Lantern Parade

May 24th was Buddha's birthday. In Korea, on the Sunday before, there is always a huge Lantern Parade. It lasts for 3 hours. I only saw the last hour or so of it. There were huge lit up floats (some pushed by hand, some by motors or attached to vehicles), hundreds (maybe thousands?) of people all dressed up and carrrying candle lit (most) or battery operated lanterns, dancers, drummers and other musicians, etc.one of the Guardianswomen in traditional Korean Hanboks with one of the many kinds of lanternsBuddhist monks came from all over the world to participate in the week long Lantern Festival.more ladies in the parade - carrying lit up flower pinwheelskids carrying lanternsone of the bigger floats in the paradethe women from the big floata series of smaller floatsKorean Turtle Ship floatKorean Turtle Ship float in actionfirst dragon float - with moving partssecond dragon float - also with moving parts.
After the parade, there was a concert with a few very famous Korean singers. KLON was one of them. I'll post a little video of that next time. There were also traditional Korean songs and dancing. During the concert, little bits of pink paper were blown into the air. SO MUCH that the ground was completely covered by the end.