Tomato Picking Festival

It seems every weekend or even every few days there is a festival of some sort happening in or around Seoul.  There is a desire to celebrate every possible event, person, or even plant.

A few weekends ago we got together with our friends Christina and Daniel and headed to Gwangju (there are two Gwangju's, one located right outside of Seoul, and another located quite a ways down the peninsula of Korea.  The Gwangju in this case is the local one) for the 퇴촌 토마토 축제 (Toechon Tomato Festival).  

Daniel and Christina had asked us if we wanted to take part in this festival with them a few weeks before.  Daniel attempted to make reservations for us online, but they were sold out.  He told us he gave a call to the manager of the festival and told them he was going to be escorting some foreigners to the festival and thought it would be a great chance for them to see it and the manager agreed; granting us access to a sold out event.

When we first arrived, we headed to the tomato green houses for some fresh picking.

We were handed our clippers and headed in to snip off 5kg worth of tomatoes.

 These tomatoes were easily the juiciest, most delicious tomatoes we've ever encountered.

We stopped along the way for a quick snack.  

 

After picking our tomatoes we headed to the main festival area where they had a large pool set up full of tomatoes for kids to jump in, a stage with live music, and tent after tent of tomato variations, samples, and recipes.

We grabbed lunch at the festival

then headed down to 세미원 (Saymeeweon Garden) to see take in some natural beauty.

We were hoping the lotus plants had started to bloom, but we think we were just a few weeks too early.

 Nonetheless, the garden was beautiful.