Long Weekend

Hi!
It was a long weekend here in Korea.  Friday was a day off because they celebrate it as Buddha's birthday. It was a good weekend.  I did so much, but most of  it wasn't anything exciting.  On Friday, some of the other English teachers and I went to the underground shopping mall in Gangnam.  I found some great t-shirts under $10.  It was a large mall, so we spent five or six hours there but it went by in the blink of an eye.  Saturday went much the same.  We went to the I-park mall and browsed a bit, and then we went to a movie.

Sunday was the most noteworthy day.  I went on a bike riding tour of a couple of islands off the coast of Korea, near Incheon.  It was very beautiful and worth it, although it was one of those days where we were lucky it ended well, or even began.  We started early, at 8:00, to get to where we were supposed to meet the rest of the group.  We thought we had the way by subway all figured out, but we were wrong.  We took a way that was supposed to save us time, but because of a detour it took over an hour longer than it would have if we had taken the more familiar route.  The line we were on forked, and our subway took the wrong fork, so we had to go back and figure out another way to get to our desired station.  Luckily for us, the group waited.

We met the group over an hour late, and they were very nice about it.  We rented our bikes, and then got back on the subway until we were near the airport.  We then rode our bikes to the ferry, which due to a series of delays, we just missed and had to wait for the next one.  Luckily the ferries were only 20-30 minutes apart, so we were able to continue fairly seamlessly.  We finally got to the island, and started riding.  It was not what I was expecting, but it was fun.  I was expecting a leisurely ride near the coast, but that was not the way it would be.  We biked up and down the large hills/small mountains.  It was way more effort than I had planned.

During our ride we stopped at the coast of the island and went into a beautiful house/museum, where they had once filmed a movie.  This house was amazing.  It had a spectacular view, tons of windows and balconies.  One the second floor it had a round room made of glass with a white piano in the center.  Our leaders new how to play (one was a piano teacher), so we had some wonderful music while we toured.  I didn't actually take pictures of the house, but it was amazing, and a lot of us wanted to move in an clean the place up.  We couldn't understand why it was, seemingly, abandoned.

Here is the view from the house.

This is where our trip took a bit of a bad turn.  We had just started off back down this hill and the girl behind me, one of the girls I work with, fell over her handle bars.  Thankfully, she didn't hurt her head, and mainly just had scrapes, but she did hurt her wrist pretty bad.  We walked our bikes to the nearby beach and had lunch.  The girl was not able to ride her bike, so she couldn't continue on.  The three of us were going to stick together and head back to the pier to wait for the ferry, but Koreans can be unbelievably kind.  There was a couple heading back and the group's leaders asked them if they could take her back.  They didn't have room because their car was packed.  Did they say no and leave?  Nope, they got out and reorganized their entire car so they had room for her.  They never once complained or gave a look of impatience or inconvenience.  She later told us they even bought her a coffee.  It was so nice to see that people or a culture can still be so generous and kind.

We finished our tour of the islands and headed back on the long journey home.  For the most part it was a pretty great day.  I don't know if I would go biking here again, just because I don't think I can handle the hills, but I'm glad I did it at least once.  I would also like to head back to these islands because they were beautiful and the view was gorgeous.

Have a great week.  Here is a picture from the ferry on the way home from the biking trip.

Lantern Festival

Hi,
This weekend was the Lantern Festival in Seoul.  It celebrates Buddha's birthday, which is on this coming Thursday.  If any of you were every thinking of coming to Korea, come for this festival.  It was one of the best festivals I've been to.  I generally don't care for parades, but theirs was impressive.  They also have tons of free activities.

Saturday night was the Lantern Parade.  The parade marched from a nearby university to a temple.  There were so many beautiful floats, lanterns, and dresses.  They had two incredible floats.  One was a huge elephant that could move its' head and ears, and made elephant sounds.  Trumpet?????  The second one was a dragon that could breathe real fire, and once you were thoroughly impressed with that it let out a resounding roar.  Seriously, it was impressive, but unfortunately my camera died well before they came by.  Here are some of the pictures I did get.

I kind of like the ones with the Buddhist monks in focus but it blurry around them.  It looks like life is moving super fast around them, but they are still.  I'm super deep.  It was actually really hard to get any really steady pictures, especially of the walkers.  I couldn't figure out their pace and they are all blurry.

Today I went back to the festival to make my own lantern.  I did and it was challenging.  I was told it is an activity in which to practice patience.  While I was making mine three or four film crews video taped me.  I'm not sure what they are using it for, but they got super close and stayed for a while.  I refused to look up, but maybe they liked that.  The 10 year old near me even said that I was in the hot spot.  There are now so many videos of me making my lantern.  I didn't take a picture when I had finished.  I figured I would take one later, but that didn't work out.  It was near the end of the lantern making part of the festival and there was to be a competition and then you could collect your lanterns.  Sadly, I did not make it back in time to pick mine up.  I'm very disappointed, and trying very hard not to blame it on the girl I work with.  Ultimately, it was my fault because I could have went back by myself to get it.

They had so many other activities there as well.  They had a bunch of places where you could make mini lanterns, clay buddhas, Korean paper, prayer beads, and many more things.  They also had a few different kinds of temple stay foods.  That is the kind of food you would be eating if you spent a day or two at temple, which I plan to do, but I didn't try the food.  I figure when I go there I will really experience it.  There were also buddhists from all over the world, each country had their own little tent.  

The festival was very enjoyable, and affordable.  They barely charged for anything.  I made my lantern and prayer beads for free, and I even got a wagon wheel for free (they love wagon wheels here).  It was a great weekend and I would highly recommend it.

Take care!

Hanboks

Hi!
This weekend was much more relaxing than last week.  I went to Seoul again on Saturday.  I went specifically to try on the traditional dress, a hanbok, at the Korean Tourist Organization (KTO).  Every other Saturday, you can go down there and try them on for free.  You can also do a little calligraphy and origami, all for free but you do have to sign up, so there may be a short wait for your turn.  It was kind of fun.  You put them on to take pictures in them.  While the girl who worked there was taking our pictures some random Korean girl was taking pictures of us too.  Perhaps to giggle with her friends about later, who knows why, but it made me laugh that she was doing that.

After that we checked out Namdaemun.  A large outdoor shopping market.  I picked up a great $10 t-shirt, and some socks.  This market takes a while to get through, and it was very crowded, and Koreans push.  I mean push.  If you are not moving and they want to, they will push you out of their way.  That goes for everywhere, getting on and off the subway/bus, washrooms, markets, and of course the street.  I don't care for it.  

It was a good afternoon though.  The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed a coffee on the patio and admired Seoul.  It is a beautiful city.  It's clean, and calm (other than the pushing, but that's all over Korea), and doesn't smell of sewage.  Ahhh, not smelling sewage..........I'm just kidding, you only get whiffs, frequents whiffs, of sewage where I am.  So basically it was a relaxing day, and  a relaxing weekend.  

Hope you all had a great one too.