Jinju Namgang Yudeung ( Lantern 진주 남강 유등축제) Festival

Maybe this is the most favorite lantern festival loved by Korean. This floating lantern festival opens first weekend of October in general on the river of Namgang  and Jinju castle inside in the Jinju city and has been hosted by Jinju Culture & Art Foundation annually. What I felt was they devoted all their energy for this festival. It was worthy to rush to visit, certainly.

The tunnel of wish lanterns

This floating lantern has long history dated back to 1592(over 400 years). Lantern in the river was used for military purpose to prevent Japanese troops from wading the Namgang-river. And for military signal with the army outside of castle another kind of lantern to the sky was used also when Japan invaded Korea(during Joseon dynasty in 1592-1598). Secondary, it was a kind of way to get in touch with family under being departed one in the chaos of war. After war, Jinju citizens had floated lanterns to tribute for the brave souls and innocent people sacrificed over 70,000  during the war.

Few couple of decade, Jinju city government  shed new light on this historical event and recreated this custom into festival since 2000. Recently it is new trend to make their own local festival adopted the long historical story by the local autonomous entity. Many Koreans love this festival though its location is so far from Seoul. Lanterns illuminated in the river as well as in the castle. With this reason, the strolling was not limited only the river but could reach the time-honoured castle. Needless to say, I enjoyed the creative lanterns inside the castle. They composed it with the theme of present and traditional one,various types of all ages, diverse experiences for visitors, riding boat, temporary stage on the river and so on. They certainly did their best to hold big and creative festival, I felt. 

The wishing lanterns

The creative lanterns

The pleasure boat, it runs into the floating lantern on the river

The stage on the river

lit up the castle 

The creative lantern 'Angel and woodcutter'  being inspiration from the Korean traditional fairy tale 

How to get there;
1. Express bus  from Gangnam in Seoul …3hrs/30mins
2. Inter-city bus from Nambu-terminal(남부터미널) in Seoul
3. KTX-train from Seoul station …3hrs/40mins