Off to Jinju

This time of year in Korea is lovely really.  As the weather has cooled down people are out and about trying to make the most of their free time before weather gets terrible.  I've been warned multiple times that the winters in Korea will be very cold.  So with that thought in mind after teaching Saturday morning I hoped on a train to head off for Jinju where the annual lantern festival was being held last weekend.  The festival was voted the best in Korea for 4 years in a row until 2009 when it was canceled because of an outbreak of the flu.

After a 2 hour train ride I arrived in at Jinju station.  There were a lot of other people traveling here for the last weekend of the lantern festival.  A word of warning to all who are heading to Jinju there are two Jinju stops one is the arboretum (which is literally in the middle of nowhere) and the other is in the city of Jinju...

I walked from the train station to the river where the festival was being held.  The website had said it was a 5 minute walk but it actually took me more like 40 minutes... Not really a terrible walk but there was a lot of traffic and it was a ways from the train station...

Across the way is a rustic castle of sorts that is incredibly amazing to walk through.  It was open to the public so after securing a place to stay I hiked across the bridge to explore before it got dark and they lit the lanterns.

Walked through the giant entry way into the main courtyard.  The place was huge!  

After walking through the giant entryway you walk across the courtyard and then through a very congested much smaller doorway.

I finally got here after a bunch of other doors!  Impressive right?  It was massive and there was a stone moat around it with little bridges for you to walk across!  Very lovely area I'd love to go back when it isn't as crowded...

As the sun set they finally lit all of the lanterns.  I hadn't even realized how many there really were until I was up in the castle...

These lanterns were massive in size and a lot of them were moving which was beyond amazing!

This was the entryway to a bridge you could walk across to see the lanterns up close.  The bridge was supposed to be a symbol I guess?  It really swayed though especially with all of the people using it... At one point this girl was walking with her boyfriend and stumbled and I believe she meant to grab her boyfriend but latched onto me instead.  She was so embarrassed she took off running and almost fell on her face a second time leaving her boyfriend behind screaming "sorry, sorry, sorry."  As he ran after her lol....

On of my personal favorites!  This and the dragon lantern!

The little floating objects are wish lanterns.  People made their own lanterns and wrote their wishes in them then released them into the river....

The bridge all lit up!  This side of the bridge had a bunch of lotus flower lanterns.









All in all I really enjoyed Jinju but I really felt like the Andong mask festival was more impressive to see.  It had more activity and the location wasn't as congested.  The lantern festival at Jinju is definitely however, something that is worth seeing if you are in Korea in October.  Well it's past my bed time so I'm off have a lovely night world.