Lotus Lantern Festival

This year Buddha's Birthday fell on a Saturday. It's a big deal in Korea, and had it fallen on a weekday, it would have been a day off for most Koreans. The celebration begins a few weeks earlier with people all over the country hanging lotus lanterns in the city, and especially near Buddhist temples, to remind people that it's coming. There is a Lotus Lantern Festival the weekend before, which I attended with several of my friends.

The main event for the festival was on Sunday April 26th, so I canceled my Korean class for the week and headed out late Sunday morning for Seoul. I had planned to meet up with friends later in the afternoon, but I got there around noon, so I wandered around to look at the area by myself.

A mass of lanterns in Tapgol Park in Insadong, in front of the remains of the Wongak Temple.

I wandered through Tapgol Park, and discovered that the station I got off at was an easy walk to Insadong - the ancient cultural tourist trap where I purchased all my traditional Christmas presents last year. I came across some ajumas making mini lotus lanterns for donations.

The ajumas hard at work making mini lanterns outside Tapgol park.

There was a woman standing near the ajumas, trying to get people to buy the lanterns for only 1000 won (about a dollar). She pointed to the sign that she had written, which said something to the effect of "meals will provide to men are old". I was able to tell the woman, in Korean, that I understood what she was asking for, but that her sign didn't make sense in English. So I offered to write her a new one. I wanted to write something along the lines of "The donations you give to purchase a lantern will go towards purchasing meals for older men", but it was too far away from the original sign. So this is what she ended up with:

Photo courtesy of a Chris Chien, who I didn't see at all that day, but who saw my sign later on that day and thought it was awesome enough to take a picture of.

She seemed very pleased, and after I gave her 1000 won for a lantern, she gave me another for free as a thank you. At this point I headed back to the subway station to meet up with Kathryn. Kathryn and I chatted over chaumchi-kimchi-jiggae (tuna and kimchi stew - yummy!) in the Jongno area.

Kathryn took a picture of me in Topgol park with my two lanterns, which I later lost.

I took Kathryn through the same areas I had been, and we went through Insadong as well. We had forgotten it was the Hi Seoul Festival as well, and we came across these lovely dancers, who broke out into dance in the middle of the very crowded street:

And right after the dancing, I ran into one of my students from my morning classes and his mom. She spoke no English at all, and he knew no English two months ago when he started, so communication was rather difficult. I had to explain to the rather worried looking mother that I was his English teacher, and not just some random foreigner talking to her son. She indicated with her hand for us (myself and Kathryn) to follow her, and then she proceeded to walk away, without a glance back to see if we were following, or even if her son was still with her. She ended up buying us a box each of some traditional Korean spun sugar candy (that I also lost later on in the evening), but it was a good distance away from where we had been and the whole time Kathryn and I were watching her son to make sure he didn't wander off and wondering where she was taking us, and even if she had meant for us to follow.

Little wooden statue men in Insadong. They're traditional, and I have no idea why.

After wandering around we went for coffee, but apparently it hit Kathryn wrong and she said she needed to go home just as James and Dayna got to the station to meet us. So James, Dayna and I went to look at the festival.

The first part we saw was an area with a bunch of tents that had everything from grinding your own coffee, to painting hanji paper crafts and meditating with monks.

Well-Being is Korea's version of the health craze. This is Well-Being Yoga. With plates.

Dayna talking about fair trade practices while grinding her own coffee.

The coolest version of double dutch I've ever seen. Look closely, and you can see the ropes form a cross that the person is jumping over. So you need 4 people to hold the ropes instead of just 2.

The penultimate Jenga game.

After wandering through the street of tents and such, we ended up at Jogyesa, which is the largest Buddhist shrine in Seoul and the headquarters of the Jogye sect.

The entrance to Jogyesa, which was overly adorned with lanterns. We thought they might have spelled something with the colors, but we couldn't tell for sure.

More lanterns just inside the entrance, with the seven-tired pagoda in the background to the left of the tree.

How can you take a scolding seriously when your mom is wearing a lotus on her head?

The white lanterns are hung for relatives or friends who have passed on.

The architecture of the temple was amazing- even the doors were beautiful.

A happy Buddha statue at the temple, seemingly asking you for money.

We stayed at the temple for a while, and watched a performance with dancers from the traditional Hahoe masked dance, though it wasn't the original dance itself but rather just the characters from it. After the dancing we met up with some other friends, who had just had dinner. We recommended to them that they watch the performance, and then Dayna, James and I went to get something to eat.

