Jinju Lantern Festival

The Jinju Lantern Festival takes place every October in Jinju City on the Namgang river at the foot of an old fortress. It honors the Siege of Jinju, when General Kim Si-Min defeated 20,000 Japanese troops with only 3,800 men in October 1592. During the invasion the general floated lanterns and torches on the Namgang river to signal loyal troops and after the battle they used floating lanterns to signal their safety.

This festival was one of the most worthwhile things I've seen in Korea, alongside Yonggungsa Temple and Goeje Island (which was so lovely that I went 4 or 5 times, even though I only mentioned it twice). It was enormous and beautiful. All of the lanterns are lifesize (or bigger), hand-painted silk and they covered both the river and the fortress. There were temporary floating bridges zig-zagging back and forth across the water so that you could walk in and around the lanterns, and, while all of the lanterns on the ground came on at dark, the ones on the river came on a little later, all at once at the end of a surprisingly impressive fireworks show. On the ground along the river were very long tunnels of small lanterns. One was full of lanterns made by local elementary school students and the other was made of uniform lanterns with prayers attached to them.

Only a few of these photos are mine. The shutter speed on my camera is fairly slow, so almost all of my own pictures turned out disappointingly blurry.

 

Reminds you a little of the Ogleby Festival of Lights, doesn't it, Mom & Dad?