Insadong Street/Lotus Lantern Festival

We took the bus up to Seoul again this past weekend. We had heard that Insadong was another fun place to shop and experience the culture. AND IT WAS! This Thurs. (24 May) is Buddha's birthday and there was a HUGE festival celebrating him. This is Insadong Street. FULL of shops and vendors. I thought this dude was interesting!

This was part of the parade. You could see right through their clothes!!

Part of the parade.

There were TONS of booths. There was an area of booths of Buddhists from ALL over Asia. These guys were from Sri Lanka.

These are lanterns you could buy. The "Lotus Lantern" symbolizes your inner light.

The colors were amazing!

Then we came across the "craft" booths. I WAS HAVING A BLAST!! Everything is SOOO kid friendly and FREE! This was a booth that had paint brushes and paint on a table and anyone could help themselves and paint this picture!

This is me playing the adult version of "dress up" as I tried on a "Traditional Korean" outfit.

There were performances everywhere. This one was a meditation/yoga deal.

I wanted to make my own lantern and I finally found a booth to do it! Marc and Ana were so patient with me and hung out while I played.

The festival was wonderful. There was a Lantern Parade later that night but we were all tired and needed to get home. I heard the lantern's all lit up was breathtaking!