Tag Archives: Buddha’s Birthday

Dive On Into Memorial Day

2012_05 Memorial Day Korea Scuba Dive

2012_05 Memorial Day Korea Scuba DiveMay 31, 2012Photos: 150
 

Memorial Day! The “unofficial” beginning to the summer months! This is the day the pool opens. Gone are the worries that wearing white pants are judged. This weekend kicks off friendly Pennsylvanian neighbor lawn wars too.

Memorial Day weekend has always been one of my favorite long weekends of the year to look forward to. Not only because it gives me time to reflect on our past and current heroes, but because I get to celebrate my very own hero, my husband!

Typically, in the past this weekend meant going to the beach, eating my weight in ice-cream and fresh fruit, sand in my shoes, fireworks, long bike rides, and the smell of bar-b-que in the air.

This weekend always represents the little taste of summer before it really actually begins.

Just because we’re in Korea doesn’t mean we let the Memorial Day weekend festivities go by without getting out and enjoying ourselves.

Saturday we packed up the car and were some of the only crazies on the road at 4AM, bound for the (East Coast) Sacheon beach.

Lots of diving, cooking out, toes in the sand, and laughs all around.

Did you know Monday is also a significant Korean holiday? Yes, it’s Buddha’s birthday.

Traffic…

Traffic…

Oh yeah, LOOK more traffic…

6 hours in the car…Need we say more? Ah well, totally worth it! Wonderful weekend with great friends!

How was your holiday weekend? How do you typically spend it?

Seoul’s Buddhist Street Festival

This weekend marks the two-thousand-255th anniversary of Buddha’s birth. Located on the main street in front of the Jogyesa Temple, we checked out the Buddhist street festival. This festival featured over 100 booths set up to demonstrate ceremonial tea-making and ceremonial bowing (a special breathing method used by Buddhist nuns).

The best part about this event was that most everything offered was FREE! We were totally taken back at how much stuff there was to do, sample, and see all for FREE! There were also designated translators for foreigners who were at the festival and were struggling to understand or communicate what was was going on.

We made lotus flowers, sampled traditional teas, tried various temple foods, got to try on traditional Korean hanbok clothing and have our picture taken, had our face painted with a lotus flower, went inside the beautiful Jogyesa temple, got our last name written in Hangeul the Korean alphabet, and checked out various stage performances.

When we were getting ready to leave we came across the Tibetan monks making a sand mandala. This sand mandala contained various colors of sand that are made from crushed gypsum (white), yellow ochre, red sandstone, charcoal, and a mixture of charcoal and gypsum (blue). Don’t worry we snapped pictures to show you what we are talking about.