Hello again!
This weekend was our last vacation day before the Lunar New Year, and so for my first solo trip in Korea I decided to go someplace a little further away. I decided on Jinju, which is in South Gyeongsang province. My goal before I leave is to visit a city in every province in Korea!
Jinju's location in Korea:
View Larger Map
As you can tell from the map, there's very little in between Jeonju and Jinju. It was a three and a half hour bus ride, and while the scenery was beautiful (mountains! everywhere!), the places we stopped were old towns where the "terminal" was little more than a stop at a gas station or even the side of the road. It reminded me of Jefferson Lines back home that way.
Anyway, I arrived in Jinju on Saturday for the first day of the festival. I was very hungry at this point so the first order of business was to eat food! The festival was just setting up as far as food goes, but it wasn't too long before I found someone was open. I have absolutely no idea what this is, but it was delicious!
I continued a lazy journey along the Nam River, where the lanterns were already set up and came to the Jinju Fortress. Admission was free because of the festival. I walked along the whole thing, and it was massive! I didn't expect it to be that big but I spent a good four hours just walking around and exploring the lanterns and the beautiful park inside. The weather was gorgeous. It started out as a cloudy day but the sun came out and it was about 65 degrees!
Oops, looks like I cut off part of the main entrance.
Defenders of Jinju!
The pavilion inside the fortress.
A view of the city.
The west entrance to the fortress.
The festival commemorates a siege of Jinju in 1592/93. It honors the 70,000 who died in the siege. And, of course, the lanterns are beautiful especially at night on the river. A camera just doesn't quite capture it!
After wandering the fortress for most of the afternoon, I decided to find a place to stay the night before the evening festivities began. As I feared most of the places were sold out. I ended up finding a love motel--and yes it's exactly what you think it is--that was way overpriced. It was probably because the owner knew she was one of the last people with rooms and hey, I was white so I can afford the extra 15,000 won (/rant). But her business strategy was sound, because I was desperate after going to five or six places already. Room key in hand, I went out again for the evening ceremony.
Everything looked amazing lit up at night! This was my first time taking pictures at night with my new camera, and I still have to play around with the settings, but they turned out fairly well.
Here are some of my favorite lanterns, during the day and night.
A nice shot of the river.
This weekend was our last vacation day before the Lunar New Year, and so for my first solo trip in Korea I decided to go someplace a little further away. I decided on Jinju, which is in South Gyeongsang province. My goal before I leave is to visit a city in every province in Korea!
Jinju's location in Korea:
View Larger Map
As you can tell from the map, there's very little in between Jeonju and Jinju. It was a three and a half hour bus ride, and while the scenery was beautiful (mountains! everywhere!), the places we stopped were old towns where the "terminal" was little more than a stop at a gas station or even the side of the road. It reminded me of Jefferson Lines back home that way.
Anyway, I arrived in Jinju on Saturday for the first day of the festival. I was very hungry at this point so the first order of business was to eat food! The festival was just setting up as far as food goes, but it wasn't too long before I found someone was open. I have absolutely no idea what this is, but it was delicious!
I continued a lazy journey along the Nam River, where the lanterns were already set up and came to the Jinju Fortress. Admission was free because of the festival. I walked along the whole thing, and it was massive! I didn't expect it to be that big but I spent a good four hours just walking around and exploring the lanterns and the beautiful park inside. The weather was gorgeous. It started out as a cloudy day but the sun came out and it was about 65 degrees!
Oops, looks like I cut off part of the main entrance.
Defenders of Jinju!
The pavilion inside the fortress.
A view of the city.
The west entrance to the fortress.
The festival commemorates a siege of Jinju in 1592/93. It honors the 70,000 who died in the siege. And, of course, the lanterns are beautiful especially at night on the river. A camera just doesn't quite capture it!
After wandering the fortress for most of the afternoon, I decided to find a place to stay the night before the evening festivities began. As I feared most of the places were sold out. I ended up finding a love motel--and yes it's exactly what you think it is--that was way overpriced. It was probably because the owner knew she was one of the last people with rooms and hey, I was white so I can afford the extra 15,000 won (/rant). But her business strategy was sound, because I was desperate after going to five or six places already. Room key in hand, I went out again for the evening ceremony.
Everything looked amazing lit up at night! This was my first time taking pictures at night with my new camera, and I still have to play around with the settings, but they turned out fairly well.
Here are some of my favorite lanterns, during the day and night.
A nice shot of the river.
That pretty much sums up my past weekend! For the full album of 211 pictures, click here!
Until next time!
Wow! Those lanterns are fantastic! They must take a really long time to make. Do individual people make them in honor of someone? Do they float up into the air or around a lake or just stay stationary?
ReplyDeleteThey're definitely stationary! They are lit up with LED lights and they are quite massive, they probably weigh much more than they look! There was a car lantern in one park and this kid got away from his parents and was playing on it for a good minute before security took him off and he didn't break it. They are anchored in the river and around the fortress grounds and a few are scattered on the river bank.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure the ones that you see that light up on the river and in the park are reused year after year, much like a town would reuse Christmas lights. They're not really made in honor of specific people, but rather the entire festival is around the time of this battle and it's more symbolic than literal. There was one part of the park where cartoon lanterns were (I have some pretty terrifying shots of Teletubby lanterns on Photobucket), and another for Korean cultural lanterns, and another for traditional Korean life (a cobbler, a dressmaker, etc.) They're more of an art display I guess more than anything else. But still quite beautiful!