Jinju Lantern Festival

Last weekend we made a day trip to the city of Jinju in order to see its famous annual lantern festival! Jinju is an important city in Korean history because it's the site of many battles against Japan in the Imjin war of the late 16th Century. It has a large fortress overlooking the Nam river that runs through the middle of the city. During the festival, the river and fortress and full of lanterns representing different things. As we had not been to Jinju yet, we decided to go for the whole day so we could look around the town first before seeing the lanterns at night.

We hopped on a bus to Jinju and arrived around lunchtime to find the town full of korean tourists. We first went to look around the fortress which was a great place just to walk around and enjoy. There were lanterns of all shapes and sizes throughout the grounds. These included trees, soldiers, animals and a number of lanterns acting out different sports such as archery and wrestling. When walking around we spotted that you could try out archery in the grounds of the fortress so we decided that we would definitely have a go. While queueing, Ed and Luis were debating who could get closer to the bullseye with their three arrows while Nina was being slightly more reserved. In the end, it was a lot more difficult than it looked with none of us getting anywhere near the target let alone the bullseye. Of course they were also letting young children have a go too and just before we stepped up a little girl fired so high that the arrow hit a rock and came flying back towards the people waiting!

We then headed across the river to see a bamboo forest that was filled with even more lanterns. However, when we got there it became clear that it was some kind of 'lovers forest' as there was a huge heart at the beginning and 2 people holding hands and kissing above the entrance. As were were walking through we started to see some really weird and inappropriate lanterns of animals mating in amidst the bamboo. It was quite strange but none of the Koreans seemed to be batting an eyelid! Here are some pics of the day:

After the bamboo forest, we got some bibimbap then made our way back to the entrance of the fortress to wait for the sun to go down and the festival to properly start. We spotted that you could make your own lanterns by the edge of the river. You were supposed to write down your wishes on the side of your lantern, then light the candle inside and float it down the river when the sun went down. We wrote our four wishes on the side and waited eagerly to release our lantern. Whilst we were waiting to float our lantern, another couple's suddenly caught fire. They first tried to blow it out but it wasn't working so the man just grabbed the lantern, threw it on the floor and stamped it out crushing the wishes to ashes! The woman looked heartbroken. We released our lantern safely then stood on the riverbank as thousands slowly emerged onto the water.

We then made our way back into the fortress where the darkness had now transformed the entire place. All the soldiers, animals, pavilions and trees were now lit up while you could also walk along the fortress wall which overlooked the river. After checking out the palace grounds we decided to head across the river to see the kilometre-long archway of lanterns. It looked amazing from inside as you seemed to be surrounded by a never-ending supply of red lights. After getting some great pictures we made our way back to the bus terminal to beat the crowds and went for a drink in Jinyeong when we got back. Here are some pics of the night:

Jeonju and Maisan Provincial Park

For Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving, we decided to explore Jeonju. Historically, it was a key part of the Joseon Dynasty so there were lots of building and relics to explore (although it being Korea most of them had been refurbished in the 1970's!). On Friday 28th, it was Nina's birthday which was celebrated in good fashion at a singing room! Some of the students bought some lovely gifts and she somehow ended up with 4 birthday cakes!! Here are some of the presents the students gave Nina:

Early Saturday morning we took the train from Jinyeong to Jeonju. We checked into our hostel which was a really nice chilled out place although we think the owner had an addiction to the computer game 'bejewelled' as everytime we saw her she always seemed to be playing it. The first day we looked around the city. Jeonju is split into two areas the new city and the old. In the old part all the buildings are in the traditional Hanok style. It's a really lovely place to wander around. Our first stop was 'Jeonju Gyeonggi-jeon' as it was right next to our hostel. We think it may have been a living quarters for some of the royal family. At the front gate there were some of our favorite dressed up guards. Although, it has to be said, that these guys had nothing on the ones in Seoul! There was no sign of fake facial hair and they spent most of the time trying to chat up passing Korean girls! We played a competitive game of 'arrow toss' (don't think that's it's real name), Nina came out as champion.

Working up an appetite we decided to find something cheap to eat for lunch. We came across a small restaurant which appeared to meet our needs. A couple ran the place, well actually the wife ran the place and the husband was possibly the worst restaurant manager ever! He probably made the restaurant harder to run! We ordered some Gimbap (Korean sushi) and some Mandu (Korean dumplings). He prepared the gimbap but when cutting it he managed to break the seaweed so it just ended up being some rice and seaweed in a pile on a plate! He also warmed up the Mandu, took them out of the microwave and then forgot about them for about 20 minutes! Later on whilst we were scooping rice from the plate into our mouths he just stood in front of us and stared for a while. After a few minutes he looked at Nina and said 'beautiful'. In other circumstances, it would have been taken as a compliment but his lack of teeth in his grinning smile made it all rather creepy.

In the afternoon we looked around the Hanok village where there were some lovely boutique shops and cafes. It was all too tempting for Nina who bought some hair bands and a scarf, all things she really didn't need but they were very pretty!  It being Korean Thanksgiving all the restaurants were rather busy come dinner time. We were about to go into one place which looked ok but a Korean came up to us and said "The food is not delicious here". We thanked him for his advice and tried to ask whether he'd recommend anywhere else to eat but it appeared that his English only stretched as far as the first initial phrase. In the end we found a great place serving kimchi & steamed pork.

On Sunday we got a bus to Jinan to visit Maisan Provincial Park. We took a taxi to the South Gate of the park and we had arrived all prepared with sandwiches and snacks for lunch. However, this all went out the window when we saw that the restaurants at the bottom of the park were selling barbecued pork ribs! The area is famous for 'black pig' which we're not sure if it's tastes different to any other pig, but they first smoke the ribs in an oven then finish them on the barbecue. We each had a plate of ribs along with a bowl of bibimbap and we both agreed it was the best meal we've had in Korea!!!

Once we had filled our bellies, we walked through the park to see a place called 'Tapsa' which is a beautiful temple built within the rocks. There's a story that a religious man stayed there for 15 years and built 80 stone towers around the temple. Apparently even in the strongest typhoons they never topple! The park was beautiful and we walked up to the North gate to take a bus back to Jinan.

In the evening we decided to go to the cinema to see 'Ted'. All the staff seemed very excited to see foreigners! The box office was located on the bottom floor of the building however the cinema screens were on different floors all the way up the building. Unluckily for us there seemed no logic to this cinema labyrinth as the first floor held screens 7 & 6, the next floor screens 4 & 3. The other problem was that as our cinema ticket was in Korean we couldn't work out which number was our seat number and which was the screen number! So we spent a good 10 minutes wandering up and down trying to locate the right floor! Eventually we sat down to watch the movie along with 4 Koreans (apparently it isn't such a popular film over here!).

The final morning we explored the Hanok village a little more and walked down the river. We stopped at a cafe as it was quite a warm day and ordered some lemonade which to our surprise was blue! Ed was not impressed! We then ventured over to the bus terminal and took the bus back to Jinyeong!