The Lantern Festival is a celebration for Buddha’s Birthday, which is a really big deal in a lot of Asian countries. Buddha’s Birthday falls on May 21st and, according to wikipedia, many temples offer free food and tea to all visitors on this day.

This year (2010), the parade will be held on May 16th from 7pm-9:30pm. Get more information here: http://www.llf.or.kr/eng/03introduce/introduce.asp

To get to the festival, I took the Seoul Subway to the Jongno-3 Station and followed the huge crowds. The parade was by the shopping district in Dongdaemun.

If you go to the Lantern Festival, let us know what you thought about it in the comments!!!

Getting to Gwanghwamun Plaza and other information:

· Take the Seoul Subway Line 5 to the Gwanghwamun stop, and leave the station from Exit 2 or 3
· Hours: Mon – Fri, 10 am – 10pm and Sat –Sun, 10am – 11pm
· Open from December 12, 2009 to February 15, 2010
· Admission costs 1, 000 won and that includes admission AND skate rental! What a deal!

The skates were slightly dated, and I suspect the ice hadn’t seen a zamboni all day, but we had a good time nonetheless! Live at the scene, we present to you an on-ice video (and pictures below)…check it out!

How to get to Well-Chai:
Take the Seoul subway Line 2 to Sinchon station, and leave the station from Exit 3. Walk straight and at the first major intersection, turn right. Walk for a few minutes and on the left side of the road you’ll see a big yellow sign that says “Nolita”, the elevator for Well-Chai is in that entrance way.

Why you should try the Chinese food at Well-Chai
Both Jermil and I ordered from the lunch menu that was reasonably priced (8 000 – 10 000 won per dish). We got the “pork garlic pork” and “barbecue beef”and both of us were delighted with our meals. Here’s why we recommend Well-Chai:
• The quality of both the pork and beef was very good.
• We were impressed with the delicious sauces in which the pork and beef were prepared.
• We loved the plentiful stir-fried vegetables that were part of our lunch platters.
• Our meals came with a generous portion of authentic Chinese fried rice.

We also ordered a separate appetizer of crab dumplings (crab rangoons) that were served with a tangy dipping sauce, and they were amazing! Good Chinese food is not easy to come by in Korea, but we really enjoyed Well-Chai, and the food reminded us of some of the flavours were sampled in Beijing!

We need your help!

Of course, since we were in a Chinese restaurant in Korea, we were served several kimchi side dishes, including, what we think was the spicy Korean version of egg drop soup. Jermil really enjoyed it, and our waitress told us the name of it, but we can’t remember it! If anyone has had this spicy soup, and knows the name of it, let us know in the comments!

How to get to Insa-dong
Take Seoul Subway line 3, and get off at Anguk Station. Head out Exit 6 and walk straight for about a minute, and you’ll pass a tourist information booth. You’ll see the main courtyard-style street of Insa-dong almost immediately after on your left.

What to do Insa-dong

Rub the frog statues for good luck as you enter the area.

Shop: most people come to this area to peruse the copious amounts of souvenirs. A lot of the merchandise looks mass-produced to me, but there are some stores with some good finds. Look for traditional Korean paper dolls there; they are quite beautiful and tastefully constructed. I also found chopsticks, chopstick rests, fancy tissue box covers, placemats, and tea strainers to bring home for my friends and family. The prices were reasonable, you can bargain a bit and the gifts were a big hit back home.









Drink tea: you can find many traditional Korean tea houses where you can sip on tea, relax and take a break from shopping.

They have tried to maintain an old-world feel in Insa-dong and a lot of the signs are in Korean only…even Starbucks.

Have you ever been to Insa-dong? Did you find or do anything special while you were there?

The directions we found on the internet for what to do for New Year’s Eve in Seoul were accurate for the most part. We read on another blog that you can’t get off the subway at the Jonggak station and were told to get off at the Jongno-3 station. But when the train stopped at Jonggak, almost everyone on the train got off. We decided to follow them and see where we’d end up.

We went out exit 1 and saw the Bosingak bell across the street. We went back into the subway and tried to come out right near the bell. We failed somehow but hung around the crowd there. (picture)

We saw the walls of policemen who were there to keep the crowds where they wanted us to be. I saw that the policemen had tiny fire extinguishers strapped to their shoulders. I figured those were in case someone got themselves set on fire during the fireworks and roman candles portion of the night after the New Year officially starts.

At some point, we saw the crowd running in a certain direction. We didn’t know where they were going or why they were running but I figured we should get running too!

We ended up by some stage where the New Year’s Eve show was taking place. They had 2 hosts who explained everything that was going on (all in Korean). The show consisted of Korean drumming, rapping, and a lot of singing.

They also had the countdown to the new year. I guess they warned us that it was coming (in Korean) but we didn’t catch it at first. They started counting from 10 and by the time we figured out what it was, it was almost over.

Roman candles were set off starting from just before the new year until a while after. But I didn’t see anyone shoot any near me. I expected everyone to be shooting roman candles recklessly. But it was way safer than the normal roman candle shootings that you see at night by every beach in South Korea.

The subways kept running for a while after midnight. We caught a train at 1am. I believe the subways in Seoul kept running until 2am on New Year’s Eve.

Overall, it was a really good New Year’s Eve event. Even though it was FREEZING COLD out there, while we were in the big mass of people, it wasn’t bad at all. See more pictures below!

If you attended the New Year’s Eve celebration in Seoul this year, let us know what you thought of it!

If you attended the New Year’s Eve celebration in Seoul this year, let us know what you thought of it!