Choir Practice

I stayed in Gangneung for only two nights. After almost ten days in and around Seoul, it was nice for a change of scenery. I spent a good part of the day down at the beach watching Koreans on weekend trips sitting by, but hardly ever entering, the ocean. The famous coffee street at Anmok beach had huge coffee-houses overlooking the ocean. For the price of just under an excellent bowl of noodles, beachgoers could get a hit of caffeine. It was overpriced and I don’t usually drink coffee anyway, so I gave it a miss.

Whilst I was visiting, Gangneung was holding the twelfth annual World Choir Games. I tried to look into some events but it wasn’t clear exactly what publicly accessible activities were on display. Choir-ing, after all, is known to be quite an illusive art form. On my second night I was lucky to attend a large street festival although I’m not sure exactly what the festival was for. I thought at first it was part of the Choir Games but there seemed to be no choir performances. There were food stalls spread across multiple streets. There was a geriatric saxophone ensemble performing tunes to a backing track straight out of ‘Beginner Tunes for Sax.’ There was an acoustic guitar and drums duo performing songs in loud and colourful linen shirts. There was a man performing Korean rap and guards dressed in traditional Korean outfits tapping the toes along and responding to the call-and-response sections of the hip hop performance. But there were no choirs.