Jinju Lantern Festival

Last weekend Svein and I decided to head over to Jinju for the Lantern Festival.  The floating of lanterns down the Namgang River in Jinju takes place every October and symbolizes the military efforts during the battles between Korea and Japan. Korean soldiers used to fly lanterns high into the sky and along the river in order to communicate with other Koreans soldiers outside the area.

So, Saturday morning we jumped on a bus for only 7,000\ (about $7) and traveled 1.5 hours to Jinju for the festival. Once there, we decided to roam around the Jinju Fortress, which gave us some amazing views of the city. We also decided to tour around the silk factory store where we saw quite a few beautiful silk pieces.

Scattered along the riverbank we found many little vendors selling various types of food and knick knacks.  Although most of what we found under the tents was more or less dollar store items, we were lucky to have stumbled upon this place for it had begun to downpour the second we stepped inside. As the rain continued to collect ontop of the tents, the street vendors felt it as necessary to empty this rainwater into the middle of the tent and splash the unfortunate bystanders. It was quite interesting to watch as the tent vendors expressed no empathy for those getting drenched in water.

By this time it was starting to get dark, so we headed down to ooh and ahh at the bright and colourful lanterns on the Namgang river. The colours of the lanterns seemed to pop out against the black sky, which really made for a stunning display.

We also decided to create our own lantern at one of the lantern making tents. We decided to stick to a basic lantern design as we were told lantern making could take quite some time. So, the following picture is Svein with our lantern in one of the very cool lantern tunnels at Jinju.

Thankfully they were kind enough to let us take our lantern home, instead of hanging it at the festival! So, now our lantern has become a nice new addition to our home decor!