"Shots Fired" | Sinchon Water Gun Festival & Hongdae

Kevin Liu
Jul 7, 2018
3 min read

On Sunday, July 8, 2018, I met with a friend from Hawai'i, saw the Water Gun Festival, and explored Hongdae.

My friend, Gabriel, had just landed in Seoul the previous night before, so we decided to come through and meet to hang. We met with some of my other friends from YISS at a restaurant in Sinchon area; he had the pho while I had the 김치찌개 (gimchi jjigae: kimchi stew).

Water Gun Festival

That weekend was the annual summertime Water Gun Festival in Sinchon, located right outside of Yonsei University, so we decided to check what was happening. On the street, massive crowds of people were wearing swimwear and spraying others with their personal water guns. Also, there were many stations of water splash zones, advertisement booths, and my personal favorite, a DJ booth. At the DJ booth, they had blasters that sprayed water into the sky and a flamethrower at the top of the stage. Since my friend and I did not know about this event, we decided to just watch from the sidewalk.

In order to prepare for this event, I would definitely recommend a waterproof pouch/phone holder to keep your handheld device dry, a water gun, and swimwear; all of these are available for cheap prices at the close Daiso in Sinchon. A wide variety of water guns were available for about 5,000 ₩.

Location:

Sinchon Station

신촌역

Exploring Hongdae (홍대)

After enjoying the festival's DJ booth, we decided to go to Hongdae to meet with Gabe's friends for dinner. Before eating, Gabe and I explored the many attractions that Hongdae had to offer. A popular dessert available here is the 32-centimeters tall ice cream for only 2,000 ₩, served in three mixed flavors: strawberry and chocolate, vanilla and chocolate, and green tea and vanilla. We both got the green tea and vanilla ice cream, refreshing on a hot summer day.

Hongdae is also popular for its busking street, where buskers perform in front of large crowds of bystanders. There is also a diverse community in busking with performers such as dancers, musicians, and even magicians. We stumbled across multiple groups of students performing dance covers of popular songs whom drew in a large audience.

After watching a group perform Blackpink's "DDU-DU DDU-DU", we went around looking at shops. We ended up purchasing some clothes at Jogunshop, a popular brand on YesStyle.com. I bought a collared T-shirt that had the inspiring quote "In order to have a purpose for life, you must have a life of purpose." It costed 24,000 ₩; fun fact: I found the same shirt at M Playground, another clothing store, for 29,000 ₩, meaning I saved 5,000 ₩!

In the area, we found a very artsy café with hanging lights and relaxed there for a while until it was time for dinner. Then, we met with Gabriel's friends and ate at a pork restaurant called Myth Jokbal. 족발 (jokbal) is a Korean dish of pig's trotter/feet. We had to wait for around 15 minutes to get a table since the restaurant was very busy. We got two large plates of 족발, 김치찌개. and 맥주 (maekju: beer). The portions at this restaurant is quite large, filling up our stomachs of four people.