Chuseok Break

Chuseok is a harvest festival where Koreans eat a lot and visit their families. It's similar to American Thanksgiving, only way cooler because we got an entire week off school. Well, technically I did have to work on Monday. On Mondays I have two 3rd grade classes in a row, followed by one 5th grade class. My mentor teacher told me that the kids probably wouldn't show up, since it was the last day before vacation. None of my 3rd graders showed up on Monday, but three random girls did. They thought it was hilarious to write Korean words on the board, encourage me to copy them, and then laugh at my bad hand writing. This went on for a while until I got bored and put on "Alice in Wonderland" for an hour. Eventually they left and I waited for my 5th graders. Only one showed up, Karolyn. I wanted to get going though so I told her Happy Chuseok and sent her on her way. On my way to the bus terminal, I passed Baskin Robbins, where I saw all of my 5th graders eating ice cream.

I took a 50 minute bus to Daejeon, then a 3 hour bus to Ulsan, where my friend Shalini lives. We became good friends back in August during orientation, and I really wish we didn't live so far apart from each other. Out of everyone I've met here, she reminds me the most of my friends back home.

After taking two buses to get to her, I arrived in Ulsan around 10:30 p.m. Her house is AMAZING, I'm so jealous that she gets to live right on the beach.

Unfortunately, Shalini was very sick with the flu most of the week, so that put a damper on some of our plans. We did get to watch lots of movies and play on the beach though, which is probably what we needed after such a hectic month. We went into the city almost every day to get food and explore. 

Remember that story about the woman who found a fried chicken beak in her Wendy's order? I don't think she would have a case in Korea.

For the record, this is not the food we ate. One night we had Turkish food, which was a nice change, and patbingsu for desert, which is very strange and a hard taste to describe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patbingsu

On my last day in Ulsan, our friend Steven came to visit. We went on a ferris wheel, walked on the beach, and drank Soju bombs (coke + beer + soju. Very healthy).

On Saturday morning, I took two more buses. One three-hour ride to Daejeon, then a 20 minute ride to Majeon, to visit Dan. I stayed with him for a day. We had legit American-style pizza (no corn!!!!) and walked around town. Sometime during this week, Fall FINALLY appeared. I can wear sweaters now!

Anyway, today I took the bus back to Daejeon, then a bus to Nonsan. I think I'm done with buses for a while.