Friday, October 26, 2012

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!



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