Students

More students...just when you begin to be able to tell them apart, they all start to look the same again.  I usually forget to snap pics, but here are some that I remembered to get.   

Seoul Lantern Festival 2011

The upcoming Spring Lantern Festival reminds me that I still need to post pics from the Fall Lantern Festival.  The lanterns, set on the stream in the city center, are crafted from paper and the size of parade floats.  Most are themed on some aspect of traditional Korean life or legends.  Here's the best of them. 

Korean warrior

Court musicians

Traditional gate

Close up of the gate

Drum and dance performers

Korea's mascot--I think it's a dragon

Kinkaku

Kinkaku, the Golden Pavilion, rests in on the serene Mirror Pond and is surrounded by a traditional Japanese landscape.  The building consists of three types of architecture.  The first floor is in the palace style.  The second floor is in the style of a samurai house, and these are topped by the third, zen-temple-style floor.  The second and third floors are covered in gold leaf. 

Seoul Cherry Blossoms

Cherry Blossom Festival?

The cherry blossom festival failed to provide any actual blossoms.  It was a week or two early.  It did, however, provide an opportunity to snap these pics of Kris with the much-loved-by-Koreans-plush-mascot-people-thingies. 

Pororo--the children's president (as one Korean girl describe him to me once)

The Salvation Army mascot.

This one I imagine to be the most humiliating because people can actually see her face.