Jinju Lantern Festival - LIGHTS, Batman and a rickety ol' bridge!

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Double Shot Coffee in One Hand, Camera in the Other – I was armed, ready and dangerously excited for the Namgang Lantern Festival in Jinju, South Korea.

Our thoughts were gathered on the long subway ride from our home near Haeundae Beach to Sasang Subway Station – where we switched transport modes to hope on a bus bound for Jinju. It takes about an hour to reach Jinju from Busan. As we neared closer, I saw foreigners, and big balloons high in the sky, and thought this definitely seemed like the kind of place for this festival.





As we entered the festival the smell of squid, barbecue chicken and pork, seafood, and other “can’t quite describe” aromas filled our nostrils. I grabbed for my camera as we were treated to a display of pink and purple squid with their long, gangly, tentacles being thrown onto hot rocks to spit and smoke and cook away. There were bugs of some description boiling in a huge pot, as well as chestnuts, pigs on spits sans their heads, tiny peasants with carrot shoved in their mouths, delicious lollies, smoking hot crab, and the most shocking sight of all – a shark's fin!



In the daytime, it was hard to do the lanterns’ justice - they looked more like life-size puppets to me! There was a giant hand, stars, a giant horse and apple, indescribable shapes dancing, and two mesmerizing cat lanterns.



As the sun began to set, the lanterns came alive. The first we saw was a sea of striking red flowers, lighting up just as the sun descended from the sky. The tiny bits of yellow on these flowers shone on the water, and acted as a prequel to the night’s most amazing lanterns.



A tunnel of blue and red lanterns broke the day into night, and people strolled, and took pictures, and hugged and kissed each other inside this cocoon of lanterns all strung together. Ribbons hang off the lanterns and swayed, almost sadly, to the slight breeze of the night.



The water looked as black as tar – bringing attention to the magnificent lanterns bobbing away on the surface. There was an Egyptian style mummy, a pink and green dragon, wild beasts, people fencing, Beauty and the Beast characters, Little Mermaid characters, and much more! The giant mummy was my favourite.



A striking memory I have, aside from the lanterns is the rickety old bridge you have to cross to get from one side of the festival to the other. This bridge, as my friend so elegantly described it is “how we walk when we've had a few too many”. If you go next year, you’ll get a chance to experience this bridge. Brace yourself!



Venturing further, we came to a selection of hand-made lanterns, each one with its own particular style. There was a Pororo the Penguin (an amazingly popular Korean cartoon), as well as lanterns featuring pictures of the world, all areas of Korean life, old Korean customs, and each one contained its own special little message.



Once we came away from the water, and our journey was coming to an end, we were treated to yet another display of amazing life-size lanterns, this time in the shape of peoples’ most favourite characters from comics, cartoons and TV shows. There was a gigantic transformer lantern, teletubbies (yes, all four of them), superman, and my personal favourite Batman – who looked ready to come alive and save the earth should it need saving TONIGHT! I spied a small Korean boy staring up at this gigantic creation, and he appeared so pale in comparison to the mighty Batman.

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