Birthday

I’m a 5 kind of girl. I’m 5 feet tall and was born on 5/15/85. This year I turned 25 and here are the 5 things I did on my birthday weekend:

1. Saturday began with brunch at Butterfinger Pancakes. I was joined by Muang, Lizze, June, and Natalie, making it a party of 5. I had delicious pancakes, French toast, eggs, potatoes, hash browns, bacon, and sausage and washed it all down with a banana milkshake. ^_^ They had to roll me out of the place, but it was worth it.

June, Me, and Muang.

Lizze and Natalie

2. Next, Muang, Lizze, and I met up with Pajai and went to the Seoul Museum of Art for the August Rodin exhibit where we saw 113 of his sculptures, including The Hand of God, The Thinker, and The Kiss. It was amazing. Lizze and I had fun making up our own interpretations of the works as well as listening to the audio guide.

(This is obviously NOT Rodin, but while pictures weren't aloud inside, there were some fun things outside.)

3. Getting home from the museum was an adventure in and of itself complete with getting separated, wrong turns, and dying cell phones. Once back in Bundang Muang and one of her friends, Lizze, and I watched movies until about 3am.

4. Sunday I went with Muang, Virginia, and a few of their friends to the Lantern Festival in celebration of Buddha’s birthday. There were booths for face painting, crafts, and to show how Buddhism looks in different Asian countries. I enjoyed seeing variations in culture and how each people group has taken the same ideas and made them distinctly their own, but despite the festive atmosphere I found myself saddened as I looked around and saw crowds of people embracing a false hope. I know for many the festival was about as ‘religious’ as Santa is on Christmas, but for many others, Buddhism is a stumbling block keeping them caught in a life of trying to earn what has been freely given.

Muang getting in touch with her roots.

At the Cambodia booth (In honor of Sudea).

These boys sang and danced then tumbled off the stage waving and smiling for all the cameras.

5. In the evening Muang and I met up with Lizze and Steven to watch the Lantern Parade (technically this is part of the festival, but I’m counting it as a separate event because it was so different from the rest of the day and because it just wouldn’t be as cool if I only had 4 events). The parade was beautiful and though the crowd was enormous, I think there were even more participants than spectators. I took lots of pictures, but most didn’t turn out very well. Though I love my little camera, night shots of moving objects are not her specialty. I also took a few videos which turned out better. At one point, a man from the parade came over and handed me his large yellow lantern illumined by a small candle. Birthday present?

All in all it was a great weekend with great friends, and, as Steven would say, it was “5-tastic”!

Pictures:http://www.flickr.com/photos/scribbledjourneys/

Videos:http://www.youtube.com/user/scribbledjourneys

Butterflies and Paper

When I got back from the Butterfly Festival I had every intention of blogging about it right away. I had a good start since I had scribbled down several details of the weekend while I was still down there and the day after I got home I faithfully uploaded all of my pictures … but that’s where it stopped. *Sigh* I am a procrastinator to the core – even with things I want to do! So, without even further ado, here’s what I did 2 weeks ago:

Friday April 30^th I packed my bag in the morning and took it to work with me. I was logged out of the system and my computer was turned off at 9:55. I had my last class lined up and ready to walk out the door the moment the bell rang. As soon as they left I grabbed my stuff and raced down to the taxi that my friend June had waiting. Why? I get off of work at 10pm and we had to get to the bus station for our bus leaving at 10:30. We made it in perfect time and soon we were loaded on along with June’s friend (my soon to be friend), Natalie.

We arrived in Gwangju at 1:30am and after a little searching found a decently priced “love motel” with a bed just big enough for the three of us to squeeze into providing no one moved too much. We were all pretty hungry so we ventured out and soon found a happening sushi restaurant. Nothing like a little raw fish at 3am!

Saturday we slept in and caught a 2pm bus to Hampyeong, the home of the world’s only butterfly festival. The bus was, of course, oversold so Natalie and I sat on the floor of the aisle and I thanked the Lord I was wearing leggings under my dress! We got there around 3 and across the street from the Expo Park there were several vendors where we left our heavy overnight bags with a nice man selling silkworm larva, snails, and corn on a stick. On our way in I had two Jehovah’s Witness ladies try to convert me while Natalie and June were taking pictures with the Bull. Then there was a booth where some police officers asked us to sign something saying we wouldn’t drink and drive. We tried to explain that we came by bus, but it wasn’t worth it, so we just signed.

This big guy is right outside the Butterfly Expo Park. Why? I have no idea, but pictures were required.

I think this might be my favorite from the whole weekend!

Butterfly Festival - Every little girl's dream come true.

These boys were fishing... yes, fishing. They waded around and caught them with their chubby little hands and dropped them in jars of murky water. Yum?

You might not be able to tell, but this is painted on cardboard.

We finally made it into the park and had a fun afternoon of face paint, strange statues, interesting exhibits, a cute gift shop, and … NO BUTTERFLIES!!! The sun was going down and we were leaving a little disappointed when we ran into some foreigners we had met on the bus who pointed us in the right direction. When we got there the butterflies were all sleeping on the flowers, but we figured we had better see them. Unfortunately, we got there about closing time and were shooed out. We took pictures as quickly as we could joking that we would just snap pictures of everything and look at it later.

Aren't we sweet?

We then caught the 8:10 bus up to Jeonju where we stayed the night at a wonderful “love motel” with two, count them – two beds! Sunday we slept in again then had lunch at the Hanok Village where we discovered there was a Hanji (traditional Korean paper) festival. (If you aren’t aware of this yet, Korea is ALL about festivals) Jeondong Catholic Cathedral was nearby and had some booths up to participate in the festival. We bought some crafts from a Nun to support earthquake victims in Chile and she kindly let us leave our bags at her booth.

The inscription on the book says that this is a holy place because it is where the first Korean Christians were martyred in 1791.

This was not at the church, but was nearby.

A paper festival may not sound very interesting, but really was amazing. There was jewelry made with paper, a parade of clothes made from paper, even usable furniture made from paper! And of course there was lots of just plain paper.

We ended the day with some delicious bibimbap and caught a late bus home. When I crawled into my own bed at 3am my feet were swollen and tired from so much walking but it was worth it for a wonderful weekend.

(I took 350 pictures, so if you'd like to see more of the trip you can check them out here http://www.flickr.com/photos/scribbledjourneys/.)