This Must Be the Place: 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!