Lanterns and a Happy Buddha Birthday

I lucked out because I happened to be in Seoul while the city was having festivities in honor of Buddha’s birthday, which I guess is this week. The celebrations involve thousands, perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands of lanterns all over the city. The lanterns are in the shape of lotus flowers. In the afternoon I participated in an event where they taught foreigners how to make lanterns. It was lots of fun and I won a prize because my lantern rocked. In the evening there was a parade of lotus lanterns. It was possibly the longest parade I have ever seen. It consisted almost entirely of people carrying lanterns. People in traditional Korean dress carrying lanterns. Buddhist monks carrying lanterns. Small children carrying lanterns. College students carrying lanterns. Elderly people being pushed in wheelchairs carrying lanterns. Very small children being pushed in strollers carrying lanterns. More people in traditional dress. More monks. You get the idea. Occasionally a cool lit up statue of Buddha or a dragon or something similar would come by. I watched the parade for 2 hours and there were still lanterns as far back as the eye could see. There was no sign that it would end any time soon. People also passed out little lanterns to the people watching the parade, so that even the sidelines had a neat effect of lots of lights. I took lots of parade pictures, so here are a few of them, along with my own lantern and other lanterns around town.