Friday, October 26, 2007

curiosity + free time = random adventures

This must be random adventure number 81... these events seem to happen often (I kind of look for them).
So I'm biking home after getting my first ever cell phone (I'm excited anyways..) and I ended up taking the long way home and biking past the soccer stadium. As I carry on down the road and approach the subway station, I'm distracted to see the amount of cars on the street, and the streams of people flowing toward the stadium. I thought to myself "Alright! There must be a game tonight!"
So using my very small vocabulary of broken Korean to ask someone if they spoke a bit of English, I found this one lady who did. She was among hundreds who were heading towards the stadium, which was shooting out spotlights as if Star wars was being filmed inside. I thought "ok, I'll check it out". Why not? By this point I knew that it wasn't a soccer game from the screen just outside the stadium. It showed a singer of some kind, so I thought I'd go have a quick peek. This lady who I was walking with led me past police officers, who questioned her on who I was. "Photographer", she said. Apparently I was shooting this event (but I left my camera at home! Man!).
Anyways, we went and sat in the front row of this stadium which was almost completely packed. The only seats available were to the sides of the stage, where no one could see anything anyway. "Is this a concert or something?" I asked her.
"No, this is the Busan Franklin Graham Festival"
...ok. So, not soccer... or a concert. But it was a pretty cool experience to just go and see the fireworks, the laser light show and the tens of thousands of people that were there to support Mr. Graham. I was kind of torn at this point as to whether I should go or stay. I wasn't really interested in the bands or what Mr. Graham had to say, but I did want to stay out of curiosity with what was going to happen.
Overall the night had some noteworthy moments. One was when Franklin Graham told everyone to turn on their cell phones (and hold them up as if they were lighters). They turned off the lasers and spotlights, and there seemed to be more cell phones than there were stars in the sky. It was incredible to see! Another cool moment was when the choir started to play. It was a 5,000 person choir, singing hallelujah. Again, it was pretty cool.
So the night was interesting to say the least. I booked it during the altar call, but not without noticing the balloons that everyone was given, using them as if they were pompoms. Biking away from the thousands of Christians listening to Franklin Graham, I thought of all the random events that seem to happen. Is this what it's like to live in a big city? I think all you need is an open mind, and some free time. Anything could happen.
... Maybe they'll hold some kind of hockey tournament here... It could happen...

3 comments:

garrett said...

that's a pretty far-fetched wish...

Hockey.

If only.

Matt said...

bizarre!

Jill said...

now that's living.....nothing planned just going for it....good for you!!! the old adage, nothing ventured, nothing gained....