I made my fourth visit to the Seoul Lantern Festival, after a few attempts were delayed by the weather; however, the weather last night was brisk but clear, and I made it up there around six PM while the crowds were quite manageable. The lanterns are in the Cheongyyecheon stream in downtown Seoul. The closest subway stop is Euljiro-3-ga on line 2.
This year's theme was folk tales, including Western ones like Cinderella, and the Woodcutter. Not sure what the second one below is:
This one is the Korean tale of Sister Sun and Brother Moon. The tiger (frequent participant in Korean fables) gobbles up the children's mother and puts on her clothes. When the tiger appears at the house, the children recognize him and run away. They climb a rope into a tree, and pray to Heaven for help. The tiger, who followed them, fell to his death, but the children keep going higher and become the sun and moon. At first, the boy is the sun and the girl is the moon, but the girl is afraid of the dark, so they switch roles.
Tayo is a Korean cartoon character, a playful and mischievous Seoul city bus, who teaches lessons about confidence, friendship and responsibility.
As you go further downstream, there is a section devoted to Korean history, such as a royal procession, and workmen building a palace:
Here is the military genius Yi Sunsin, with the "Turtle Ship" he devised:
A 승무 seungmu dancer. This is a traditional folk dance originally performed by Buddhist monks.
The large detailed face makes me wonder if this is a caricature, but I don't know enough to say.
And finally, when you leave the stream and come back to street level, there will be plenty of pocha to appease your hunger pangs.
I mentioned above that this was my fourth lantern festival, and you can see posts about the others (each one has a different theme) by clicking on the label cloud.
