Festivale – April 2006

I went to two festivals since April. The first was the Lotus Lantern Festival. It was nice. I met up with Emma and we walked around, made a paper lotus flower and had some grub. There was a parade at night that was pretty cool. The floats varied quite a bit; everything from phoenixes and dragons that spit real fire to Buddha on top of an elephant. There were hoards of people carrying lotus lanterns that just marched down the street. It was long though so we left after a couple hours for a drink. We reemerged after a few and ended up right by the finale stage. It was pretty fun. Everyone was dancing in the streets together and just having a good ole time.

The second was the HiSeoul Festival last night. I was only there for a short time at night since I spent my day milling about in the sun. Around City Hall there was a stage where an orchestra played as well as some Korean boyband. The best part was the fireworks at the end. They shot off an adjacent hotel rooftop and synced perfectly with the orchestra. We passed by the mayor as we were leaving and got to take a photo with him.