Happy LATE Birthday Buddha! Here is my first photo post – a few months late – from the Lotus Lantern Festival. The festival is held in honor of Buddha’s birthday, and although Seoul and Korea celebrate for the entire month of May, the festival’s biggest weekend this year was May 18-20 and included a lantern-full parade on Saturday night (see the video below). The lantern lighting symbolizes a promise and devotion to performing good deeds and is meant to bring light to dark parts of the world. This year’s festival theme was: “Peace to our mind. Happiness to our world.” Enjoy a few pictures from the weekend in Seoul.

Many people walked in the parade with matching lanterns to distinguish groups.

A few lanterns from the parade including an astronaut lantern, why not?

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This is one of my favorites. These monks were trying to organize for a photo but they were all having too much fun being social and couldn’t stand still.

Lanterns lanterns everywhere… Where do they go after the birthday party is over?

Lanterns decorated the river walkway in downtown Seoul.

Remember:

Filed under: seoul Tagged: birthday, buddha, buddhism, lanterns, lotus lantern festival, parade