Buddha’s Birthday: Streetfair in Seoul

The Buddha’s Birthday is almost upon us, (tomorrow in fact) which means that yesterday was the street fair in front of Jogye Temple in Seoul. For an entire block, the road was filled with activities and booths set up by Buddhist organizations and NGO’s from around the world. I can’t imagine any other place in the world where one could see so many different types of Buddhism and Buddhist organizations. In fact, I have too many photos, and not enough time, so I’ll have to divide this post into two parts.  (You can see larger images of most photos by clicking on the image.)
 
For a great collection of night-time photos of Jogye Temple check out Robert’s photo blog.  In the next post I’ll cover the different Buddhist countries involved and some of the activities and NGOs.

Booths of the street fair stretching for a city block

 
  

 

you could hear these drums a block awayFarmer's band: one of the great things about the day are incredible traditional music groups

  

 
 

a booth for making miniature lotus lanterns (like the ones in the top of the photo)

 
 

There was all kinds of cool stuff for sale as well, here some incense holders

Incense being sold by Korea’s premier incense company, Neung In. They also provided the raw ingredients and showed people how to make their own incense.

 
 

One of the cool things about the street fair are the activities, here passersby participate in making a Buddhist painting

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

At Jogye Temple

 
 

 

 

 

 
 

 
 

 
 

 

Under the lanterns in Jogye Temple

 

Bathing the infant Buddha

 

"Between Heaven and Earth, there is nothing that is not this precious Self"