Holiday Celebrations: Boseong Annual Light Festival

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The Boseong Light Festival was a bit tough to enjoy because it was hard to get there smoothly. I want to be clear—I’m not saying you shouldn’t go. Definitely go, but be ready for some unexpected challenges. It was a hassle dealing with all the logistics to reach the festival, and it made the experience less fun than I thought. Still, I think others should go too, just be sure to get ready for possible issues on the way there.

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The Boseong Light Festival

The “festival” is not on the tea plantations. I guess I understand why, but I think the parking situation would greatly improve if it were. It is about a mile from the tea plantation off a narrow two-lane road that actually serves as parking for the event. If you know anything about Korea, this is a recipe for disaster.

After a day of strolling through the tea fields and the museum, what could be better than a peaceful relaxing display of holiday lights, right? The lights are beautiful, but I wouldn’t call it relaxing.

First of all, good luck in finding someone who can tell you exactly where it is. It might help if you don’t pronounce it Bo-se-ong and pronounce it correctly as Bo-song. We finally pulled up pictures, a very successful maneuver, I might add, and were pointed in the right direction. One person told us we could walk another told us we could drive. But a little reconnaissance online from a previous visitor said there were no sidewalks and walking on the road for a mile in the dark made the decision for us.

Getting There

We found the terraced hill where the light display was to take place–after we passed it. We should have known by all the parked cars on the road that it was close, but there wasn’t any signage. Once we did pass it, we saw a sign that said: “4 kilometers to the next turn around”. We ended up parking along the railing at an overlook of the valley below.

Steven pulled behind the last car, making sure to put enough distance behind it and us to maneuver out when it was time to go. He looked back and said there wasn’t enough room for more than one car to fit in behind us. And we settled in for an hour to wait for the sun to go down.

As we waited, car after car pulled into the rest stop trying to “create” parking spaces and sure enough every one stopped to ponder the little space we left in front of us. Fifteen minutes later there were 5 cars behind us– three of them had to be in the road. When the sun finally did go down, there was mass confusion all around us.

The two lanes of traffic had effectively been reduced into one extra-wide one and we had to walk between the cars down the hill to the festival. Imagine cars honking their horns, trying (and failing) to back into tight spaces, u-turning, speeding up so no one could get in front of them… yup, you get the picture.

We Made it!

Once we did arrive, we were not in the best mood to enjoy anything and it initially became, a “let’s get some pictures and get out of here” kinda thing.

The festival was held on what appeared to be a private farm overlooking a valley and a lake. There were vendors selling all the typical Korean street foods on sticks, cotton candy, and neon toys. We stopped at the terrace above the field and took in the alternating lights in red, green, blue, yellow and white and finally took a breath.

Finally the Lights

The lights are beautiful. You enter the display under a lighted arch and are funneled into a massive lighted “galaxy” tunnel where you can purchase an “angel or star” card for good luck. The cards were strung up all along the tunnel. There are one or two vantage points where you can emerge and take pictures of the entire landscape on the way down the large hands and pink tree with twinkling teardrops. Patience is key.

There are a lot of people and it’s near impossible to take a picture without being photobombed. When we drove by a few hours ago, there were fewer people, but all the lights weren’t turned on. It might be possible to go just before the sun retreats or maybe just before closing– to avoid the crowds. I’m not sure.

Symbolism

The festival will send a message of hope for the New Year to tourists and residents who visit Boseong during the winter period. There seemed to be a lot of symbolism that was lost on us being foreigners. There were some words in the lights, that we couldn’t make out and the image in the center must mean something, but we have no idea what that is. Maybe one of you guys can help us out, do you know what this symbolizes? Does it have something to do with the Lunar New Year? Where we stayed: Hotel B and my review on booking.com.

The location was convenient, large flatscreen, the bathroom was large and the lighting was really good and the comforter was comfy if not extremely loud.

There was hair on the floor of the bathroom, the drainage pipe under the sink became dislodged and water wet everywhere. We told the front desk and no one came to fix it before we left. The breakfast was decent, we found a dent after we returned home on our Jeep. Not sure it happened there, but we didn’t notice it until after we returned home. They had valet parking so I have no idea what the parking situation was like. The bed was just as hard as the floor, no one spoke decent English which I wouldn’t mention except its advertised as a business hotel.

 

Hours and Address

12.11.2015 ~ 01.24.2016 Mondays to Thursdays: 18:00-22:00 (until 24:00 on the Christmas Eve) Fridays to Saturdays: 18:00-24:00 On December 31 the light will be up until the next day 07:00. For more info: +82-61-850-5211~5214

Address: 617, Nokcha-ro, Hoecheon-myeon, Boseong-gun, Jeollanam-do Botjae Dawon (봇재다원), Dahyanggak Pavilion Observatory (다향각 전망대).

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