To Go Or Not To Go

There is a place in the mountains about an hour out of the city, where for each lantern holiday people go to release their sky lanterns (pictured and explained yesterday). It has always sounded incredible and for years I've wanted to go. The problem was that it's on the 15th day of the Chinese new year, meaning it usually pops up on a weekday I have to work on.

This year it was on a Sunday, which meant both I and my friends were free, but it also meant that everybody else in the country was free as well. Whenever asking about the festival, the first response I always get is "so many people" meaning it's so crowded. Never has the first thing somebody said been "oh it's magical to see all those lanterns in the sky."

Armed with this information, I debated whether or not to go. In the end i decided that I must go because I didn't want to become one of those people who has lived here so long that they just say "well I can go any year, so i don't need to go now" and then just never ends up going anywhere.

My genius plan to avoid the crowds was to go after the event had actually started, this way the line for the shuttle bus wouldn't be long, and in this way I was correct. However the adventure was off to a bad start as I got some bad motion sickness. The bus speeding along the winding mountain road, really affected me. It's never happened before, and I'm guessing it was because I couldn't see where the turns were, so I was just swung around without being prepared. It was a race to see if we would finally arrive at the destination or if people would be going home with a story to tell about a foreigner who threw up on the bus.

We arrived in time, and I was happy to get off the bus. That is, until I saw about five thousand people lined up for the shuttle bus back to the city. My plan to get in there after it started to avoid traffic, worked, but my plan to leave before it ended, has already failed.

The sky cheered me up a bit. All over the sky you could see red dots floating in the wind. As I walked up the road to the main part, I was passing people to the left and right of me releasing their lanterns into the sky. At the end of the road was an area where every 20 minutes they were releasing 50 lanterns at one time (and one huge one). So I found a spot and waited for this.

The picture above shows the release of that group of lanterns. While beautiful, it was also a bit shallow as they were just normal lanterns and not ones that people had written dreams and wishes on. For me the true magic was when the lanterns were more spaced out and the sky appeared to be full of floating stars.

After awhile there, my stomach settled down and I decided to go back. It was time to get in the monstrous line for the bus back to the city. To the government's credit they did do an impressive job. They had buses constantly coming and picking people up, so every minute about 40 people were getting on a bus. But with thousands of people waiting in line, it still took forever to get on the bus.

This gave me more time to observe the lanterns, and also to observe the people. Never in all my years here have I seen so many westerners in one place. I once taught a room full of 500 westerners how to teach English, but that was nothing compared to how many I saw this day. It also reminded me of how less serene everything is when you can easily understand all the conversations around you. Ignorance truly is bliss.

I didn't get sick on the bus ride home (I made sure to get where I could see the turns coming up), instead my dilemma was that I had to pee really badly (i'd been standing in the bus line for about forever). The shuttle made a few random stops on the way back. I considered getting off, but I had no idea if the buses would pick me back up, or if I would be stranded in the middle of nowhere. I decided to be brave and get off at one of these stops and after handling my business, I went back to where the buses pass by to pray that one would stop to pick me up. Thankfully just when I was going to give up hope, one did.

When I got back the only question people asked me was "was it worth it?" To be honest, I'd say no. It was pretty to see, but a lot of work for a tiny pay off. But I did learn something from it. A big part about why I went is so I can say I'd done it. But now I think I will hold back on doing things if the whole reason is just to say that I've been there or done that. This might not seem like a big deal, but this may have answered my question of "should I take a vacation to Korea?" that I've been mulling over for almost a decade.

[Photo Co-op]

I think your bucket list just got a whole lot shorter. Thank you for sharing the photos and stories of the floating lanterns. Building, lighting and sending them on thier way in any place is a skill well worth learning to create a special moment.