Lantern Festival

Veteran's Day weekend in November, we went down to Seoul for more adventures. We spent the night at the Dragon Hill Lodge which was an adventure in an of itself! In fact, it was such a frustrating experience with the kids, that we vowed not to go to a hotel with them for a while. I remember saying to Claire after she woke us up for the millionth time, "I can't believe I am paying MONEY for this awful experience!" But, on a positive note, we ate really yummy food and had a really nice view of Seoul Tower from our room. 

After a leisurely morning, we went down to the Coex Mall (which required us to take the train through the  Gangnam station and is located in the Gangnam suburb. Haha.) It is the largest underground mall in all of Asia and it is HUGE! We wandered around there for a couple of hours, enjoyed a tasty lunch, and had coldstone for dessert. Mmm.

Outside the mall, there were lots of pretty flowers. 

Some looked like flowers, but really weren't.

It's really colored cabbage. They have this close to where we live too.  Smart decoration to handle to cold winter!

I know it looks like I'm pointing to Japan, but I couldn't quite reach to point closer to Korea. That's where we are! :)

A really cool building when we got off the subway. I love how Chris captured the blue sky and the reflection in the building. 

After wandering around the mall and meeting up with friends, we headed back north for the main reason for the trip - The Seoul Lantern Festival!

The Seoul Lantern Festival was awesome! It was one of my favorite things we've done yet. It was like a combination of Christmas lights and parade floats. It's located in the heart of Seoul and the lanterns are placed on stands in a little stream that goes through the city. This year the theme was the history of Korea - from the Joseon Dynasty which started in 1392 to modern times. As you can imagine, that took a while to walk through. As cool as it was, the only negative was that it was REALLY long, especially in the cold drizzling rain with hungry, tired kids. We must have walked a couple of miles. But besides that, it was awesome. :) Here are some of our favorite shots of the lanterns.

There was a little waterfall falling from this display.

Looking up at the lanterns lining the street. There were paths on both sides of the stream which was down, lower than the street. 

Look at the detail of these lanterns. Impressive, huh?

All bundled up. It was pretty chilly. 

This one was one of my favorites. They had traditional music playing at this display of a music group playing traditional music.

By the time we got to the end, there were modern day displays like transformers, Pororo (a very popular kid show about an animated penguin), Batman, etc. It was a really fun experience, but by the end, we were ready to find the subway station and head home. We had a great time together as a family and with our friends.