Lantern Parade in Seoul

Every year Seoul celebrates Buddha's birthday with a huge parade and festivities. Actually it is also a national holiday, which is pretty awesome considering that they also take a day off to celebrate Jesus's birthday as well.

The Seoul lantern parade is massive!! It lasts about two hours and just about every group in the city is represented. From hospitals to city sections, there are usually at least 50 people in each group. All of the lanterns are handmade and have a candle lit within them, and they're handed out to people in the crowd at random (including yours truly).

There are of course larger ones that use LED lights. Two of them (a Turtle Warship & a Dragon) even had fire come out of them. It was a very neat parade, although sitting (or standing in order to take photos) for 2 hours is a bit much for this parade. If you have a chance to go, head out 2 hours early to grab a seat on the second floor of a cafe.

The following day there was a street taken up by activity tents. Within them you could make learn how to make lanterns, prayer beads or other types of traditional Korean crafts. Many of these crafts were for free, although a few were for foreigners-only. This is partly because often some of these activities are done by Korean children in school. It's a great experience for any visitor to Korea!