October 2009..unfinished

NOTE: I completely forgot I drafted this post and never finished it -_-...this was written sometime in December...obviously my goal of finishing the last few months before the new years came failed -_-

From now on I'll be updating by topics instead of chronologically because I'm obviously not very good at keeping up to date ^^; sorry~

I'll be updating again soon :) until then!

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Blogging right now in an attempt to stay awake O_O. Let's say staying up until 3:30 AM watching Korean dramas was not a good choice (but I can't help it...my coteacher did it before too!)

Since my attempt to get updated before the new month came failed...I'm going to try and at least recap on the last couple months before the new year comes...that's feasible...right??

Anywho, October!
Not much happened the first week in terms of school. It was a short week because of the upcoming Chuseok holiday (the Korean Thanksgiving). On Tuesday I went to Kangnam for the first time to meet up with Matty for dinner. The next day I brought my school these boxes of these walnut pastries filled with red bean to celebrate my first pay check. They seemed to like it so I was happy :). Later in the day my principal apparently went out and bought me this huge box of these traditional korean cookies (I'm really not used to getting all these kind of mini present/food presents but...it is very tasty and very kind ^^)

The Thursday before the Chuseok weekend (which my friend and I had planned a trip to go out of Seoul to Gyeongju the former capital during the Shilla period) my friend and I decided to go out for a night of fun before our trip. We started out in Sinchon for dinner but before that stopping by this place where she had gone to this language exchange bar years ago. Turns out it was still there so we talked to one of the people working with the company that hosted the events for it. After getting information on the language exchange bar we headed out for some dinner and drinks. And as expected afterwards we headed over to Hongdae to dive into the club scene there...we ended up staying there until past 4 am (keep in mind we had to depart early the next morning).

I'm suprised we were able to wake up in time the next morning!! After getting only a couple hours of sleep my friend and I met up again and taxi-ed over to seoul station to catch our bus. We grabbed some snacks for the bus but my stomach was not up for it. We both were knocked out for most of the 3 hour bus ride there, still feeling groggy from the night before.
When we finally arrived in Gyeongju we grabbed some info on city tours from the information desk and then made our way to our hostel. I've only stayed in a couple of hostels in my life ...but this hostel in Korea was by farrrr shadier and way dirtier! We decided since we already paid for the first night we would just stay there for one night and try to find another place the next day. We headed out to find some sambap for lunch which ended up taking us much longer to find than expected. After much wandering around we finally found a place which was family owned (so cute..their kids were playing in the restaurant and the baby kept crawling over close to our table <3). After lunch we headed back to the hostel for a nap (still exhausted from the night before). After some rest we got up and headed out by bus to Bomun Lake Resort which was suppose to put on a free cultural show. We watched some traditional instrument playing and some traditional dances. When the show finished we grabbed some dinner then made our way back to the hostel to turn in early (we had stopped by a hotel near the hostel and it turns out that the hotel [which was very cute and clean] costs only 4000 won more per person each night...definitely worth it for such an upgrade!).

The first night trying to find a place for dinner was when I really noticed how different of a city Seoul is compared to other cities in South Korea. Before we headed out we had asked the owner of the hostel where a good place to eat was and he had told us there would be lots of restaurants in that area. When we arrived there it was mostly dimmly lit streets with just a few eateries sprinkled around the street. Compare this to Seoul where everything is densely packed together with all the buildings having multiple floors all filled with different types of restaurants and stores. It was also much quieter here - the lake resort was a big tourist area yet it was pretty quiet aside from a few cars zooming down the streets. In Seoul it feels like there are people awake and about all the time - the city is always lit with people and LED lights.

The next morning we woke up early to go to the hotel to check in and shower. After getting ready we decided it would be easier to take the city tour so we hoped on the bus and went on our way. We visited many of the main sites (tombs, temples, the observatory, etc..look at my fb pictures for the exact locations!) and it took the majority of the day. A side story: So, we went on the tour on the actual day of Chuseok and on the tour a really kind lady with her family would share some of the traditional foods eaten on Chuseok with us (for example songpyeon). It was really sweet of her...I'm not sure if I've blogged about this already but if I have I'm going to talk about it again because it's something that I really love about Korea..this sense of community (I'm not really sure if community is the right word I'm looking for but I'll use it for now). The fact that others who may not know you well are concerned for your well-being and are just very giving. I'm not sure if I'm making sense but just simple gestures make me feel not so alone here (which I of course appreciate).
After getting back from our tour we explored downtown for a bit and then headed back to our hotel. We grabbed a late dinner of ramen and kimbap and then turned in for the night.