Jinju Lanterns (part two)

After all of the fun of getting to Jinju and getting a hotel we got to get the real fun started. The Jinju Namgang Yudeung Festival, or Jinju Lantern Festival, is one of the best festivals in South Korea according to the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism. It celebrates the two battles that took place there during the Imjin War. The significance of the lanterns is that they represent a successful tactic used against the Japanese to keep them from crossing the river during battle.

In the last post, I mentioned the difference between seeing the lanterns during the day and at night. As we walked from the train station to the hotel, we saw flower lanterns floating on the river.

After we left the hotel room to see the festival those flower lanterns were lit up, as well as the bridge. It changed the entire scene.

Since we didn't have much time we decided to just jump in and see all that we could instead of trying to find specific exhibits. We started out on the river bank closest to our hotel and worked our way toward the fortress. This turned out to be a good choice because it turned out that there were tons of different exhibits there. So many that we spent around two hours just in there and didn't manage to see everything!

The first lanterns within the gates of the fortress were these neat trees and birds. 

What really surprised me was that Soren asked to take a picture with me. Pleasantly surprised but still surprised! 

Now if only Hyrum had been looking in the right direction!

The first major exhibit reflected the nature of the festival. The fortress was "staffed" with lanterns. There were guards posted around to keep us tourists in line and soldiers fighting on the grass.

Soldiers fighting on horseback

A cart to carry away tourists...I mean prisoners. :D

Soldiers lining the steps

Again Soren surprised me by asking for a picture!

 Another of the exhibits was a display of Korean life. It showed many of the traditional tasks that would be performed both in and out of the home.

 We also got to see King Benjamen!!

Aside form all of the lanterns we were also able to see a lot of the old fortress and some cultural dancing.

The tactic that this festival celebrates is how the Koreans used lanterns to light the river so that the Japanese could not cross unnoticed at night. To commemorate this the river is filled with large decorative lanterns for the length of the festival. We only got to see a few of them since we only had one night.

The view down the river

The other major theme of the festival is hope and wishing. We took part in two of the wishing activities. The first activity was to take part in building lanterns made of wishes. Visitors write their wishes on strips of a plastic-like cloth and glue it to a metal frame.  We helped make the green chicken.

We sat down to eat some pineapple and this was the first English wish I could see.

Our green chicken!

One of the other wish lanterns, a brown bull.

A blue snake wish lantern.

The other wish activity we participated in was the floating wish lanterns. Visitors purchase floating lanterns with a candle inside and write their wishes on papers that are then taped to the outside.

Our lantern!

Our wish!

In the next three photos, our lantern is in the bottom right corner.

Floating down the river!

There it goes!

We had a great time and would have loved to stay longer. Alas, Saturdays are only so long.

Jinju Lanterns (part one)

We had been thinking about going to experience some of the festivals around South Korea for a while but for one reason or another we just haven't done it yet. Thursday night I sat down to see the dates for the upcoming Jinju Lantern Festival, one festival that I was really looking forward to, and realized that of the week or so left of the two week festival the only time we would be able to go would be this Saturday (less than 48 hours from the discovery). Luckily Soren agreed that it was something we should do. 

Waiting for the train. Hyrum loved the trains passing by the platform.

Since we don't have a car, we decided to ride the train to and from the festival. Apparently it takes twice as long by train as it does by car but the scenery was beautiful so I don't really feel put out. Also this was my first time on a train unless the one at Disneyland counts. We drove through miles upon miles of farmland with beautiful terracing. 

There were also these beautiful wildflowers that grew along the train tracks for a good portion of the southern end of the trip. I'm not really sure what they are but I like them.

One of the lanterns outside the station.

Once we got to Jinju, we were greeted by the lanterns at the station promoting the festival. They looked neat but didn't, by any means, do justice to the lanterns that we would see later. (It could have been that we saw them when it was light out though.)

Another station lantern

The part of the weekend that I was not looking forward to was making hotel reservations. The train that we took to get to Jinju only goes through town in each direction once per day. It goes north at 9:20am and arrives heading south at 4:30pm. Since we needed to go back north, we would not be able to get another train until Sunday morning (unfortunately meaning we would miss church). At home, hotel reservations are easy. You go to a website and they have all of the hotels for a given are right there; you just have to choose one. Here it's not like that. Only the high-end, business hotels are really listed. The smaller, more affordable hotels are found some other way that I have yet to discover.

We originally made a reservation Thursday night for one of the business hotel since they were listed online and they spoke English. It was more expensive but would have been worth it if they hadn't called the next day, 24 hours before our train left for Jinju, to say that they didn't have any more rooms. Luckily I found a smaller hotel for us that ended up being closer to the main part of the festival for almost half of what the other room would have cost us. Upon arriving though, the clerk at the hotel, through an interpreter, tells us that she is sorry that we made a reservation but they didn't have any more rooms. Eventually she decided that if we came back in about a half hour they would have a room for us and they did. That was a relief. With the crowds on the street, I doubt that the hotel room search would have gone well.

We didn't spend much time in the room but it was nice. It even had a computer for us to use. Hyrum particularly enjoyed the fact that he got to take a bath since all we have is a shower.

When I was removing some of the food we brought with us from the bags, Hyrum decided that it had been too long since we had fed him and that he no longer needed to wait for us to help him. Needless to say he didn't get very far! :D

 
All in all, it was a rough but good start to an amazing trip!

Ribbon Flowers

I'm not a very "crafty" person. I can follow directions but coming up with something on my own is really tough. So I'm not sure where this came from. All of a sudden last week I decided that I wanted to try my had at ribbon flowers. 

It probably had something to do with the fact that the weather is cooling down so I have started wearing my hair down again and wanted to get a hair band. The problem is that hair bands are very expensive, ranging between 6 an 13 dollars. Granted there are some cheaper than that but not many. I guess I just decided to make one.

So I went to the stationary/craft store downtown and bought all of the makings for quite a few headbands and clips. More than I will wear probably.

When I saw the lace for this flower in the store, I knew that it had to be turned into this flower. I am very happy with the results!

This is a hair clip bow that I made

This head band it my favorite. I made it to go with an outfit that I wore for giving a talk in church.

This is probably my next favorite. :D

 

I feel like they turned out pretty well!

My Way of Apologizing

So I haven't posted in a while. Obviously. So to make up for it, here are some pictures of Hyrum. Hopefully they will soften the blow.