On Saturday, a small group of foreigners and I made the short trip over to Gwang-ali Beach to watch the annual Busan Fireworks Ceremony celebrating the first international APEC (Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation) meeting held in Busan several years ago. We were forwarned by our Korean friends to get to the beach early and stake out a section of beach due to the ridiculous number of spectators that attend this event each year. We got to Gwang-ali Beach around 4:00pm, which was 4 hours before the show was scheduled to start. The beach was crowded already but finding a suitable spot wasn't too big of a problem. However, within a half-hour swarms of Koreans came flooding in from all directions. Before we knew it we were trapped in a huge mass of humanity. We even had to fend off a few over-zealous spectators who were trying to move our blankets and steal our spots! After dealing with this chaos for almost 4 hours we were beginning to regret our decision to attend this event. Then the show started. It was absolutely unbelievable. The kick-off to the fireworks show included the launching of 4-5 phoenix-like flaming gliders that hoovered over the crowd for the first 5 minutes of the show. The show lasted almost an hour. Every explosion was carefully choreographed to match the music with surgical precision, and the entire show took place directly over picturesque Gwangandaegyo Bridge. Over 1.5 million people witnessed the event. 7 foreigners (1 from Canada, 1 from Minnesota, 1 from California, 1 from Washington, and 3 from Kansas) were blown away.
