2015 Seoul Lantern Festival

Every November, the Seoul Lantern Festival lights up the Cheonggyecheon. This year it was held from November 6~22. For the past couple of years now, it has been a bit of a tradition to attend the festival with my boyfriend. We nearly missed it this year due to the rainy weather and our busy schedules, but luckily we were able to catch it on the very last day.Unfortunately it was a bit disappointing this year. There were fewer lanterns and many of them were company sponsored. There were also a few non-lantern displays thrown into the mix, which were actually quite ugly and uninteresting.  The theme was “Illuminated Seoul Tour,” so the beginning of the festival had lanterns which displayed various parts of Korean culture and history. However at some point the theme was lost and the lanterns got a bit random. There were quite a few lanterns I enjoyed, but not nearly as much as previous years.This doesn’t go to say I didn’t enjoy myself, in fact I finally got to do something I had never gotten to do at the previous festivals. This year the boyfriend and I finally got to make a Floating Hope Lantern! We had wanted to do it before, but they were always sold out or the area to make them was insanely over crowded. The lanterns were only 3,000 and we had our choice of white, pink or orange. After purchasing one, we made our way to the craft tables to write our wishes and assemble it.Lots of people struggled with the folding part. In fact, a dad at at our table was suffering at the hands of his screaming daughter who was displeased with the misshapen lantern he had folded for her. Lucky for me, ours came out beautifully thanks to my boyfriends meticulous folding skills. He was feeling quite proud of himself by that point.After that we got in line to have our lantern lit and then released it onto the stream. The lanterns looked so beautiful twinkling along the water. It was so romantic and I’m really glad we finally got to do it. Unfortunately it started raining and many of the lanterns started to go out. Since the the festival route goes in a loop, we decided to search for out lantern before going home.The light had gone out and it had become a bit soggy from all the rain. My boyfriend had become a bit attached to it, so he fished it out, re-lit the candle and nursed it back to health. He’s so cute ^^. You’re allowed to take it home at the end of the festival, but we decided to re-release it and watch it rejoin the other lanterns. It was the perfect way to end the evening and although the lantern displays weren’t as good as last year’s I’m glad we went. For those of you who missed it, I hope you enjoy the shots of some of my favorite lanterns.