Chuseok

On the last weekend of September we celebrated the Korean Chuseok holiday by going to Andong and Gyeongju in the South Western part of the country. Before leaving, we had a Chuseok party at our school. We all made Sampyong - a traditional desert made of rice cue with sesame seeds and sugar in the middle. The kids wore their Hanboks (traditional Korean dress) and looked absolutely adorable. Have I mentioned that Korean kids are the cutest ever yet? They are. Hands down.

So after our teaching week ended we started our little trek to Andong/Gyeongju. We decided to go to Andong because there was a traditional Korean mask festival happening at the Hahoe Village there.  We left our apartment early in the morning on Sunday and proceeded to have a lovely train ride accompanied by a man making very strange noises. We arrived in Andong and happened to stumble upon (probably) the only cab driver there that was basically completely fluent in English. It was lovely. We got to the village and explored for a bit then sat down for one of the performances. It was a neat experience. I think I personally would have appreciated it more if I had had some basic understanding of what was happening, but it was good.

We then left the village, ate dinner, and killed time until our midnight train to Gyeongju. I tried to warn the hostel that we would be getting in during the night. I don't think they had really understood though. We were greeted by a lovely, thoroughly intoxicated man who fell up the stairs on his way to our room. My life is full of surprises at this point.

The rest of the trip was spent exploring Gyeongju. It's a very nice little city full of things to see.
The rest of the trip is probably better summed up in pictures. I can't take credit for these. They were all taken by the lovely Emily.

Day 2 - Gyeongju

The first thing we went to see was the Stone Pagoda of Bunhwangsa

We saw a lot of other things in between, but it would be too long/I am too lazy to post pictures/write about all of them. This next place was my favourite - the Anapji pond. According to wiki, it was part of the palace complex of ancient Silla and was constructed by the King in 674. It was reconstructed in 1974 and is absolutely beautiful. 

This is officially going to be a two-part post. I'll post about the rest of our trip in the near future!

Coffee and Cats

Although I've told almost everyone I've encountered since Saturday about the cat cafe, I think it's definitely worth reiterating.
Emily and I decided to go into Seoul on for the day Saturday to go shopping in Myeong-dong. Although there is a lot of shopping everywhere, it can be hard to find clothes that fit us. Also, we're still working on figuring this out, but it seems as though you can try on cardigans, skirts, pants, and dresses but not shirts and sweaters. We're not so sure why yet. On top of that, a lot of clothes here are one-size, which doesn't really work for us. Moral of the story, we wanted to go to some familiar stores where we knew clothes would fit us + we could try them on. It turned out to be a lovely day and as it was coming to an end we were just wandering around when we came across a sign for "Lily Cat Cafe"...

I had read about dog and cat cafes, but since neither of us can read Korea, we weren't positive that, that's what this was. We decided to go in and low and behold, it was indeed a place where you can have coffee and hang out with cats at the same time. There was a flat rate for drink + entrance into the cat area so we paid, put away our stuff, washed our hands, and went in. Inside there were between 20-25 cats -ish including three kittens.

Emily and I got super lucky and managed to attract two of the kittens who proceeded to sleep in our laps for the rest of the time we were there.

It was super clean and the cats seemed to like all of the attention... which we gave them lots of.

This one looked a lot like Chester Cat

All in all, we will definitely be returning to another cat cafe in the future. It was well worth it. My students thought I was pretty cool too.

I actually live here.

I promised my family some pictures of my apartment and haven't quite followed through. So, for those of you interested in seeing what a Korean apartment looks like, it's not much different from any other place. Emily and I definitely got lucky in getting a giant apartment... and by that I mean that we have a spare bedroom for all of our future visitors.

So here we go...

This is the kitchen. There really isn't much to say about it. We have a stove and a toaster oven that we use for everything. 

This is the living room.

This room should be noted. It is our very beautiful spare bedroom. It is where all of our lovely friends who come visit will sleep. 

This is my bedroom. Please notice the comforter. It has various coloured cats and says "miau" all over, which I am quite positive is an attempt to say "meow". The apartment was fully furnished/full of stuff when we moved in so basically everything you see was already somewhere in the apartment. You should also note the blue lump in the corner of the bed. Yes, that is a snuggie. I had no intention of ever trying one/owning one but when it turned up I couldn't resist. I officially get what all the fuss was about now.

Missing are the laundry room, entrance, bathroom, and Emily's room, but I don't want to be a complete creep. I'll eventually try to demonstrate the awesomeness that is the Korean shower. 

Introductions.

Why a blog? I originally intended to blog about my Korean adventure as a way of connecting to everyone, but then I got lazy. I decided that I would just send out big emails instead. Of course that didn't work out either. Either the email wouldn't get sent at all or I would end up only answering a few people. Needless to say, I am back to square one with a lot to talk about. I will try to update this as frequently as I can or as often as something exciting happens in my life.

So, Korea eh. I've been here for over a month now, soon approaching the two-month mark. It's been good so far. There has been a lot less adjusting than I expected. I'm living in Suji-gu, a suburb of the suburbs of Seoul. Although it's far enough out of the city there is a lot to see and do. I still don't know exactly where I live and couldn't direct someone here without using McDonalds as my primary landmark, but I am not too worried.