After two long days in Seoul walking more than I have ever walked in my entire life, I pulled it together enough to wait it out for the Lotus Lantern Festival Parade. I’m glad I did, because I loved it.
In my former life working in politics, I attended many (MANY) parades. As a rule, I don’t like them… I’ve been scarred ever since I was forced to march for Joe Lieberman with two interns and a Joe-mobile in front of John Edwards, Elizabeth Edwards, and their enormous staff. (NB, this was BEFORE either Lieberman or Edwards took their respective nose-dives into meaninglessness… or, at least before Edwards’.)
Aside from the beautiful lanterns and beautiful hanbok — both of which make me incredibly happy — it was so nice to see so many smiles. I don’t typically get too many smiles from Koreans.
It’s not like Tennessee where you have to smile and say hello to everyone you see. And it’s not like Connecticut where you have to smile and say hello to everyone you see (who has the same skin color and socio-economic status)… I just don’t get too many hello’s in Korea. And I’m okay with that (really I am!), but it was nice to have an hour or so of endless waves.
I was also excited to try out my new Canon s90 camera, which I paid way too much money for at the Yongsan Electronics Market — learning the hard way that sometimes free trade agreements can be quite wonderful.
I’ve always carried cheap point-and-shoots, so I was pretty pumped to finally upgrade to something with more flexibility without being enormous and forcing me to carry the badge of Fake Professional Photographer.
So, here it is. You can view the full set here (40 photos).
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Gorgeous.
ps. Leiberman took a nosedive WAY before Edwards. Don’t get me started. HEART YOU!