Lantern Ceremony and Parade

I heard my alarm faintly because the door was shut. I stayed in bed for reasons I won’t divulge. It was almost nine when I got up. I turned on my laptop, and drank a quart of water while listening to an audio from the Food Summit. I swished and exercised. I went outside to pick all the ripening strawberries. Most had been touched by bugs, but I kept a few and put the others in food waste – which should have gone out this morning, but I missed the 8am deadline. While listening to the last interview of the Food Summit, I boiled water for soaking nuts and made ginger tea. Something the speaker said set Chris off. He exploded emotionally and I just stood there until he calmed down. Then he took a shower and went to work. I ate some seed crackers with mayonnaise.
Made and ate breakfast, kept listening, measured the top and the backing and did the math to see how much backing I could cut off for border – only 2 inches I put it aside and got out the scarf jacket project. I trimmed 10.5 inches off the bottom. I pinned up the edge to hem and realized I had sliced into the front edge accidentally. I had to patch it and then finish the hem. I took the cut off part and pinned it to the edge of one sleeve to see how that looked and it was good. But I never got to it. I washed up and got dressed for the trip to Busan. I threw some seaweed in my bag and a thermos of ginger tea. I walked down to Duffy’s and met the bus. Myra had saved me a seat with her. The man from MWR told us that we would be attending a ceremony and a parade. The parade route was several kilometers and the bus would meet us at the end. Yes, we were expected to walk in the parade. We arrived in Busan by 4:30. When we got out, the sidewalk was full of vendors selling yardsale-type stuff. We were told to stay together as a group and meet at the gate to the stadium at 5:30. Myra and I looked at the stuff in the booths. It was interesting, but nothing we wanted to carry around for the rest of the trip. The policemen made them pack up early because of traffic, so we went to the stadium early. Our group (37 people) sat together near the center, behind the main stage. A blimp flew overhead, probably remote-controlled. Small groups of people would dance on stage and everyone on the field would do the same dance. It was kind of like Zumba, so I did the arm motions from my seat. It was rockin’. And the field was full, everyone in some kind of costume, in groups. It reminded me of a marching band contest, with all the different ‘uniforms’. Someone passed out lanterns which consisted of a wire frame covered with paper. There was a place for a candle, which was provided separatedly.

It seemed like a dangerous combination. The ceremony started at 6. There was chanting and bowing, several long speeches, and more bowing and chanting. At times I noticed women hand-signing (for the hearing impaired?). Forty-five minutes later, the music started up again, and we were rockin’. Such dichotomy! Half our group decided to go shopping and have supper. I guess they took taxis. After awhile, the MWR man ushered the rest of us to the parking lot. We watched as groups of people marched out, resplendent in their costumes and different lanterns. Every so often, the parade police would stop them and let a float in. The floats were beautiful and lit internally. That was good because it soon got dark, too dark to take good pictures. There was a man selling small battery-powered lanterns by the street, but he wanted $10 each. Our guide passed out sticks to carry the lanterns on, which answered the question of how to carry it without burning our fingers. The parade was long, but eventually we were ushered in. I had not realized until then that it was like a comrel. That means community relations. We waved at the crowds on the sidewalks, and they waved back. I practiced my beauty queen wave, confident that none of them knew me. Starting and stopping, eventually we made our way to the end. The missing people showed up for the very last part. One lady’s lantern caught on fire and I thought it was a miracle that none of the others did. I felt like we were pyromaniacs on parade. Our guide called the bus. My candle went out just as I was about to board. Our guide did not accompany us back because he lived in Busan. We left at 9:30 and were back at base by 10:30. But the bus doors would not open because of some new barriers that were put in. So we had to back up to let the security guard on to check IDs. But then he ordered everyone off so he could search the bus. So we all walked back to Duffy’s Deron and Chaun gave Myra and I a ride home. I told Chris how it went, and we sat to watch an episode of CSI even though it was really late. I wrote up my blog but was unable to get it in before midnight.