Festivals

So this week has been crazy. Thursday was Cinco de Mayo in the States, while here in good ol' South Korea, it was Children's Day. Plus, this week is Hi Seoul Festival. And instead of Mother's Day is Parents' Day. Tuesday is Buddha's Birthday. After a church meeting Saturday night we attempted to make the most of everything. Hunny and I subwayed ourselves over to the River/Stream across from the Palace and got to see the art work and even a mist light show. Farther down, in the river were these lantern statues. They were lanterns that were shaped into different figures like a rabbit or a palace. Above the river we heard loud activities going on and decided to check it out. It was a lantern parade. There were floats made from huge sculptures of lanterns. One was a gigantic elephant. And Koreans dressed in traditional attire carrying lantern balls. It was fun. After a while they opened the streets and a concert started on stage. Hunny and I left since, first off it was SO loud and second, it didn't help that the noise pounded into us was all in Korean. So we meandered down the street and saw the brightly decorated Buddhist Temple. There was a ceiling of lantern lights and the tree that went through it had lanterns all along the branches. They were giving out free lanterns everywhere you turned.

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In the temple were three huge golden statues of Buddha and you could go in and bow. On the outside was a small fountain with a statue of Buddha sitting on the water where you could pour water on him. It was a neat experience to watch the celebration. We weren't sure if it was a festival of lanterns, Hi Seoul related, or if it was to celebrate Buddha's Birthday. Either way, we enjoyed ourselves and were glad we could see it.

So on Sunday, after District Conference we ate a picnic lunch at a park that was holding a Seoul Friendship Festival and looked around after eating. The part we saw was a line of stands from all sorts of different countries around the world. They called it around the world in two days because it was a 2-day event. After that we subwayed ourselves over to Yeouido where we discovered most of the events for the Hi Seoul Festival were taking place. It all made for a long day but we had fun.