George was at work last week, leaving me to my own devices when he was away. I used my spare time catching up on jet lag and cleaning the apartment. So when the weekend rolled around, we felt we had to DO something together. So on Saturday we spontaneously decided to go visit a near by city of Daegu. The (very well air conditioned) coach there took exactly an hour and cost 5000W, so approximately 3€. Upon arrival, Daegu was very pretty but also shit hot. Korean summer is finally kicking in full force, with the daily temperature around +30°C. George comes from the land of rain, and I come from the land of ice and snow, so it goes with out saying that we're currently dying a very slow and melting death.
Oh anyway, Daegu was very beautiful. I've never been to America, nor have I seen too many photos of it, but I imagine it looked a lot like San Fran: it was very hilly and a lot greener than Gyeongju. I don't mean recycling wise, I mean plant wise. One of the many conveniences of Korea is that the same travel card works everywhere, so we just hopped on a bus towards the main railway station.
What did I say: Hilly. And yes, that's my normal face.
George sitting on that bus I mentioned earlier. This is where fate intervened. I had already given up on any Buddha celebrations, because Gyeongju wasn't throwing any sort of a party and Seoul was too far away, when I noticed that poster on the bus window (you can see a part of it on the upper right hand corner). "What date is it today?" I asked with an incredibly shakey voice. "The 11th", George replied (he has a very deep voice, if that helps you imagine this scenario). "Are you shitting me?" I asked, lady like. We had somehow managed to come to Daegu on the day of the Lotus lantern parade, without knowing it.
We had a lunch, and went to town to do some shopping before nightfall, but only managed to go to one (1!!!) shop before having to leave for the park where the festival started. I was outraged and swore to return because Daegu had about a trillion more shops than Gyeongju. Rough and scientific estimate.
We got the underground to the park and started walking. It wasn't quite nightfall yet, but we could see the parade floats being inflated and prepared for the parade. Shit was mad exciting.
And that's the last photo I took before my camera ran out of battery. Haha, didn't I say? And the whole festival was sooo gorgeous, you guys. We walked all the way up to the hill where the last of the parade floats were, and there was a stadium filled with thousands of people holding lanterns, enjoying some traditional music and dancing. We got given a free lunch in a bag, and some lanterns to hold by a mother of a girl George knew.
The whole evening was magical: there were hundreds of lanterns being released to the sky, fireworks, candy, a group of high school girls who came to tell me that I was beautiful and to politely ask if they could have their photo taken with me (I said yes, but only from my good side), the world's cutest sausage dog that I got to pet, the parade, and I even got a lantern that I found abandoned on the street. I don't have photos of any of that, but I have these few shitty ones from my iphone.
The lovely ladies that gave us a free lunch. It was all lost in translation, but I think they were from a school as their teen girls were the ones who wanted to have their photo taken with me.
George holding a lantern.
Lanterns, yo.
After seeing most of the parade but suddenly being exhausted from all the fun, we took the last bus home and snoozed all the way.
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