That week
in Da Nang.

The Vietnam Korea Festival 2026 runs from Thursday August 6 to Sunday August 9. The main ground is East Sea Park in An Hai, on the beach side of the river, and parts of it spill out across the city.

There are more than twenty things on. A welcome parade, a Vietnamese and Korean art exhibition, a Da Nang and Daegu friendship concert, K-pop random dance in the street, and a talent contest. There is a Vietnam Korea cooking competition, Korean film days, a football exchange and a joint Vovinam and Taekwondo display. A digital art show by the Gwangyang Media Art Lab runs from August 7 to 11. The opening ceremony is at 7pm on Friday August 7 on the main stage at East Sea Park.

Go in the evening when it cools down. The park sits right behind the beach, so you can swim first and walk over after. No ticket price has been published for the park programme, so treat it as a walk in and check on the day if you are going for one specific show.

The weekend sits around 31 to 33 degrees in the day and 27 to 29 at night. Friday looks the calmest, mostly cloudy with not much rain. Saturday turns cloudy with a thunderstorm risk building through the afternoon. Sunday brings morning storms and gusty wind, around 20 kilometres an hour, then clears up later.

So mornings are the safer bet for the beach, and the afternoons are when the sky turns. Carry something waterproof if you are heading to the park in the evening.

On the storm question, and you may see this in the headlines: a tropical depression formed over the northern part of the East Sea on Tuesday August 4, with gusts up to level 8. Vietnam's forecasters say it is not expected to hit the mainland or the coast directly. So it is not our storm. The national outlook does say one or two storms or depressions are likely somewhere on the East Sea during August, mostly affecting the north and north central regions rather than here. Storm season runs June to November and forecasts change fast, so check again on the morning you go out.

Named events with real times.

Friday: The Lost Boys play live at Claypot from 7:30pm. Fire Dance by the sea at Kala Kala from 8pm. Quiz night at Mad Den from 8pm. DJs Mon, Anahi and Double T at Malibu Beach Club from 5:30pm. La Riff and Cuu Den at GU Wine Bistro from 6pm. Film Club at Reality from 6:30pm. Live music at Embassy, Chevy Sports Bar, N Pub and Three Musketeers from 7pm.

Saturday: Louisiana Saturday Night at Dirty Fingers, a crawfish boil from 4:30pm with The Lost Boys live from 7pm. Happy hour with live music at Claypot from 4pm. Philviet Entertainment plays C Bar from 9pm. Beach and Beats at Simple Beach from 3pm.

Sunday: Slow Morning at Dau Ngot ca phe from 9:30am. Sunsession at Esco Beach from 1pm, every Sunday. Pipeline plays C Bar from 8:30pm.

All weekend: the Dragon Bridge shoots fire and then water at 9pm on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, free from the riverbank, about 15 minutes.

If you saw grey ships on the horizon last week, that was the USS George Washington. The American aircraft carrier came into Da Nang on July 30 and stayed until August 3, with the cruiser USS Robert Smalls and the destroyer USS Shoup alongside.

It was the first American carrier to visit Vietnam since 2023, and only the fourth ever. Sailors came ashore during the visit, ate around the city and went to see the sights, so some of the crowds in An Thuong last weekend were them.

They have gone now, so this is a thing that happened rather than a thing to go and see. But it is a reminder of how the city has changed. Fifty years ago that coastline was a war. Now the ship pulls in, the crew eats banh mi and takes photos at the Marble Mountains, and then it leaves.

Da Nang International Airport came in 75th in the Skytrax World's Top 100 Airports for 2026. Last year it was 84th, so it moved up nine places. Skytrax builds the list from passenger surveys, so it reflects what travellers said about the place rather than what the airport says about itself.

The airport puts the jump down to the boring things that actually matter, live data on how full the terminal is, tracking where queues build up, and plans for AI tools to spot problems earlier.

It is worth knowing alongside the building work already under way. The new international terminal is due around May 2027, and the master plan runs to 2030. So the airport is getting both bigger and, going by the people who use it, better at the same time.

You cannot miss it in this city. Korean restaurants, Korean signs, Korean families on My Khe, and now a four day Korean festival in the biggest park on the beach. There is a reason.

South Korea is Da Nang's largest source of foreign visitors by a wide margin, ahead of China, India, the United States and Taiwan. Vietnam Airlines runs up to 14 flights a week to Seoul. The link goes past tourism too. This week alone the city agreed cooperation on medicinal herbs and labour with Hamyang County, Korean and Vietnamese artists rehearsed together, and Hamyang donated coconut trees to help hold Da Nang's beaches against erosion.

For anyone living here it explains a lot. It is why the Korean food is genuinely good rather than tourist grade, why so many signs carry Hangul, and why a festival like this weekend's fills a park. If you have never eaten in the Korean places on the An Thuong side, this is a good week to fix that.