We had a four day weekend because of the Korean holiday Chuseok, which is similar to our own Thanksgiving. At school on Friday we made Songpyeon with our kindergarten classes. Songpyeon is a rice flour dough that has semi sweet stuff in the middle, hard to explain but were pretty good! The Kindergartners also wore their traditional clothing called Hanbok, they all looked so adorable! I took quite a few pictures of them. I also got my first presents from the parents! The only boy in my Kindergarten's mom met me outside of my classroom and introduced herself, she handed me a bag and just kept saying its not much, its not much. I opened it right when I got into the office I was so excited, and it was a beautiful scarf. I'm already excited for winter (kind of...) but at least to just wear the scarf. My second present was from one of my first graders, a girl brought in these little cookie treats for me from the shop Paris Baguette. Such nice and thankful parents!
Friday after class, I didn't do much, just hung out with some of the other teachers and laid low because I had plans for all day Saturday and was really exhausted from our first full week at school.
Saturday, Rachel and I ventured into Seoul by ourselves, without any veteran help! We first went to Myeongdong which is a huge shopping area. I had such good self control for once and didn't buy anything! Even though a lot of their shops were full of cute clothing. We'll see how long that lasts. After Myeongdong, we pulled out our tourists maps and walked from there to Namdaemun street market. This is the place we originally wanted to go but got confused at first! The market had EVERYTHING, food, clothes, accessories, household items, everything. It was very overwhelming, and again I had very good self control and just bought some decorative chopsticks and a present for Molly that I'll send home for Christmas once I figure out what to buy everyone else! Lastly, we went to Namsangol Hanok Village, which is a village set up to show what traditional way of life in Korea is like. They had a lot of activities going on there because of the holiday, like painting masks or making a flute. I wanted to make a flute, but they were closing down when I got there... which is probably a good thing because what really would I have done with it? After our long day, Rachel and I got dinner with a couple of teachers that were in Seoul to go to a concert that night then we made our way back home. Our first trip to Seoul and back alone was a success! We had a little trouble finding the subway but everyone was super nice whenever we asked for help. Even when we were waiting to meet our friends in the subway, people asked where we needed to go, thinking we were lost! We left for Seoul around 11 and got back around 10:30pm so I was pretty exhausted and went to bed!
Sunday, after sleeping in for quite some time, we had a movie day at Chad's apartment. We watched a french movie called Un Prophete, about this guy in prison that was really good, and also In Bruges, with Colin Farrell, which I had never heard of but really liked it. I also tried Spam for the first time, or the Korean brand of it. They have a lot of Spam here. It actually wasn't that bad, but I don't think I'll be running out to buy more. Another laid back day, and after dinner, went to bed again.
Monday, we woke up and went hiking again, this time up a much less intense mountain, that was just in Suji, so only about fifteen minutes away. It wasn't as nice of a day and with this mountain significantly smaller, it wasn't busy at all so it was nice to be in a more serene place than the city all the time. After hiking, everyone took a nap and met up later for dinner and to celebrate one of the teacher's, Laura, birthday. She turned 30 so it was a "Death to my Twenties" party and everyone had to wear black. We went out in Hongdae which is in Seoul. It was really fun, and luckily this time we took a taxi back instead of waiting for the bus at 6am!
Now it is Tuesday, and I'm preparing for a nice short 3 day week! I made fried rice today for lunch/dinner and for a first attempt it wasn't so bad! I needed to switch it up from cereal and spaghetti. Otherwise, I haven't done much at all, and at 4pm am still wearing my pajamas! We get so little vacation time throughout the year, I need to take advantage of it. Our next day off is October 3rd, for a 3 day weekend, but then we have full weeks until Christmas break! Which is only 3 months and a week away until the Philippines and Danny is here! So exciting...
I added more pictures to my flickr account too, you can see my adorable children celebrating Chuseok!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/meghanfaricy/
Missing everyone!
Love, Meghan
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