Here are some shots around the neighbourhood. The lanterns are for Buddha's birthday.
Some "yumminess" that Don found at Costco:
Since the last blog entry we have made time to do some fun things around the city. A few weeks ago we finally went to the Zoo, which is in the Seoul Grand Park. It is the 10th biggest zoo in the world, but this is only in area. It is a huge place and while there were a lot of animals, there weren't as many as we expected and the upkeep of the whole place was disappointing. They need to renovate, but they charge so little for entrance (3$) that its hard to complain. While at the zoo we also went to a dolphin show. They had seals, a monkey and dolphins put on a cute show for the packed aquarium.
Last weekend, we went to Namsan Tower, aka North Tower, aka Seoul Tower. The tower is 479, above sea level. The tower itself is not that tall, but it is built at the top of a mountain so you get a great view of the city. The tower has 4 floors at the top, 2 restaurants, a coffee shop, gift shop and observation floor. We decided to get there in the early evening so that we could get the view with daylight and after sunset. We walked around, enjoyed the view and has a nice coffee while the sun was setting.
Apparently Toronto is 10,607km in that direction, Hello everyone!!
Yes, this is a urinal, and Don took the picture
Yesterday was Don's birthday (May 16th) and we started off the day with conversations with both his parents and mine. I made him a big breakfast (bacon, eggs, toast and hash browns) and gave him his birthday cake (since we would be out for the rest of the day). We were on Skype with Roger and Dorothy and Don blew out his candles with his family. It was nice to share that time with them. We miss everyone so much and it is always harder of special days like birthdays when you want to be with your family and friends.
Since this Friday (May 21st) is Buddha's birthday there was a huge Lantern festival downtown. We had heard about it from several people before who said that it was a great time. They had things going on all weekend and a few streets were closed to traffic. Most of the festival happenings were in an area called Insadong. This is an artsy area that is next to a Buddhist Temple. They had booths where you could make lanterns, masks, paint fans and more. There were stages set up with all kinds of performers. We saw some singers, dancers and drum groups. We went to the temple where another stage was set up outside and went in to see the 3 massive Buddha's and where people where meditating and praying.
Now you would think that child monks would be well behaved, but all these kids did was yell into the mic.
Very traditional Korean dancing, rifle and all...
After seeing what was happening at the festival we had dinner and found a great seat on the parade route. They had set out plastic lawn chairs for people who were patient enough to save a seat for a couple of hours prior to the parade starting. The parade finally started around 7:30 and lasted for around 2 hours. There were so many people and lanterns it was amazing. They had huge moving lanterns, lanterns that blew fire out of their mouths, and thousands of small lanterns being carried by thousands of people.
This is where we got seats for the parade, unfortunately it meant sitting this close to traffic to save them. I was getting dizzy from the exhaust...
Sooooo many lanterns!!!
