This past weekend was Chuseok, or Korean Thanksgiving. I had a busy weekend, and wish I would have had more than just Friday off! Typically, you get the day before and after the holiday off. This year, it just happened to be on Saturday. That's okay though, my co-teacher HunJu told me today that we'll start winter break sooner instead!
The weekend started with the crew meeting out Thursday night at Chonnam University. This was the first time we had been to the area, and some of our friends, Allie and Alex, got lost on the way. They eventually made it to "Pump," a pretty cool bar with crazy lights. We got a table tap of beer, my first time seeing one of those! Another highlight at the bar was the coasters that light up different colors when you put the drinks on. Made for a pretty cool looking martini!
On Friday, my co-teacher Mihey came by with her 7 year old nephew. They dropped off some Korean Rice Cakes, songpyon. To be honest, I wasn't the biggest fan. I thought I'd try another one today, but they had started to mold. Ew.
Friday night we met at German Bar. The owner of German Bar has been telling us for the past 2 weeks that Oktoberfest is starting. However, he's never really specified a date. He just says, "Next weekend Oktoberfest." We are starting to think it's never going to happen. But that was okay, we just had a couple of beers anyhow.
Emily and I took a hike up Mt. Mudengsang on Saturday afternoon. We took our time on the way up. Neither of us really knew where we were going, so we just kept on walking. We kept saying, "just a little farther! I think I see the top!" Eventually we made it. It took about an hour and 20 minutes, but we probably could have done it in 1 hour. From the top, an area called Jungmeorijae, we had some awesome views. On one side, we got to see the entire city, surrounded by mountains. When we turned around, it was completely lush green mountains. It was very impressive and felt great to make it (almost) all the way to the top. When the leaves start turning, we want to go back again, this time all the way. Here are some pictures of the views:
Here was a temple we stopped at on the way up.
One side was green mountains like this for as far as you could see.
It was pretty sunny, so that's why the city is hard to see. And yes, there are 1.5 million people living here. It is a very high and dense city, not at all like back home!
Finally, here are Emily and I sporting our new hiking shirts for the first time. Next hiking purchase- a backpack. Oh wait, I got that today. Make that hiking boots.
Emily had heard that there was going to be an EPIK pig roast on Friday night, and we wanted to check that out with our friend Joe, who was visiting from Incheon for the weekend. So Gabe, Emily, Allie, Brian, Alex, Joe, and I looked for it later on that night. However, all we saw was a car accident happen in front of The Underground Groceriers. That almost made up for missing the pig roast. Instead, we just showed Joe around downtown. We checked out an amazing and kinda fancy restaurant, Ethinic Cafe, German Bar, WaBar, and Fusion Soju. Emily, Allie, and I even snuck in a bit of shopping. We had heard that many places would be closed over Chuseok, but luckily we didn't have any problems.
Sunday, Joe had to go home, so we took it easy. It was kinda rainy too. I definitely did a lot of fun stuff, and it was good to see Joe again. This coming weekend I'm going to visit Dinah in Busan, so I need to rest up for that this week. It will be hard to though, I'm staying busy with going to the gym and my 4 hours a week of Korean class!
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