Lantern Festival

On Sunday, Insadong hosted its yearly Lantern Festival in celebration of this weekend's Buddha's Birthday holiday. There were events all day long, but we were too tired from our weekend of Penis Park-ing to spend the whole day in Insadong. We did, however, get to the area around 6pm to grab some front row seats to watch an epic parade.

There were lots of guards posted along the street to make sure there was no funny business during the parade (and Korea's public drinking laws ensured that there was lots of funny business). This sad character didn't even turn his head to look at the floats. So many seriousness!

The parade lasted for two hours and was full of people carrying lanterns, playing drums, and a bunch of giant, lit-up floats. The people in the parade (and there must have been five thousand people participating) were VERY happy to be in the parade. They were smiling, waving, singing, dancing and Annyong-ing the crowd with great enthusiasm.

Here's some pictures from the parade:





There was even a few fire-breathing dragons! So sweet:

Near the end of the parade a kind ajumma gave Mel her lantern to take home, so we hung it up in our apartment. It was definitely a cool parade... I'd for sure recommend checking it out if you're in Seoul when this event is going on next year.