Happy Chuseok!!

This past weekend was the holiday of Chuseok in Korea.  Chuseok is similar to our Thanksgiving.  Chuseok is a major harvest festival.  During this time Seoul looked almost like a ghost town.  Nearly everyone travels back to their hometowns to pay respect to those who have passed away.  On Chuseok morning, people go to the gravesites of their ancestors.  They clean up around the area and maybe put some flowers out.  Next, they offer food and drink to their ancestors.  A major food for this holiday is called songpyeon.  It is a rice cake filled with seseame seeds and sugar.    

The ever so tasy songpyeon!

This holiday is celebrated over a 3 day period with the actual Chuseok on the 2nd day.  It stunk this year because Chuseok was on a Saturday.  If it would have fallen on a Thursday we would have gotten Wednesday, Thursday,  and Friday off of classes.  But we only got a Friday off this year.  I guess you can't really complain about that.  On Thursday, the kindergarteners wore their traditional Korean outfit called a "Hanbok".  These outfits usually have many colors on them and are only worn a few times a year.  My school had a celebration for the kindergarten students.  I started off one class introducing Chuseok to the children although they obviously knew more than I will EVER know about it!  It was funny because all the teachers used Wikipedia to find information about it.  I then talked about Thanksgiving in America and how there were similarities and differences between the two holidays.  We played a few games that are normally played on Chuseok day.  One game was pretty much like hacky-sack, or however you spell it.  Another game was hopscotch.  During activity time we made songpyeon.  This was made using rice cakes that we already prepared.  We separated the rice cake mix into 5 pieces.  Then we flattened each one out and put seaseme seeds and sugar in the middle.  Next we folded it in half to somewhat resemble a cresent.  Each student brought some home to their family.  We were able to eat some songpyeon that was already made.  It was pretty good.  The only thing that made it good was the sugar though because rice cakes have no taste.  They just taste like rubber.  Very chewy. Thursday was fun in the morning with all the activities for the little kids.  But the afternoon classes were just normal, which really stunk. 

My class with their Hanbok outfits

Andrew and Daniel

Kenneth, Daniel, Andrew, Ben

Kenneth

Since nearly everyone in my area of Seoul was gone for the entire weekend it was really hard to find food.  I had to rely on the convinent store a few times for meals.  I was able to find some american restaraunts in another part of Seoul with a few of Emily's co-workers which was nice.  I figured since we had Friday off I should go explore Seoul a little bit.  I was looking through one of my travel books and I decided to go see the Olympic park.  Seoul held the summer olympics in 1988.  It was very easy to get to.  I only had to transfer one time on the subway.  When I got out of the subway the stairs literally took me to where the park started.  The park was massive.  I first started off by going to the olympic museum.  It was really neat.  There was a lot of memorbilia from korean athletes as long as detailed information about most of the olympic games.  I got to see the actual suit, swim cap, and goggles that Park Tae-hwan wore at the Beijing Olympics.  He is a very good swimmer from South Korea.  He won the gold medal in the 400 meter free and silver in the 200 meter free at the 2008 olympics.  After leaving the museum I walked around the outskirts of the park along a path that people usually walk, bike, or rollarblade on.  My one goal for coming to the olympic park was to swim at the pool that was used in the olympics.  Most of the olympic facilities were on the opposite side of the entrance to the park so it took awhile to get there.  After reaching the pool, I found that it was closed.  It's normally open to the public to swim for a couple of dollars.  But, it was Chuseok the next day so all the sporting facilities were closed.  Everything else in the park was open such as restaurants, coffee shop, gift shop.  It was a bummber that I didn't get to take pictures of the pool or swim in it but I will be back sometime in the near future.  The inside of the park was scattered with a ton of small/big parks that had stuff for families to do.  There were places to rest, play grounds for kids, some workout equipment, places to eat, etc.  Also the part was decorated with a lot of statues from various artists around the world.   It took about 1.5 hours to walk around the outside of the park.  It felt like I had spent the day at Disney World!  The olympic park was really cool and I will return soon to check out more of it when the athletic facilities are open. 

