Chuseok!

Last week Eric and I had Tues-Fri (21-24) off of work for Chuseok, the Korean thanksgiving holiday. Chuseok is one of the most important holidays in Korean culture; second only to New Year’s Day. Chuseok is a time when families travel to their relatives’ house and eat traditional foods such as: bulgogi, galbi, and songpyon (a special type of rice cake). This meal of meat, vegetables and rice cake is usually eaten for breakfast. After breakfast, families travel to the graves of relatives who have passed away to deliver gifts and to maintain the grounds. Upon arrival at the grave site, the first order of business is to clean up the grounds; this includes; weeding, cutting crashing, and cleaning the tombstone. Once this is done, offerings of food, drink, and flowers are placed on the grave and the family bows down in respect to honor their relatives’ memory.

While the rest of Korea was eating traditional food and honoring their relatives, Eric and were eating a super-sized Big Mac meal from McDonalds. The reason for this was twofold: 1. we had a strong craving for a burger and fries and 2. McDonalds proved to be one of the few things open during the holiday. After filling our stomachs, and arteries, we treated ourselves to a few days of relaxation and movies. However, at the end of the week we met up with our friend Jimmy, Rachel, Matt, and Chantel and headed to Busan for the weekend. This marked all of our second trip to Busan and we were determined to relax. This time our agenda did not include running all over the city taking in the various sites and landmarks of the city. Rather, we all staked a small spot on Haeundae and on both Friday and Saturday took in the sun’s rays and a good book. I am happy to say when our beach time was over, I not only gained a small sunburn but I finished my book as well.





Once the sun went down, we would grab dinner and then ultimately drinks at a few bars not too far off the beach. However, on Saturday night we were invited by our hosts, Jae Hee and Chan, to join them and our fellow guest for chips and salsa, cheesecake, Makoli (traditional rice wine), soju, and beer. It proved to be quite a potent mixture of food and drink, but I really enjoyed hearing the funny anecdotes of our new friends. Once the food and Makoli was gone, we (as a large group) headed to a pub nearby to finish the night of with a beer and some popcorn. It was superb! However, in my slightly altered state Rachel and I were convinced to wake up early to go on a walk with our hosts. Now, I like walking as much as the next person, but getting up early to go on a walk after a night of eating and drinking is not ideal. Regardless, Rachel and I set an alarm, got up, and made sure to fill our stomachs with as much coffee, toast, and eggs as possible before our journey. When all was said and done, the walk proved to be quite beautiful; it was along the cliffs which overlooked Haeundae beach.





When our walk was finished, we all packed our bags and made our way back to Gwangju. We made sure to grab a greasy lunch of McDonald’s before we left (yes, I had McDonalds 3 times within a 5 day period) and then settled in our bus for the three hour ride home. Eric and I had so much fun relaxing and reading. We don’t do that enough here. It is really easy to get caught up in exploring everywhere because we want to see as much as possible. In hindsight, I am really glad we just sat on a beach for two days.