Lotus Latern Festival 2007

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***It seems like Korea has tons of festivals throughout the year! I highlighted some of the ones I wanted to see while living here. One of those was the Lotus latern festival. Truthfully; because all the pictures I've seen are so pretty and I had to see it myself! I'm not a follower in Budha but I can respect the idea of world peace. I even put of going on a free trip to Japan to see it!!

It did not disappoint at all. We took the subway after researching the events and location on the internet. Fairly easy to get to. We arrived early before the parade as we thought there would be no a huge crowd. We walked up to the temple and the kids recieved free cotton candy from a vendor by the entrace. I noticed all the children seemed to be treated so kind during the festival. All the latern haging in the courtyard was so clorful and pretty. I think the little pieces of papers are prayers hanged by people wanting a blessing from Budha. We peeked inside the temple but I was weary about going in and taking pictures of the huge golden statues. I didn't want to be disrespectful towards their culture just for my amusement. There were huge plates of fruit everywhere by the foot of the statues as offerings. It was awesome to look at.

After peeking in the temple I bought a small lotus flower lantern to hang up at home (It's still in the bag in a box :o) Had I know that my son was going to be loaded up with lanterns from the parade I would have past on the purchase. It seemed that alot of older people would step out the parade and ask him to take their lantern then rub their hands all around his face and head. ( I wonder if my sons huge round head means luck or something?) Someone enlighten me if it does!
** The laterns in the parade are made of wire and paper. Some have small battery lights others are plain old candles glued to a tin foil plate. The work that went into the lanterns were incredible and diffrent countries were there as well. After the parade we walked around to realize they just throw away those lanterns on the side of the street at the end! So save your money if you go and want a lantern, just wait until the end of the parade! However riding the subway back with the laterns was a task! However we did get stopped alot once we returned to our area by the house, people asking us where we got them from...someone even offered to buy them from us but we refused (only because the kids would cry!!)***

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Photos

Children in parade
so adorable!

Comments

[michele lutz]

Beautiful!
Wow! The lanterns are so pretty! It is amazing to see how they make some very intricate things. That would've been very cool to have seen that parade. Thanks for sharing the pictures. I feel like I was there.