Buddha's birthday parade

One thing I really wanted to see was the Buddha's birthday parade in Seoul. An added benefit was that it was the weekend before my birthday, so it was a good excuse to celebrate! We went down to Seoul for the day, did some shopping for any last minute souvenirs we wanted, and met up with my friend Yoong Kyung for dinner and the parade. I'm not usually a huge fan of parades as I had my fair share of them in marching band. This parade, on the other hand, was REALLY cool. I felt like it was like the Macy's parade in coolness. It was a few hours long (though we didn't stay for it all with kids and an hour train ride home) and they marched through a big chunk of Korea, not just in Seoul. Phew! These floats were really cool too. They were lanterns like the ones we saw on the stream last November. The detail is amazing, and they are really cool. Here are some of our pictures, though some of them don't quite do the floats justice.

The view of the parade line from the department store where we shopped and ate.

People in the parade handed Claire this Buddhist bracelet and cool flower lantern thing. That's way cooler than cheap candy!

At the parade. I find the lady taking a selfie amusing.

The girls and I with my friend, Yoong Kyung. :)

So pretty!

Gotta have lots of drums!

This one changed colors, flapped the wings. It was really cool.

This was one of my favorites. Fire breathing dragons! They also moved! Claire found the fire part a little scary, but we thought it was awesome!

This one makes me laugh. It reminds me of some kind of Alien creature on Dr. Who.

A little blurry, but this is a group of monks from a certain Buddhist temple.

 We had an awesome time and it was well worth the trip. Happy birthday Buddha!