Happy Birthday, Buddha

Buddha is a pretty important guy here in Asia. This past Friday was his birthday, which means no school.Yahhooo! :) Every year in his honor, the Buddhist people of Seoul put on a lantern festival. It is an amazing, colorful festival full of food, arts/crafts, and culture. It is SUPER crowded, but that is nothing new here in Seoul. You just get used to it, or pretend and have a good attitude. The festival ends with a lantern parade. It is a stunning parade of lanterns, lights, monks, and buddhist people in traditional Korean clothing called hanboks. Unfortunately, the people in the parade walked very fast and my "seats" forced me to stand on my tippy-toes (which I am VERY good at) to take a photo. I did my best for you. I hope I met your standards. It was a great day. I saw more foreigners there than I have ever seen in Seoul. It is very strange that I get weirded out when I see a lot of people who are "similar" to me. You get used seeing mostly Koreans everyday. When I go to the popular western areas of Seoul, I tend to stare more at the foreigners than Koreans. It's very strange. Oh Korea, what have you done to me.

The figures are all made out of lantern paper. I'm not sure how they did it, but they were unbelievably cool to see. The pictures don't them justice.









My lotus lantern that a women gave me.

At a temple in the traditional area of Seoul. The women we prepping to start the parade.




Inside the temple. This is the only day that they really allow cameras inside the temple. I felt like a jerk, but all the foreigners were doing it too, so I HAD to do it! :) This is a pretty common sight inside every temple. The Buddha statues are always gold. There are usually gifts upon the alter which are offerings to him. This all seems silly to me. If you know anything about Buddha's message, it seems like it would be the opposite of what he wanted or thought was important. However, I am not Buddhist, so I probably don't understand.



"the man of the hour"

This little girl looks thrilled to be in the parade. :)


People wrote their wishes/prayers for the new year. Can you spot mine? 3 languages. Pretty awesome, if you ask me! It doesn't matter where you come from or who you are, everyone has similar wishes/prayers. We aren't as different as we think.

Happy Birthday Erin, Rachel, Darin, and Pete (in no particular order)!!!!! Hope you have/had an amazing day!!!!<3