On a brisk Saturday, we caught an early train to the city of Jinju, which has a beautiful lantern festival once a year. Jinju was the major invasion site of the Japanese army during the Imjin War in the 1590’s. Tens of thousands of Koreans perished here defending Korea against Japan. During the warfare, Koreans used lit up lanterns to convey messages to other fighters, friends and family. The lantern festival commemorates these fighters.

The main center of the festival is the fortress (very commonly and mistakenly referred to as a palace).

There is a museum (free admission), hundreds of lanterns and food stalls set up inside. The museum also has a wonderful 3-d short movie about the Imjin War (Japan’s invasion of Korea in the 1590’s) with English audio available. All of this was free as well (maybe because of the festival – however, many tourists are shocked at how inexpensive attractions are in Korea).

Here I am relaxing and waiting for the sun to go down, which is when all the lanterns are lit up.

You can see a lot of the lanterns/floats in the Nam river.

Here are some of my favorite pics of the lanterns lit up on the river.

There was food stalls, performances, fireworks and a massive amount of people. It was crowded, but rightfully so, as the cool autumn air filled with thousands of colorful lanterns floating on the river made for a wonderful scene. We caught a train back to Busan to meet up with friends for Octoberfest at the German-style beer hall, Hurshimjeong.