Chuseok weekend

Chuseok is Korea's version of Thanksgiving. Most people return to their hometowns (where their families have often lived for decades). They are supposed to visit and clean the graves of their ancestors and they eat traditional Korean food and play games etc. It's a 3 day holiday based on the lunar calendar and this year it was Sunday through Tuesday (today). So we got 2 days off of school.

My original plan was to take Saturday off and do nothing, then go do a bus tour of Seoul on Sunday during the day, then go to Jeff's until Tuesday or Wednesday. People started freaking me out about the buses being crowded etc. so I decided to have my boss buy me a bus ticket for 6am on Sunday morning to Seoul. He couldn't buy a return ticket because those are intercity and not express buses. So I decided to come back to Jinju early Tuesday morning and not Wednesday, in part because I was afraid the buses would be full and I would get in trouble, and in part because Jeff only had Monday off.

On Friday there was another going away party for a girl named Emily. I was still fighting off my cold, so I went out only until midnight. This turned out to be a good thing because a fight broke out later that night and a guy ended up needing stitches. I went to dinner beforehand with Cindy and a new girl named Bridget (she's still in college and doing her student teaching here - if I had known about this, I would have told Bret to come over!) to a Vietnamese place close to my house. The food we had was really good, but we couldn't order everything we wanted because the place was closing soon. We actually ended up getting kicked out because it was closing. So next time I go, I'll go for lunch!

I almost accomplished my goal of not doing anything on Saturday, but instead, I went to an early dinner with LeeAnna and another new girl named Sarah who lives in my building. We had dinner at a Korean place downtown called A1 and it was pretty good. I had these chicken roll things and an omelet with rice in it (a very Korean food that I had yet to try - not bad). After dinner we walked around the castle at night. All the buildings are closed, but you still get a view of the river at night and it's a pretty walk.

Sunday morning I got up at 4:30, so that I could leave my house by 5:30 so that I could make sure I got the 6am bus. My friend Cindy had decided to join me for the tour and to visit Jeff. It was nice having someone to go with, but as you will see, it sort of changed my plans. I had previewed the bus tour and decided on 4 places that I wanted to see with 3-4 other maybes. The first 4 were all palaces and the other 4 varied. Cindy wanted to go shopping in Myeong-Dong and we decided to go there first. It took forever because Cindy had to try on lots of stuff. We ran into Liezle and some other people in a store there, but they left before we did. We went into a few more shops and then had lunch. After lunch they had set up all these kiosks outside and we stopped at a bunch of those. I bought some socks and a scarf. Seoul tower (a maybe on my list) was basically across the street from the shopping area. Cindy wanted to see the tower, so we decided to go there next. We ended up walking up a huge hill on a back street somewhere but eventually found the cable cars up to the bottom of the tower. We decided to take the cable car because we had lots of shopping bags (well Cindy did and I helped her carry them) and because it was getting later in the afternoon.

The cable car ride is pretty short, but you're crammed in a car with a bunch of other people. We got stuck in the middle and it was hard to take a picture, but you could still see the city. When you first get out, there is a small fountain and snack stand. Then you climb a bunch of high stairs to the fire beacon system. Then you climb some more stairs to the base of the tower and a sitting area.

Part of the fire beacon system

When we got to the base of the tower, there was a traditional Korean demonstration of swords and some music. We watched that for a few minutes and then played some traditional Korean games - like archery, playing drums and a game like hacky sack but with something that looks like a shuttlecock with streamers on it. We walked around the base of the tower and looked at the "locks of love" walls. There was a story that if a couple made a wish together on the mountain top, it would come true. So they put a wall with a chain link fence and now you're supposed to put a lock on the wall to symbolize everlasting love. It's a very cute idea and from a distance it looks nice, but up close all the locks are kind of rusty. We opted not to go to the top of the tower because it was kind of expensive ($7 elevator ride), it was a hazy day and me no likey tall buildings.

Me and a drum player from the demonstration

Me and one of the sword guys. He had to keep yelling at people for picking up those flags poles/spears behind him

Me playing the drum

This guy was at the bottom of the tower. His sign says, "Haechi, Seoul's symbol, is an imaginary creature that helps realize justice and enhance safety and happiness."

Christmas trees of locks

Lock wall. The wall went around a fairly large area. They didn't have locks for sale at the top (or none that we could see), but they did have some at the very bottom in 7-Eleven. We didn't put a lock on the wall.

The tower from the base

View of Seoul from the base of the tower

The other side

After the tower, we decided to call it a day and go to Jeff's. So, no bus tour and no palaces. Oh well. It gives me an excuse to go back and next time I can cross two places off of my list (both Myeong-Dong and Seoul tower are stops on the tour). The subway back to the bus terminal where our bags (and the bus) were took us an hour. We randomly saw another friend there for about 5 minutes. We hopped on the bus to Jeff's and he picked us up and made us nachos (I made guac!) and we had pina coladas (but did not get caught in the rain). Then he decided to make a pumpkin pie for some reason. It was very good although he made his own evaporated milk (because he saw that you could on the internet). That night we played a little Wii sports and watched Jimmy Fallon and fell asleep around 1ish.

Monday morning (so Sunday afternoon EST) Jeff set his alarm for around 4am and we "woke up" and watched football. Jeff was awake for most of it and only fell asleep for a little bit. Cindy and I were mainly asleep. I watched about 10 minutes of the Eagles game, saw P. Rivers throw a few passes and then woke up around 7 for the start of the Jets game. Jeff had been slow cooking a pork roast since the night before and it smelled really good. He then shredded it with BBQ sauce and made some Grands so we had pork biscuits for breakfast. At about halftime, Jeff's boss and his family (wife and 2 of 5 kids) came over. They seem really nice and Jeff played Wii Uno with their daughter while the game was on the other TV. Then Jeff and I played 101 Wii games (so that we could unlock all of the games) and Cindy napped for awhile.

After napping and some snacking, we went bowling on post. Cindy was excited because they have cheap Coronas. We bowled for awhile, then we went grocery shopping at the convenience store for some snacks, then headed out for dinner. We wanted to get some kebabs but the place was closed. So we had Mexican instead. My pork nachos and Jeff's chicken quesadilla were very good. Cindy "beef" (which was bulgogi) burrito wasn't great, but was still better than what we normally get. The tequila shots were trouble, although they did give us blessed limes!

After dinner, we went to a bar called Shooters and played darts for an hour or so. We played Cricket girls v. boy. We won once and he won twice. They gave us a Chuseok present of grapes. I have decided that grapes with seeds are just not worth it. After darts, we went home and watched some TV and fell asleep because we were getting up at 6 to go to work/the bus. I got home and watched the first half of the Raiders game and took a quick nap. Then Cindy and I went to dinner with Liezle and her mom at the dak galbi place.

As usual, it was a good weekend, even though it wasn't what I had planned.