Lotus Lantern Festival and North Seoul Tower

I had an awesome day this past weekend. It had been a long week and I was looking forward to getting to go out and do something touristy.

One thing I was really looking forward to when I first came to Korea was seeing the Lotus Lantern Festival. I was really upset when I had to work on the night of the parade (boo) so I was determined to get to the festival itself on Sunday. I know, I shouldn't make a habit of doing my touristy stuff on Sunday. It's a bad habit I've been getting into that I need to stop...

The festival did NOT disappoint. It was a beautiful day out and as soon as Tara and I got out of the Subway station we were greeted with some of the weekend festivities. We came out near the big statue of the man who created the Korean writing system (which, by the way, it totally amazing) and there were some people setting up to do a dance of some kind. It was very pretty.



The directions I found online for the festival were a little vague so we just decided to head towards tents we saw in the distance. Along the way we saw some kids taking advantage of the beautiful weather and jumping fountains. It looked like fun. :)



We got to the tents and saw a walking 100 won piece! It was exciting.



This turned out to be the Hi Seoul Festival and it was celebrating all the different countries that are represented in the Seoul population. I got really excited to see Mongolia there. They were totally making khuushuur like I made with my old roomy Nasa!! I was so excited.



We walked around for a while and got TONS of free stuff: brochures galore, a little bank, dental floss, a notebook, candy, two fans, coupons, and a battery powered back massager. We even got our hair styled for free! It was a booth advertising a salon that caters to foreigners.



Tara joked around with the owner a lot and he loved it. Tara is so funny. Man, I love hanging out with that girl.



While I was getting my hair done, this old guy was taking pictures of us. It was funny. The owner took a ton of pictures of us with the stylist.



We got pictures with these awesome representatives of Seoul. Tara called them "Power Rangers... but not really."



Then we met this random guy, Chris. I had seen his blog when I first got to Korea so it was really funny to run into this guy. He ended up taking us along to the actual Lotus Lantern Festival (you know... the whole reason we came out there in the first place).



The festival itself was a lot fun. So much to see! I liked this: it was made of colored eggs! How neat is that?



You could sit down and make your own little paper lantern if you wanted. It took too long so I just bought a little lantern. I need to find a nice place to hang it up,



Giant jenga!!



Tara sat down and did a meditation exercise with these representatives from a Buddhist temple. You were supposed to sit and concentrate on how many times she hit this little wooden block. Tara was off by only one number. The kid next to her got it right... oh well!



I love the flowers in this! They had this set up so you could bow and pour water over a statue's head. I'm guessing it was some sort of ceremony because of Buddha's birthday.



These priests were making a design completely out of colored sand! Isn't it pretty?



These are some examples of some of the actual "lotus lanterns" that were up and around. I love the shape! They are so neat looking. I got me a little pink one. :)



I love how the lanterns in this picture look like the canopy of the tree. Isn't that beautiful? I can only imagine how much work it took to hang all this up.



Gorgeous colors...



Chris was nice enough to take a picture of Tara and I standing in front of one of the lanterns that was in the parade the night before. That thing is made out of PAPER, peoples!!



After walking around the festival, we just started meandering. Along the way we saw this insane statue of two naked men head butting. A bit awkward.



More random statues... Peter Pan! I'm not sure who the gold statue is but Tink was standing on the other side.



This one is even more random: the girl from the Peter Pan sequel! Whaaaat? Captain Hook is looking at Peter Pan kind of strange, too.



I think this is the best explanation for why they had the Peter Pan statues. This was a little cafe thing that was fairy tale themed with Snow White and her seven dwarfs! How cool is that?



Somehow we ended up in Myungdung. Random. Somehow my weekends always end up in that area of town.

Tara ended up leaving in the early evening and Chris and I headed up to North Seoul Tower. We hiked up to the cable cars that took us up the mountain to the tower itself!



And then my camera ran out of batteries. Very upsetting. It was a really neat place to be. There are these observation decks with little locks all over them that people have put there. It's really neat. You could see out over almost the whole city! It was such a nice view.

The elevator ride was also really awesome. They made the wait for it seem less tedious with this "magic light wall" and a big screen TV in the ceiling of the elevator that showed a little video timed perfectly so when you reached a certain point in outer space (haha) the doors opened. Very reminiscent of a Disneyland where everything is set up to look really cool.

I will definitely be taking my sister there when she comes to visit. It was great. :)

Overall a fun weekend. The tower was kind of random and I ended up not getting any of the research and development work done that I had planned to do that evening (oops) so I had to do that on Monday. No fun. I am very excited for this term to be over. It has been a tough one. My schedule being rearranged, random days off, it's just seemed like a really long term. Although, once it's over, that will mean I only have one term left! 3 months! I can't believe my year is almost up.