Day 450: Got Lanterns?

So today was the day of one of my favourite festivals in Korea - the Lotus Lantern Festival in celebration of Buddha's Birthday. Big ol' Buddha is turning 2559 this year (that old geezer!) and so the Jogyesa Temple down in Seoul was all decked out in full lantern splendor. I made my way down there with Addie, Katie, and Luke and we promptly signed up for the highlight of the festival - the chance to make your own lantern. We had to wait a while before beginning so we decided to meander through the festival.

We made our way onto the grounds of the temple and walked around staring up - in awe- at the canopy of beautiful multi-coloured lanterns strung in long lines above our heads. So cool! There was a long line of people waiting to get into the temple to pray and give offerings to Buddha, and a massive pyramid of burning candles and incense. We were all each given a pair of lanterns with candles strung out on a long pole that we could use later to march in the parade with if we wanted to. Cool - free stuff is always nice!

We cruised around the festival for a while checking out all the sights. Lots of music and dancing, we each got a henna tattoo and bindi (sp?) on our foreheads, and enjoyed all the throngs of people meandering along the closed-down downtown street. Such a happy, relaxed atmosphere! Eventually the time came to make our lanterns. We sat down under the tent and began our peeling and gluing of the tissue paper onto our naked lantern shells. All the girls whipped through theirs and came out with these truly fabulous lanterns. After a good two hours mine was still incomplete and looking like shit. I'm just so not arts-and-crafty. Ugh. I was determined initially to finish my lantern no matter how sad and pathetic it looked, but eventually just threw in the towel. It was the lantern that just wasn't meant to be, and so I just abandoned the poor thing there under the tent. Maybe someone will come along, finish it off, and give it the love and tenderness that I just never could?

We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out at the festival before getting just a little too tired of the crowds. I also then had to say goodbye to my buddy Luke who had to head back to Chungju. I gave him a hug and handshake goodbye and then he disappeared into the crowds. I'll miss ya buddy! Addie and I then went and had some dinner and had full intentions to check out the parade that night. However, we just weren't feelin' the Buddha vibe anymore, and with still two hours to kill before the parade began, we decided to just pack it in for the night and head back to Ilsan. A busy and full day, but a good one with a lot of good Buddhist juju flowin' all around! :-)