Cheousok

On Sept. 12 it was Korea's Thanksgiving holiday, it is called Cheousok.  It is a day to give thanks to their ancestors for helping them grow good crops.  Families gather together they give thanks, and then have a big meal together.  Since most people go to the country Seoul is pretty deserted.

On Monday I went with my friend to have lunch with his family.  They live in Suwon, I had take the subway down there myself.  I'm really glad I have an app for it on my iPad or I would have got lost. 

 Here is a picture of Suwon in the afternoon, I was surprised how few people where there.  As I was walking around I found this tank.  I couldn't believe how many crabs they fit in it.

 My friends family worried about me being able to eat Korean food so we had lunch at a buffet that served Western food.  It was a really good restaurant and I was excited because they had strawberry lemonade.   Here is a picture of me with my friends mom and sister.

 After lunch my friend and I went to a no ray bang (it's what the Koreans call karaoke).  It was a lot of fun and I was excited because it had a lot of English songs that I could sing.

Overall it was a fun holiday.

School Day by the Han River

I was excited to find out that on Friday Sept. 9th my school had a "field trip" to the Han River.  It was suppose to be a day for each of the classes to take their class picture and to write poems.  When we got to the meeting place all the girls were excited to take their pictures, I think they were excited because they had permission to wear make-up.  It is against school rules to wear make-up to school.  It was raining when we got there and we where all trying to stay dry.

 The girls are so cute as they pose for their pictures.

 Since it was raining so much and the girls wouldn't be able to write their poems so we were able to leave and have an early start to our long weekend.  Sept. 12 is the Korean Thanksgiving, it is called Cheousok (I'll write more about that in the next post).  The girls where told the theme for the day and told to write their poems over the holiday weekend.  Everyone was so excited because we got to leave around 10 o'clock.  Even in the rain the Han River is still so beautiful.

Since I had some free time I decided to go and do something fun.  I went shopping in a local department store.  It was funny because some of the girls from my school where there too and they followed me around saying hi to me.  It was a great start to my holiday weekend.

My Birthday!

 My birthday was on Sept. 3rd so I didn't have a lot of time to make friends before my birthday so I was expecting to just have it go by quietly here.  On Friday the day before my birthday I was so surprised when I was at work and had a cake and flowers delivered to me.  It made all the teachers around me come and look and ask who sent it.  I was so excited when I saw the note and found out one of my awesome Korean pen pals sent it to me.  She wanted to make sure that I didn't have a lonely birthday.  Both the cake and flowers where so beautiful and they made my day!

 Then on Saturday my actual birthday another one of my Korean pen pals brought me another cake.  It was such a cute cake too!  If you know me then you know that I love to make my birthdays last as long as I can.  It was a fun day, I spent the morning studying Korean and that night I went with my friend and had some really yummy food. 

Then on Sunday I was able to talk to my family using my iPad and some free wifi that I found on the street.  It wasn't a great signal but I got to see my family and they sang Happy Birthday to me.  They where all together because it was the same weekend that my new nephew was getting blessed so they where all in Arizona together.  

Between all the fun I had here and all the birthday wishes I got on Facebook it made turning another year older easier.  I'm grateful for all my friends that I have!

The Park

One thing that I have loved about living in Seoul are all parks they have here.  I love going to the park and walking around and watching the people in the park.  Here are some pictures from a park close to my house.

 I'm not sure what this is, but it is really cool at night because it lights up.

 I loved the purple color of these flowers

 Everything is so cute here!

  I didn't get a very good picture but there is exercise equipment in the park that anyone can use.  It is great you can see people using them a lot.  

This park is by the SBS building.  SBS is one of the broadcasting companies in Korea.  I love to watch a lot of their shows, so I was really excited to find this building.

 
I hope to find more parks to visit.