Girls in Hanbok, traditional Korean clothing, waiting for something.

James knew a small place in a back alley in Insadong that served home-made mandu (dumplings) that was delicious.

My favorite Korean food - steamed mandu.

After dinner we headed back to the main street by the Jongno subway station, which is where the lotus lantern parade was to be held.

Lining up waiting to start the parade

It started drizzling right around this time, and since the sun was going down it got rather chilly as well. We decided to move from where we were to get a better view, so we switched to the other side of the street. And before we saw anything, we heard this:

The parade was fascinating. I sat next to James the entire two hours, and we talked about all the different floats, people, and just random weird stuff that kept passing by us. After the parade was over, we headed to the subway to go home, at which point I realized I'd left my bag with my lanterns, my candy, and my brochures under my seat by the parade route. But it was late, I was cold, and I just wanted to go home, so I didn't go back for them.

Here are the photographic and video highlights from the parade:

I tried to catch the peacock on film while it was breathing fire, but it didn't want to cooperate.

Up and coming events and such...

It's amazing how quickly my life here went from rather boring day-to-day (though granted fascinating on the weekends), to a rather full and scheduled existence. I now have plans 5 days a week - Sunday through Thursday I have something scheduled to do after work, from meeting with friends to Korean lessons. And of course on Friday and Saturday I'm usually with friends out and about in Seoul or Uijeongbu (not Oingo-Boingo!). This week/weekend will be no different - I had a lesson this evening, I go into Seoul tomorrow for my movie night, Wednesday is lunch with friends, Thursday is another lesson, and then this Saturday starts the Yeiodo Cherry Blossom Festival. I'll probably end up going into Seoul on Saturday morning, taking tons of pictures, meeting some friends that moved to Seoul for lunch, and then on to a rooftop party elsewhere in Seoul to see some people I haven't seen since the last rooftop party in October. And of course I have to be back home by Sunday night for another Korean lesson.

I'm also making small preparations to come back home. I'm looking into other jobs in Seoul to come back to in August or September (I've found a possible one that I'm praying I get - it's everything I wanted in a new job and the pay is amazing!), and trying to set dates and such for coming back. The current plan is to leave Korea at the end of June and be in the States around June 27th or 28th and fly into Georgia since my parents will be there for the summer. So any friends who may live in the Raleigh/Durham area - make a note on your calendar - I'd love to see you again! And then it's back down to Florida for a Bahamas cruise with the family, and catching up with friends in Tampa, Gainesville and Boca before it's time to fly back to the ROK.

A very accurate view of life as a foreigner in Korea - those pizza guys go 90mph on the sidewalk when the road is completely empty.

Spring and cleaning

I wasn't really doing a "Spring Cleaning" yesterday, per-sey; I was really just giving my apartment its much needed once-over. I usually do all of my cleaning on the weekends, as I'm tired when I get home from work and can't be bothered with silly things like laundry, dishes, and sweeping. So I let it pile up all week until the weekend, at which point it bothers me so much that I have to clean it all up. But for the last three weeks or so I've either been out of my apartment the entire weekend, or unable for whatever reason to actually clean it. Aside from the fact that my dishes had been sitting in the sink for way too long, I had never actually cleaned my apartment when I moved in.

Unlike back home in the States, where when you move in to a new place, it's assumed or required that it's either been cleaned thoroughly by the previous occupant or cleaned professionally by a service; in Korea you often have to clean up the mess left by the previous tenant yourself. Thankfully the person who used to live here is a friend of mine, but that didn't mean that he did all the cleaning that could have been done.

Don't get me wrong, it was clean, but there were a few dust bunnies hiding in the corners when I moved in. I've slowly watched them grow over the past few months. I try to clean them up when they become noticeable, but they seem to sprout suddenly and from nowhere. I got it into my head this weekend that I would clean behind the couch, under the bed, behind the table, and anywhere else I had noticed that they seemed to creep from. So with broom and dying dust-buster in hand, I attacked the floors underneath my furniture on Saturday, after a much needed morning spent sleeping in. What I found under my furniture can hardly be described. There is a huge difference between the dust that slowly settles on immobile furniture, such as the screen of your tv, and the rather hideous collection of dust that was hiding in my apartment.

