Lately, I've been really busy and haven't posted much, so I want to reconcile this. Here are some photos of the lantern festival and Buddha's birthday (부처님 오신날). By far the coolest thing I've seen in Korea to date.

Sarah and I went to the parade together... and we wanted to make our own lanterns, but the booth closed, so the woman had pity on us and gave us hers. Haha.



There was a big stage that was having some sort of talent show. Entertaining. They had everything from little kids doing traditional dancing and drumming...



...to little kids doing awful sexy dancing to Korean pop songs... (the one in spandex shorts in the middle is actually a boy... really...)



There was also a crazy man in a costume talking about "Dokdo", the island that Japan and Korea are fighting over... a custody battle of sorts.



Then the parade started. Photos didn't really turn out and can't really explain what it felt like, so video might be my best bet. These are pretty great videos.











There were also lots of floats, like this one with women drummers.







The parade was pretty incredible. And the huge stream of people and lanterns went on for a good two hours. Amazing.

That was last Sunday... and today, Friday, Buddha's actual birthday, was the day of the closing ceremony. It was pretty great. I went with Margaret, the new teacher, and it was pretty great.

There were a few monks doing some pretty great drumming on this huge drum in the temple. It was beautiful.



And then there was haunting chanting... and sometimes everyone was singing along.



People were also lighting memorial candles.



And then it was finally dark enough to illuminate the lanterns.



It was just beautiful. The temple was gorgeous with the lanterns, and everyone was thrilled. It was a wonderful experience!