Happy Birthday Buddha!

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Last week was Buddha's birthday so my friend Dawn and I headed out to the Cheonggyecheon to partake in the lantern celebration. The Cheonggyecheon, is a stream through the middle of Seoul, it has a great history of being a Royal washing place, a meeting spot for seperated families after the Korean war, then a dangerous shanty town. After all of that the Korean govt decided to build a highway over it to prevent all of the homeless people from living there. Later after realizing how much the highway was polluting the once beautiful stream, they decided to make it a clean nice place for Koreans and foreigners to gather. History lesson aside, it is really great, they light it up at night and during the day children take off their shoes and splash about. For Buddha's birthday they put up huge, larger than life lanterns. Dawn and I had a great time walking around in the sunshine taking pictures of the lanterns and the Korean children. We then walked around the famous Jongno tower, and Insadong. I can't believe I will soon leave Korea, it has really become my home. Yes this is a differnt reaction than you would have gotten in the winter, but lets face it, I hate the cold! This weekend Jason and I went out to Ganghwa Island in the pouring rain and hiked up Mani mountian. We then ate the most amazing food. We had my favorites, seafood/veggie pancakes, make your own bipimbap, fish, tofu soup, and this gingery rice wine drink called dong dong ju. It was so great! Now I only have one more week of work then Im off to South East Asia. Ill put up some pics of the lantern festival and Ganghwa, sorry that the dinner picture is dark! Anyeong hi gyesayo!

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Photos

Jason at dinner
Im not really sure what he is doing...