Four Day Weekend in Seoul

Korea doesn't seem to have many national holidays that close schools, but in October, there are two right back to back. And I took advantage of both of them. The first holiday was on October 3rd. This was Foundation day. Because it fell on a Thursday, Friday became what is called a "sandwich" day. My school is kind enough that we also got this day off. It was fantastic. This meant that I had my only four day weekend of the whole semester. And what just happened to fall on the same weekend? The International Fireworks Festival in Seoul. I decided that I really wanted to go to that. The fireworks were on Saturday, which meant I could spend the other two days exploring Seoul and go home on Sunday.

Thursday
On Thursday, My host mom, host sister and I all went to Seoul. My host mom had to go into the office on Saturday so they could come with me only on Thursday and go home on Friday morning. We took the train from Chuncheon and we had our first adventure; finding the guesthouse we were staying at. My host mom really wanted to stay in Myeongdong, so the first night, we stayed in that area. While we were wandering around trying to find this place, we found this little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that served Pork Cutlets and Curry. Exactly what my host sister wanted to eat. I got a cheese pork cutlet and let me tell you, the cheese pull was awesome. It was so delicious.

With a full belly, we decided to take the train to Gangnam area. Here we went to the COEX Mall to see the giant library inside the mall. Afterwards, we went on a search for Cheesecake (really hard to find in Korea apparently) and spent some time shopping.

Then we went down to Ikseon-dong and Insa-dong, some beautiful traditional streets with lots of pretty shops and restaurants. Unfortunately, we actually did it backwards. Ikseon-dong had all the restaurants and we weren't hungry when we walked through there. Insa-dong was mostly shops. By the time we got there, we were hungry. We actually had this really cute moment in Insa-dong. My host sister was complaining that her feet hurt so we stopped to listen to this guitarist, and he actually asked me where I was from and to tell him my favourite song. I don't think he would know any songs I would suggest, so he asked me if I like Elvis Presly and he proceeded to play one of his songs. The couple who was sitting next to us apparently complemented my host mom on her Korean, not realizing she was Korean, I suppose because she was speaking English with me.

After we ate, we went down to Gyeonbukgun where there was a big protest going on. My host mom was curious. By that point, it was late and we were all exhausted. We went back to our guesthouse and went to bed.

Friday
The next morning, we went to a few places my host mom wanted to visit before going to Yongsan Station to get lunch and send them home.

Once they left, I went back to Myeongdong, did a little bit of shopping before grabbing my bag from the guesthouse and making my way to the other side of the city to where I would be staying for the rest of my stay. I didn't have much time, I got my stuff settled and made my way back across the river to go to a show. I love theatre and I usually shy away from going to them because of the language barrier, but this show was actually mostly physical comedy. There was some speaking, but it was mostly in English with a little bit of Korean being understandable for my Korean ability. It was so much fun! And so funny. I'm so glad that I went, even if I barely made it before the show started and had a bruised knee from falling outside the subway station.

The show was only about an hour long and so afterwards, I got dinner and decided to walk along the Cheonggyecheom Stream.

Saturday
Saturday was less exciting. I wandered around the city mostly. I saw Dongdaemun area and went looking for a gift for my friend's birthday. Around four, I headed over to the Han River to get a place to see the fireworks. I actually made friends with another group of foreigners while I was there. I'm so glad I brought a jacket because it got cold quickly that day.

The fireworks were so beautiful. There were daytime fireworks, that seemed to be made of colored powder and then once it got dark there were three different fireworks shows of various lengths. It ended around 9 and I was both freezing and exhausted. I walked back to where I was staying and went right to sleep. The next morning I went home, exhausted and tired of being in the city for too long. I was so happy to see my bed.

It was a great weekend and I'm so thankful that even if it was a city I've been to a bunch of times, I always have a place that's not too far from me that I can go to and experience something new every time.