Last weekend four friends and I went to Jinju by bus--it is a small town four hours south of Seoul. Each year, Jinju has a famous lantern festival where huge lanterns are put out on the river and smaller, homemade lanterns are placed on the river bank. In one picture above, you can see that there are so many lights used in this festival that even the pagoda seems to be made entirely of huge, carefully placed Christmas bulbs The lights looked really impressive when it gets dark! The festival included a great fireworks display and a carnival-like venue with lots of rides, games and strange foods. One strange food that I tried was a boendagi. Boendagi is butterfly larvae. It is cooked in a cauldron and has a very pungent aroma. Boendagi is a pretty common snack in the fall and is sold at street vendors. For a mere two dollars, a person can enjoy a whole dixie cup full of warm, juicy, oily, salty goodness that crunches and explodes with flavor with each bite. Just a warning though: try one before popping a whole handful into your mouth. I stopped at one and followed it down with some mentos. One girl in our group was dared to eat half the cup of boendagi for $20. Once she had about three of these little guys in her mouth, she was regretting having taken the challenge. After about a third of her amount, she turned green and gaged a couple of times. She finished, though, and earned her $20 and respect from all of us that would have laughed at such a challenge! In the evening, the 5 of us rented a room to share at a motel. This room had no beds, only a big pile of blankets folded up in the corner. We laid out all the bedding and crawled onto our hard bed for the night. I didn't sleep very well. On the bus ride home the next morning, between small naps, I read a large portion of a book called "The Life of Pi." If you have not read it, I really recommend it! It was fantastic!
Last weekend four friends and I went to Jinju by bus--it is a small town four hours south of Seoul. Each year, Jinju has a famous lantern festival where huge lanterns are put out on the river and smaller, homemade lanterns are placed on the river bank. In one picture above, you can see that there are so many lights used in this festival that even the pagoda seems to be made entirely of huge, carefully placed Christmas bulbs The lights looked really impressive when it gets dark! The festival included a great fireworks display and a carnival-like venue with lots of rides, games and strange foods. One strange food that I tried was a boendagi. Boendagi is butterfly larvae. It is cooked in a cauldron and has a very pungent aroma. Boendagi is a pretty common snack in the fall and is sold at street vendors. For a mere two dollars, a person can enjoy a whole dixie cup full of warm, juicy, oily, salty goodness that crunches and explodes with flavor with each bite. Just a warning though: try one before popping a whole handful into your mouth. I stopped at one and followed it down with some mentos. One girl in our group was dared to eat half the cup of boendagi for $20. Once she had about three of these little guys in her mouth, she was regretting having taken the challenge. After about a third of her amount, she turned green and gaged a couple of times. She finished, though, and earned her $20 and respect from all of us that would have laughed at such a challenge! In the evening, the 5 of us rented a room to share at a motel. This room had no beds, only a big pile of blankets folded up in the corner. We laid out all the bedding and crawled onto our hard bed for the night. I didn't sleep very well. On the bus ride home the next morning, between small naps, I read a large portion of a book called "The Life of Pi." If you have not read it, I really recommend it! It was fantastic!
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