Jinju Lantern Festival

I've wanted to see the Jinju Lantern Festival since this time last year when I first found out about it, so yesterday after work, I went.

I purchased my bus ticket earlier in the week and boarded the limo bus to Jinju last night. The ride from Daejeon takes about two hours, and it was a nice, comfortable and quiet ride.

On the way to the bus terminal in Jinju, the bus drove over the river and I could see the lanterns on the water. I decided to check it out first instead of finding a hotel. (I later regretted this, but not too much.) The festival was beautiful, and I saw lots of interesting lanterns.

My lantern, my wish

My wish

I started with the river bank and checked out a lot of the lanterns before finding out that I could purchase my own personal paper lantern. So I did! It cost about $3, and was just a thick-paper lantern on a plastic tube so it would float in water. It had a small candle inside. After I purchased my lantern, I was able to write down a wish and attach it to the side of the lantern. By setting it free on the river, it was supposed to come true. Hopefully showing a photo of my wish doesn't jinx it.

My lantern

Floating sidewalk

After setting my lantern free to nature, I watched it float for a bit and then decided to cross the river to check out more lanterns and the different lantern tents on the other side. I had to buy a ticket to cross on the floating sidewalk, which was about $1, and it was beautiful. I could see the lanterns more closely. After crossing, I checked out the different lantern tents. There were about six different (and long) tents full of traditional red and blue lanterns, complete with wishes, and one shorter tent full of insanely creative, hand-made lanterns. They were all lovely. I wish I understood enough Korean to make sense of the individual wishes on each lantern.

America's Lantern

When I had seen all of the individual lanterns, I made my way back across the river on another floating sidewalk, and this time I saw the lanterns for a number of different countries. America was represented by a beautiful lantern of Paul Revere on his horse. There was also Egypt (Sphinx), Canada (maple leaf), New Zealand (Kiwi birds), Australia (boxing kangaroos), and more. There was even a viking lantern!


Upon 'landing', I set off on yet another floating sidewalk, this time alongside the river bank. It was a longer platform, and landed me on the side of the bank near the hill with the temples I'd been seeing all night from afar. They were lovely, and I saw more lanterns. The ones in this area were of the more traditional variety, and just as beautiful as the ones that were floating on the water.

It was also in this area that I came across a street of portrait artists. I love this type of art because it makes it easy to have something so personal and beautiful, so unique. I checked out this area for a little while and then decided that because it was almost 1am, it was time to search for a motel. My search didn't go so well, presumably because of the popularity of the festival, but I was able to catch a few hours of sleep.

I was hoping to make the festival a weekend affair, but the difficulties in finding a place to sleep shortened my trip. It is primarily a nighttime festival though, and I was able to see it all on my first night, so staying a second night really wasn't necessary. I had a lovely time seeing the lanterns, and was able to cross another event off of my to-do list.