Samgak-san Cultural Festival
Gangbuk-gu District,   August 31st 2008
This public "International Cultural Festival" honoring Seoul's Triple-Horns guardian peaks
is held every autumn by Gangbuk-gu District in Ui-dong, the area below Doseon-sa, on
the grounds of Green Park Hotel.  It includes a hiking-marathon, songs, speeches & etc.
Getting Ready, with friends: -- left photo, L to R:
Shawn Morrissey (KMPL), Kim Ho-dong (Ministry of Culture,
Sports and Tourism),  Mayor Kim Hyun-pung (Gangbuk-gu),
myself and Chris Dickinson (Yongsan Education).
the object of our respect and appreciation, on that day
the Republic of Korea's National Anthem is played
on stage, L to R: two reps of the US 8th Army (which had soldiers competing), National Assemblyman
Jeong Yang-seok (representing Gangbuk-gu), the Director of Sports Activities, myself and Mayor Kim.
VIPs are introduced to the crowd
Mayor Kim Hyun-pung speaks about Samgak-san and his District
Mayor Kim tells me that he wants me to give a short speech, as Samgak's Goodwill Ambassador,
an honorable opportunity that I had not been expecting
I gave some off-the-cuff remarks about Samgak as one of Korea's most sacred mountains.  A translator rendered it into Korean
(just as she had translated the Korean speeches into English).    My wife caught the 2nd half of my speech on a video clip with our
little camera -- to see this 1:16-min video (an AVI file) in your default media-player, just click on this photo.
the crowd listens