Thanksgiving in Korea at the Jinju Lantern festival.

Ellen and I took the opportunity to head to Jinju this past weekend and check out the Lantern Festival. What is it?

"The city of Jinju in southern Gyeongsang Province hosts the Flowing Lantern Festival on the Jinju Namgang (Nam River). The river dazzles as close to 50,000 rainbow-colored light sculptures illuminate the surface of the water.

The festival dates back to October of 1592 and the battle for the Jinju Fortress. Leading a force of only 3,800 men, General Kim Si-Min is said to have killed close to 20,000 Japanese troops in the heroic 7-day siege. Korean soldiers inside the fortress flew lantern kites and floated lamp lights on the water to send signals to other loyal troops and prevent the Japanese forces from crossing the river in secret. They also used flowing lights on the river to signal their safety to their families. Later, the floating lanterns served to commemorate the lives of the fallen soldiers and in 1949, the floating lantern tradition turned into a river play. 2002 marked the inception of the festival as it stands today."

We got there in the afternoon Saturday and spent the night. It was well worth it. Here is the what we saw!!


A little Konglish spelling here as we got ready to cross to Pontoon Bridge...no wait...potoonbridge passage. Ah well. We are here as English teachers, not spelling verifiers.

We also had a chance to dress-up in vintage Korean clothes. We picked the King and Queen combo. The kids looked priceless in their outfits and we could not pass up a chance to have Ellen pose with them.


We took a break from the action for a while and went to have dinner. When we came back at dark, the people had come out of the wood works and all the lanterns were lit up for a completely different show.

Aie mom! On a meme eu des feux d'artifices, mais ils n'avaient pas les grosses larmes comme tu aimes.
We also took the opportunity to write some wishes, light a lantern, and let it float down the river.

Towards the end of the night, Ellen spotted a Princess Cafe. No choice. Actually worked out well because I got some treats out of the deal!!
On the Sunday, we went and toured the Jinju fortress.
Had to get some energy out. So as Ellen was taking another picturesque shot, I decided to show off how I would have taken care of the 20,000 Japanese back in the day (I realize a bad joke for such a sad historical moment, but I have to admit that we both cried laughing when we stopped right after to look at the picture!!)

We also walked through a street market on our way to the bus. We thought maybe this would be a good substitute for the turkey, but I couldn't get Ellen on board.


What is a walk through markets without finding an anomaly? Can you find it?

Actually got back home by 4pm and then went and did our groceries for the week. We had our Thanksgiving meal and the little roast chicken with Swiss Chalet sauce we brought from home was delicious.
That was our Thanksgiving. We wish you all back home a wonderful Thanksgiving and we certainly wish we could be with you. On vous embrace fort!!