My building from the front.  I'm on the 4th floor. 

Entrance to Olympic Park

Olympic torch

The drum that was played at the opening ceremonies

Entrance to the pool

Park Tae-Hwan's olympic get-up

How old Korean men/women work out

Take 2

On Saturday I went around Seoul again with two of Emily's co-workers.  First, we went to Gyeonbokgun which is a part of Seoul.  This area houses the US Embassy, a really cool looking art center, and some Korean palaces.  I found out quickly that you're not supposed to take pictures of the US Embassy! We were at a stop light across the street from it so I decided to take a picture.  I then heard a Korean soldier yell at me, in Korean of course across the street and give the "No" sign which is making an X with your arms.  I thought it was funny because what would an American do with a photo of the US embassy?  Who knows.  He gave me a death stare when we walked by them, it was rather funny.  We then went to the palaces.  They were awesome.  We only saw 1 that day.  You could see off in the distance there were a bunch more.  I'm not sure if the public can see those, I would like to find out and go back if you can.  If you've ever seen a movie that takes place in Asian history this is what the palace looked like.  We were able to walk up to the "front door" of it and take a look inside.  There was a big throne with some various artifacts scattered through out the room.  This was pretty cool, but I eventually want to make it out to the mountains/countryside of Korea and see more palaces.  I was told by one of the guys I went with that all of the palaces we saw had been burned down many times by the Japanese so they had all been rebuilt.  There is one somewhere in Seoul that is still the origional palace, but you cant even see it from the rode its blocked off very well. 

The entrance into the palace area

Throne

Another palace off in the distance

Cheonggyecheon Stream

Street in Insa-dong

After leaving the palace we went to another area in Seoul close to the palace called Insa-dong.  There was street in this area that sold authentic Korean goods.  So far going out you usually only see massive shopping malls that are 10 stories high that only sell "modern" things.  This street sold old school acient Korean artifacts.  It would be easy to go crazy and spend a lot of money because there is a lot of cool things to buy.  I know that I will be getting some stuff at this place to take home with me next year.  Next, we found a newly built stream that runs through parts of Seoul. It is named Cheonggyecheon Stream Each side of the stream is open to the public to walk, bike, run on which is cool because its very quiet down there.  The stream is probably 20-30 lower than the street so it takes away  alot of the city noise.  By the time we left that area of Seoul it was night time which made for some good pictures.  That night for dinner we went to a place called Lotteria.  It is the Korean version of McDondalds, Burger King, Etc.  The food was decent although the pictures on the menu were nearly twice as big as the food itself!  It is Lotteria's 20th anniversary this year so they have a special new "burger" out.  The burger is half beef half fish!  How delicious does that sound?  I hope you're thinking not delicious at all.  Sunday I didn't really do much.  The girl who lived in my apartment before me from my school left a bike.  I rode around my area a little bit seeing if anything was open for food.  I eventually met up with Emily when she got back.  She went to Disneyland Honk Kong this weekend with two of her co-workers which sounds pretty sweet! That's about all for now, working is definately going to be long this week.  And for a long time!  I dont think we get a day off again until winter break.  Yay i can't wait! Its fun to watch Korean baseball here because they are just starting their playoffs.  I can sleep easier at night knowing the Cubs are one day closer to the day their new owner takes charge and hopefully one day close to the end of Jim Hendry's horrible reign at the cubs GM.  But for now, keep it going Hawkeye football!  I purchased a subscription through hawkeysports.com and am now able to listen to the radio broadcast for each game.  I went to bed Saturday night after the end of the third quarter figuring they had it locked down.  Apparently not!  They almost lost.  Hopefully they can do well this weekend against Michigan.  If I get the chance I'll listen to it again!