Lotus Lantern Festival

Yesterday, we went to one of the biggest festivals that Seoul has to offer, The Lotus Lantern Festival and Parade. Unfortunately, my camera died before that parade, but hopefully my good friend Cianti will be sending me some of her pictures for a future post. The festival honors Buddah, whose birthday is a national holiday this coming Friday. They had a street lined with booths where you could try temple foods, paint fans, create your own lantern, buy stuff... We mostly walked around and took in the sights.

We also visited a Buddhist temple. I was super impressed by the 3 gold Buddah statues in the temple and the ornate decorations. It's always a little akward to enter someone else's religious grounds as a tourist though. Of course we removed our shoes before we entered, but we didn't stay in the temple long because people were bowing and praying and you feel a bit like a jerk snapping pics. There was a definite sense of peace and tranquility in the temple, despite the festivites raging around it. I enjoyed seeing it a lot. Just when I was starting to think that Korea lacked a definite culture, we saw this.

We shopped around Insadong, a historic market district, and I made a terrible attempt at withdrawing moeny from a no-English ATM. I'm not sure what I did, but I didn't get any money. We spent the late afternoon havig drinks on the garden roof of a local Mall while we waited fr the parade to start.

The parade was pretty cool. Giant floats with brightly lit paper lanterns of dragons and elephants and Buddahs. Some of them shot out fire or smoke and some moved. Tens of thousends of people carrying lanterns of every shape, including boots, umbrellas and fish. Drummers, performers, dancers, monks and children most in traditional outfits. Everyone in the parade got excited when they saw our friend Eric and wanted to give him their lanterns. (We think that it might be because he's bald like the monks.) After watching the parade for a couple of hours we decided to go get some yummy Korean BBQ. Brendan and I caught the last subway train home and made it back by 12:30. Luckily, my school is having sports day today, so no teaching for me!

Baby monks!

Inside Jogseoyo Templa

Outside of the temple

This really says "Korea" to me. The old and the new.

Some lantern carriers getting ready for the parade wearing traditional Hanbok dress.

Look at all of the lanterns!

Paying tribute to Buddah.

Adjumma bowing to "Mario Kart" Buddah.

Ramblings

So, Kelly joined Hot Yoga last week. They blast the heat at 105+ and pump in steam during each 1.5 hour session. Sounds like a blast, I know. As for me, I joined a gym last week. I paid for 3 months, as did Kelly. They gave me a good discount; I’m assuming because now that they have a white member, they have a whole lot more street cred. I do have the best (only) beard at the place, so that’s nice.

Speaking of beards, I’ve been growing mine out since the Philippines (Feb.). I got my haircut today (had no school because it’s our school’s “birthday”). The dude gave me a half decent cut, except, apparently, he’d never had a client with a beard. He took my sideburns down to the skin. Now my disconnected beard just pops out of no where, and it isn’t that much shorter than the hair on the top of my head. I wasn’t really that conscious of having beard and having people stare prior to this, but, today, oh my! Feels like I just arrived based on the stares, snickers, and dropped jaws.

And here are some pictures of us at a Korean baseball game:

Fan Death

With spring under way and it finally getting warm in Seoul, now feels like an appropriate time to warn you of a (almost) silent killer of which many probably are not even aware.

For years Koreans have been conscious of a deadly threat that no other society has discovered: fan death! The government controlled media reports on deaths by fan periodically, and an average of 10 Koreans die by the blades of electric fans per year.

So what’s the actual cause of death? People sticking their face into the blades? Nope. It happens when people fall asleep with the fan running in an enclosed room. There’s no consensus, but here are some of the theories of how the fans kill:

• The fans create a vortex that sucks the air from the room and creates a vacuum inside.
• The fan chops up the oxygen particles.
• The ELECTRIC fan uses up the oxygen and creates carbon dioxide.
• The fan sucks away all the oxygen if aimed at the face.

Consider yourself warned, and I hope you do all you can to prevent yourselves from falling prey to this menacing household appliance.

On a totally unrelated note, since boarding up Kelly’s windows, its quite stuffy in her apartment, so I took the liberty to purchase 6 fans for her that are running 24/7.

At Long last... The Philippines Part III

Brendan's "giddy for tiger prawns" face

Best restaurant in The Philippines: El Nido Corner. Not a bad view either.

Best pizza of my short life.

How about some snorkeling?

We took a day trip around the islands. Here the boat guys are fixing some lunch for us.

Our boat.

Check Out the reflection.

Brendan calls these the cliffs of insanity.

Our hotel room, nicest one of the trip.

Our view

Our friend Jason looking like he's on fire or something.

Our room was on the second floor on the left.
So beautiful. The Japanese owner used to live in Reston. Go figure.

A man and his dog.