Seoul Lotus Lantern Festival

Early in the morning on Saturday the 15th, I headed up to Seoul for the Lotus Lantern Festival. Unfortunately I don't know many details about the festival's history or how it started, but it's an annual event held one week prior to Buddha's birthday (Buddha's birthday is a national holiday in Korea and was on Friday, May 21st this year. We had the day off from school). My impression is that the Lantern Festival sort of kicks off Buddha's birthday celebrations.

The Festival was huge - there was a set schedule with different things going on all weekend. It centered around Bong-eun-sa Temple and the Insadong neighborhood. There was a small 'Festival's Eve Celebration' parade on Saturday night, a Buddhist Street Festival all day Sunday (lots of arts and crafts, food, traditional performances, and Buddhists from all over the word) and the main event, the Lantern Parade, on Sunday night before the Closing Celebration. Everything was beautiful, of course; it was the probably the most colorful festival I've seen yet. I won't bother trying to describe it, just look at my pictures! They also really catered to foreigners - besides the English-language website, there were English-speaking volunteers swarming around with pamphlets and suggestions for things to do and places to go. And at the street festival there were a few tents just for foreigners to do stuff like make your own lotus lantern.

Saturday night I stayed in a hanok - a traditional Korean living area, usually with a courtyard and the ondol underfloor heating system. They're sort of an endangered species now, but in Seoul there's a really beautiful neighborhood of hanok, called the Bukchon Hanok Village. I highly recommend it - I stayed there overnight, at the Seoul Guesthouse, and also rented a bike on Sunday morning and pedaled around taking pictures.

I was completley exhausted by the end of the weekend; I had to check out of the Guesthouse early and had just walked around all day Sunday. Also, I've been trying to save money and I had to work Monday morning, so I took the late night slow train back to Daegu and arrived home around 3am....just in time to get four hours of sleep and teach five classes on Monday!

You can see my pictures from the festival here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kristin.laufenberg/SeoulLotusLanternFestival?feat=directlink

My camera doesn't take very good pictures at night (plus I have no idea what I'm doing with it) so I tried making videos instead. They didn't turn out very well either but you should be able to get the general idea!