent another 30 mins to look for some place to park the car (Avishek's car). It was the first time I was seeing traffic rules being broken in Korea, people were breaking signals, changing lanes, making U-turns in the middle of the road. In short - it was chaos!!
Korean Mela
We were disappointed at the first glance. As they say, never judge a book by its cover, and they're right on their money! At first it looked like a Korean version of an Indian mela. The road running right next to the beach was swarming with people. There were stalls of games. The regulars were there, like shooting balloons and toppling pyramids of cans. But where else have you hooped a bottle of Chivas Regal or Johnny Walker :-D And plus, there was the stench of boiled cocoons (yes, I'm serious), live octopuses, squid and crab and freshly severed fishes :-p It's anything but food - I'm telling you.
It started...
Anyways, right at 9:30 PM (Koreans are very punctual) it started. The show I'll remember for all my life. I was standing on the beach, and right in front of me was the vast pitch dark sea, onto the left was the silhouette of a small hill, and onto the right was a huge building (some resort) behind which thousands of lights of the Posco steel factory glittered. This itself was a scene in itself... when suddenly the whole sky was lighted with a huge ball of fire accompanied with a loud sound.
The music started (there were speakers on the beach) and one after the other the sky was lit up in various shapes and colours. It was the best light and sound coordination I have ever seen.
What made it a lifetime experience was not the fireworks alone, in a moment I saw that the building (the resort on the right) was being used as a massive screen! Various scenes and graphics depicting Korea were being projected onto it's walls!
A three dimensional hologram in the form of an old man ;-)
PS: Watch Rudraaksha to get the joke!
There was more to come. After about 20 mins of this amazing show, everything stopped. And then on the horizon appeared a greenish face of an old man! It was a hologram, a light effect, I dont know how they fucking did it! And it moved. The mouth movement was synchronized with whatever he was saying in Korean.
At 10:00 PM, after 30 lovely minutes, the show came to an end with the words "I Love Pohang) lighting up the sky!
I wasn't able to capture the building being used as a massive screen but I think the pictures above will be some indication to what an exquisite show it was!