These were not dust bunnies so much as a coven of dust rabbits that had been procreating like rabbits tend to do for the last three months. The amount of dust I collected completely filled a small trash can (you know, the size you can fit behind the toilet in the bathroom). And it wasn't until after I had completed my mission and was enjoying a cup of coffee and feeling rather accomplished that I realized not only had I inhaled a rather large amount of dust and was now beginning to cough, but that I had a face mask specifically designed to protect you from just that sort of thing and I hadn't worn it. So now I have a clean apartment, and an annoying cough.

But something that makes me even happier than a clean apartment is the onset of spring. I had gone four days this week without bringing my coat to work, which made me think that winter was just about over. It wasn't until I saw a tree on my way to work with tiny pink buds that I thought it might actually be spring. The next day they were no longer buds, but tiny pink flowers, and then on Friday they were in full bloom, so I left a little early for work to take pictures.

There were white flowers

and pink ones

on the same tree.

I'm fascinated by the changing of the seasons, as it's something that's barely noticeable in Florida. Watching trees blossom, or their leaves slowly change color from day to day, is a fascinating process as beautiful to me as the snow. I suppose if I had grown up with it I may feel different, as the beach holds little to no interest for me now. But I'm thankful that I can still find beauty, fascination, and pleasure in the simple natural things around me.

Kosu Cave, Chungju Lake, and Dodamsambong

This Sunday I went on a trip to Kosu Cave in the Chungcheongbuk Province, which is south of me.Picture courtesy of Adventure Korea.

I had to be out of my house by 5:30am to get to the bus on time, and I was actually running late, so I wasn't able to ride the subway with Stephanie, who came as well. The bus took about two hours to get to Chungju Lake, which was created by the Chungju Dam.

We boarded the ferry on the right that's partially cut off.

The ferry ride was about two hours, and was clipping along at about 22 knots. We changed ferries about halfway through.



I was fascinated by the scenery, as a lot of it was striated rock. I was trying to have an intelligent conversation with Steph about igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rock, but I could barely remember the difference. We had the same type of discussion when we went to the art gallery - "I know I learned this in school, my mother would be very dissapointed that I can't remember it."


The second ferry that we boarded was bigger, and you could go outside to take pictures - the other one was pretty much completely enclosed.

A sign on the second ferry. Gotta love the English translations...

We got off at a rest-stop type area, and took a few pictures before heading back to the bus to be moved to the cave.

Stephanie and I in front of the scenery

Kosu cave is semi-famous, not for anything in particular, but I guess there aren't many caves like it in Korea. It reminded me a lot of Carlsbad Caverns, though not quite so... cavernous. It was actually very close quarters at times, and you were often holding onto the cave walls so you wouldn't fall off the steps.

The entrance to the cave. It can be pronounced Kosu or Gosu.

I won't put the massive amount of pictures that I took inside the cave on here; a lot of them were very similar. It was really interesting though, and about 11 degrees C (59F) inside the cave.

Most of the cave looked like this, and it was such close quarters that you could touch the walls.

I saw a bat! It was really dark, so it's rather impressive that I saw it at all. It was so close I could have touched it! Everyone else started taking pictures of it, too. But I saw it first...

This is my favorite picture from inside the cave. There was lots of water.

The "path" split at one point, and you could take the upper one (which Stephanie did) or the lower one (which I did).

Me and the cave.

Stephanie playing with the pool of water.

A rather strange flea-market type set-up outside the cave selling souvenirs. Why a toy gun would be an appropriate souvenir for a cave, I'll never know.

After the cave we went to Dodamsambong, which means "three weird rocks on the river". Which is exactly what it is. I don't think they'd be as impressive except there's a gazebo on one of them. How they built it there, and how you're supposed to get to it, I have no idea.

Dodamsambong

A better shot of the gazebo. So cool looking!

Some people went climbing up a nearby hill/mountain (depending on where you're from. For me, it was mountain) to see the Stone Gate.

An appropriate name. It's a stone bridge, which looks like it could be an entrance to something.

A view of Dodamsambong from the top of the Stone Gate

Stephanie's on top of the world! Or just the top of the Stone Gate.

We climbed over the "do not enter" sign (it was in Korean - I plead ignorance!) and walked to the top of the Stone Gate. What an awesome view! Though it was a bit scary since you could barely fit two people side by side, and there was no railings, so it was very easy to imagine yourself falling off (though of course no one did).

On our way back down - the steps were pretty fun!

And that was it, we headed back home afterward. All in all a restful and interesting end to the weekend.