21 May marked Buddha's Birthday here in South Korea. So, the week prior is filled with a diverse flavour of Buddhism fun. Celebrated as joyously as Jesus's birthday, Buddha's birthday holds a deep tradition including lantern-making, temple stays and visits, bland monk food eating, and nonstop partying, old-school Korean dancing, traditional costume wearing, and playing an annoying high-pitched horn that splits your eardrums.
The Lotus Lantern Festival, Buddhist Street Festival, begins with a bunch of walking around testing all the cultural activities and events. Also, taking note of the copious amounts of monks that crawled out of their temple, shook off their meditations for a day, and hung out, ate, and jumped rope.
By night, all the lanterns are lit up, and you have an amazing array of beautiful lights streaming through a parade. Though, I didn't make the parade...I was too busy drinking makkoli and eating sam-gyup-sal with friends.
But, we did make it to the after party...which was basically where the lantern parade ended and we drunkenly took massive amounts of pictures with the fire-breathing lanterns. This day, from early afternoon to near midnight, was exciting. Fun. Colorful.
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