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Published: October 18th 2009
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This is Thanksgiving weekend in Canada so it wouldn be right not to acknowledge it! Happy Thanksgiving to everyone at home. I would do bad, bad things for some roast turkey and moms stuffing right about now 😊
Some things that I am thankful for include but of course are not limited to:
- family that loves me and friends that miss me (i am surprised, too!)
- my healthy, wonderful body
- tom pettys "free fallin\"
- I was always grateful for this but now I will be even MORE grateful upon my return to Canada: drinkable tap water
- sea salt
List goes on but I have things to share...
Last week was Hanbok Day in Korea. Hanbok is traditional clothing that is worn by men and women during festivals or other celebrations. They are silky and very colourful and the best part is each one is different from the other - some are even hand painted. It is very different from the everyday uniform of dark colours that most Koreans wear.
At school the day was celebrated and all of the Pre-K and Kinder kids were decked out. It certainly was a sight
to see and of course extremely cute. Each one seemed to suit the childs personality perfectly; some of the girls looked like little dolls they were so perfect. Of course by the end of the day the kids were tired and very hot and looking a little rumpled which was my favourite part.
These are a few pictures that i took of the kids during the day. We got to make Songpyeon which is a rice cake with sugar and sesame seeds in the middle. Its usually eaten at Chuseok. The kids also played the Korean version of hacky sack which is called Jegichagi. there was also Yut, a board game played with sticks and another one that I forget. Something to do with a basket..
I took a few videos too because I can express how awesome my class is in simple words or pictures. I just think they are the best. One, or maybe its 2 of the videos are just of them twirling - because sometimes a girls just gotta twirl it out. I asked the girls to stand up and show me the dresses and then I snuck them in the hall and had
them twirl to see whos dress was the twirliest. The boys got in on the action but didn twirl, they danced. love it!
Chuseok was celebrated during the weekend and we had Friday off of work. This was a huge deal to most of us since it is the first long weekend weve enjoyed for a long time. Im not even sure when the last one was. All I know is that Ive been working for 7 months sans long weekend and it was high time to have a Friday off. I can say I enjoyed it completely.
The area I live in was a dead zone as well. I live in a high traffic university area and someone is always screaming or crying on the phone at all hours of the night downstairs. There are always delivery bikes and honking cars even though I live on a dead end and barking dogs and skip roping children driving me mad. But all of a sudden it was just.. quiet. and i loved it. The only time it was a little freaky was when I heard a drunken sailor outside laughing and cursing to himself. When I looked out
there were no lights on anywhere and no one on the street. Even my co-worker neighbor wasn home so I just slowly shut the window and went back to my retro horror flick.
Back to Chuseok. Basically, it is very similar to North American Thanksgiving since it is based around the harvest, fall, family and food. Gotta love that! Everyone goes back to their home towns, which apparently for most, is not Seoul. They eat and drink and play the same games and do all the things that most families do when they get together. Its nice to think about and made me miss home a little, but nothing on the scale that I know I will feel as Christmas approaches. I can goooooo there tonight.
Ok, my body and brain are tired and I have a wicked head ache. Today was a fun day, I got outside and hiked - yes, ok stop laughing - hiked a little hill in Bukhansan National Park with a few co-workers. Good times were had by all, no one fell or had a heart attack, so thats a plus. I have pictures. Many pictures. But Ill save that for a day
i can make a complete sentence without any errors.
Ps - please excuse any errors.
xo
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