Chusok

Korea celebrated Chusok this past Sunday, September 14th. Chusok, also known as the Korean Thanksgiving, is refered to as the Harvest Festival and coincides with September's full moon, the Harvest moon. The day preceding and following Chusok are also holidays, so I technically should have been back at work on Tuesday. But SLP is awesome and gave us Tuesday off, so I was very happy to have a 4-day weekend!!! We had activities organized for the preschoolers the Friday before Chusok, so that morning was pretty fun. The kids wore traditional Korean clothing, called hanboks, and they were adorable! I now want a hanbok of my own, because they're so beautiful! For some strange reason, wearing hanboks made them all ridiculously well-behaved, so I was very pleased! We made "songphyun", rice cakes that are made of rice and filled with beans, sesame seeds, and chestnuts. They look like perogies! Luckily there was a helper teacher showing us what to do, because I had no idea how to make songphyun, although I now know that it's super easy. We then had manner class, where the kids learned the proper (and respectful) way to bow. They were so awkwardly cute! It was great to watch! Both of these activities were spread out, so in our freetime we coloured and played some games. I somehow ended up staying with my 7-year olds ALL morning, so needless to say I was exhausted by the time 12:30 came around. And I'm not even exagerating when I say that the second their hanboks came off, they were back to being their silly/hyper/frustrating selves! Guess I should be happy that they were well-behaved for at least an entire hour. That NEVER happens!!!

On Saturday, I went to the Yongsan electronics market with some friends and bought myself a lovely iPod nano. My MP3 player went kaput a few weeks ago and I NEED music in my life, especially when I'm walking home or grocery shopping, so it was a necessary purchase. I have no idea about electronics, but everyone agrees that I got an awesome deal for it. Yay me! It was my Chusok gift to me! We then went to the Express Bus Terminal where there's a gazillion shopping stands and bought a few W5,000 shirts and 2 cute pairs of heels for W20,000. That's basically $10 each. Where else can you buy cute shoes for that cheap?! SWEET!!!

Sunday morning, met up with some of the girls and traveled to Everland, an amusement park outside of Seoul. It took us nearly 2 hours to get here by cab and bus, but it was totally worth the trip. The main reason for the trip was to visit the zoo, then the amusement park, but I don't think any of us realized how MASSIVE Everland is! I now know that it's Korea biggest amusement park and one of the most popular in the world. I can see why! It's an amazing place! There's 5 basic divisions to the park: European Adventure, Magic Land, American Adventure, Global Fair, and Zoo-Topia. It was around 1pm by the time we got there, so we figured we'd have tons of time to see it all. WRONG! It took us over 4 hours just to explore Zoo-Topia! It's a wonderful zoo with a gazillion animals, many of which made me laugh because Korea and I don't necessarly share the same views on exotic animals. Example: Dispays showcasing skunks (Yes, SKUNKS!), guinea pigs, hamsters, budgies, rabbits, chipmunks, beavers, as well as a few other animals that I've seen either in my backyard or in a local pet store. Hilarious!!! The monkeys, living in the appropriately named 'Friendly Monkey Valley', were adorable and they had many different breeds, some of which I'd never even heard of! I love monkeys! They also had 2 stunnig white tigers and some gorgeous Siberian tigers, which made this cat lady happy! Oh! And there were bear cubs and tiger cubs and baby monkeys! CUUUUUTE!!!!! There was an African Safari that we REALLY wanted to go on, but the line up was over an hour long and we didn't want to wait. We kept going back hoping the line would be shorter, but it just kept getting longer! *pouts* With all of this animal viewing, it didn't give much time for going on rides. A few of us rode the 'T-Express', the self-proclaimed steepest wooden roller coaster in the world. It has an incline of 77 degrees and I'm not gonna lie...it was intense! When we'd go down this part of the rollercoaster, I felt like I was eating my heart!!! SO MUCH FUN!!! I laughed hysterially the entire time and bought one of the pictures that they sell because my expression is hilarious! Two of us went on this weird viking-type ride that I really can't explain, but it was tons of fun. Not even close to being as terrifying as the T-Express, since it was more of a midway ride, but still fun. Then all of us rode the ferris wheel which gave us an amazing view of Everland. Only then did I realize just how humongous this place is! The last thing we did was visit the Four Seasons Garden and Rose Garden, which were beautiful because it was now dark outside so there were electric candlesticks illuminating the flowers and sculptures. The full moon was also gorgeous, so the overall effect of these gardens were amazing. We left Everland at around 9pm and managed to make it home before 11pm. Bedtime quickly followed.

On Monday, Amanda and I attempted to catch a movie, but the nearby theatre wasn't showing anything new. We found another theatre and made the treck there, but the only English movie that was playing was sold out. Sigh. So no movie. That night, the girls got together at Jess' for some drinks, then we headed out to Hongdae to go clubbing. We went to 3 different clubs and they were totally dead. Maybe 5 people max! Very depressing. By 1:30am, most of us were ready to call it quits and head home, but we decided to try one last spot. Well, it seems that everyone in Hongdae were at this bar because it was packed! Literally wall to wall... what the?! The music was great and it was fun for maybe an hour, but then having that many people around got to be a little much, not to mention 3 guys kept trying to dance with me all at once, so I was being bounced around a little too much for my liking. It was kinda creepy! Thankfully I spotted one of the girls and her boyfriend dancing by the stairs overlooking the dance floor, so I was happy to escape to a place where I could actually dance without getting grabbed every 2 seconds! We basically all got tired of that place at the same time, so we headed home at around 3am.

Tuesday... LAZY DAY!!! I spent the day reading, watching movies, and didn't leave my apartment once. Wonderful!!! I figured I'd arrive at work feeling rested and rejuvenated on Wednesday, but not so much. It totally felt like a Monday! It's always that way though, isn't it? First day back at work, whether it's a Monday or a Friday, will always give you a case of the Mondays. Strange!