South Korea and I: Seoul

I visited the 2013 Lotus Lantern Festival (연등회 연등축제) in Seoul in May. It is a festival to honor Buddha's birthday. The one in Seoul lasts one whole week.

According to Buddhist beliefs, lanterns symbolize wisdom in that they bring light to the world. “Yeondeung,” which means lighting lantern, is an important ritual in Buddhism gives respect to Buddha.
Source: http://visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_6.jsp?cid=1002416

One of the festivals' goals is to bring Koreans and international visitors together. There are a lot of stalls, where foreigners can experience traditional Korean arts, eat Korean temple food, etc. I made two lotus flowers myself, learned how to make a Hanbok Origami (traditional Korean clothing) and ate temple noodles. I also got to drink Matcha at the Japanese Buddhism stall and talked to a nice lady from Nagoya. There was also a stage, where they did games with foreigners and locals. Buddhists from Thailand or India performed a play in colorful costumes. I also got to see a traditional Korean rope dance performance (줄타기, Jultagi).

I visited the lantern exhibitions at Bongeunsa Temple (봉은사) and Jogyesa Temple (조계사). It is astonishing to see all these colorful lanterns next to each other on the temple premises. People can write their wishes on papers that hang on the lanterns (but I don't know what happens with them afterwards).
In the evening I went to see the lantern parade. Hundreds of people carried or moved thousands of brightly lit lanterns in the shape of Hangul (Korean alphabet) letters, lotus flowers, elephants, dragons, Buddhas, etc. The people waiting near the road were cheering and singing. It was a great atmosphere and the lanterns were truly magnificent. Everybody put in a lot of effort into making them.

Afterwards, there was a post-parade celebration, called Hoehyang Hanmadang (회향한마당). Korean traditional singers performed for the crowed and all ended in a circle dance (강강술래, Ganggangsullae), were locals danced enthusiastically with all foreigners. During the dance small pieces of papers were blown into the air and it looked like a huge flower petal rain. It was so beautiful!

I uploaded some photos and videos for you. Please enjoy!

From Busan we travelled to Seoul with the fastest train in South Korea, the KTX. It took us just a few hours to reach Seoul. The seats were very comfortable and we could put our suitcases into a luggage rack. It was a bit hard to get the tickets, because the man at the counter didn't really understand us and our special needs with big luggage. But just keep talking and they finally get somebody, who you can communicate with ^_~

On our way we also came through Daejeon. It's the city I am living in right now. What I saw wasn't really that good. Run-down houses, but definitely a big city. But I will talk about Daejeon in the following posts.

So we arrived in Seoul. It was pretty easy to find our hostel. They have a good description on how to access the hostel on their homepage. Compared to the hostel in Busan, this one was luxury. We had our own clean bathroom, a clean bed with linen on it, a heated floor, television, a refrigerator and enough space to open more than one suitcase. NICE (*＾▽＾)／

We visited the following sites in Seoul:

Gwanghwamun Plaza 광화문광장
Gwanghwamun Plaza is over 40 meters broad and over 550 meters long. It begins at the statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin and ends at the main gate of Gyeongbokgung palace. The street once had 16 lanes, but they were reduced to 10 in order to create the Plaza. The Plaza is open to the public an also shows a statue of King Sejong. You might be wondering who I'm talking about. I'm not familiar with Korean history. I did some research for you.
King Sejong: He is called Sejong the Great and was king from 1418 to 1450. What's so great about him? For one thing, he was the one who introduced the Korean alphabet Hangul in Korea and helped actively to create a simple alphabet, which everybody could use in the country. Up till then only Chinese Kanji were used for writing and not everybody could read them. He was also interested in science. What I remember from the small museum under the Plaza is, that he always thought of the people living in his country. The museum itself is a bit propagandistic in my eyes, but Koreans are very proud of their country. There's more information about King Sejong in the Wikipedia entry.
Admiral Sun-sin: He was a naval commander and is famous for his victory over Japanese warships. A story they tell in a 4D-cinema in the museum is about the Battle of Myeongnyang. His fleet was outnumbered 333 ships to 13 against the Japanese but he won anyway.

Cheongwadae 청와댸
This is the Blue House, where the president of Korea lives. We took some pictures. But there were a lot of police and you are only allowed to take pictures, while standing on a certain spot. Of course we didn't see it and were scolded by police, while they shoved us away.

Cheonggyecheon River
You can take a nice walk along the river. It was reinstated in 2003. While we were there a lot of Korean people went for a (power) walk during their lunch break. 22 bridges can be found along the river. But parking is allowed on the bridges. They were full with motorbikes. This took some of their beauty away.

N Seoul Tower 서울타워
N Seoul Tower allows you to see Seoul from above. But I think you can imagine, that because of the smog you won't be able to see a lot of it. Around the Tower is a famous Lovers' Sanctuary, which was a setting for some Korean TV dramas. You can either walk up the hill or take the cable car.

Hongdae
Hongdae is a district of Seoul. You can find the Hongik University there, a very famous art and design university. In Hongdae are a lot of young people, interesting shops and good restaurants. Our guesthouse was here. It's a very convenient are for travelling. You have easy access to the subway and the express train to Incheon Airport. The most funny thing you will find in Hongdae is the Trickeye Museum. We took some really hilarious photos Ｏ(≧∇≦)Ｏ

Gangnam
Since Psy everybody knows Seoul's district Gangnam. We went there to see the Korean World Trade Center and the Coex building. Underneath Coex you will find the Coex Mall. It's a big underground shopping center, that contains a cinema and an aquarium and a small Kimchi Museum. Now we know all about Kimchi ^_~