Chuseok Holiday

---

So not long ago we were lucky enough to have a 5 day weekend due to the holiday Chuseok. Chuseok is a very big travel holiday here as many people return to their home town, dress up in traditional Korean dress, visit the graves of the ancestors and have meals with their family. Many Koreans call it their thanksgiving but to me its seems more like Christmas as it is very family oriented and at the same time it is a very big time to give gifts. Most stores we went to had big plastic wrapped gift packages of SPAM maybe 5 cans in it for like 40 bucks....i dont get it but hey then again I'm the new guy. Also on these holidays cities become ghost towns and it was quite spooky walking down the streets of Bucheon which are normally uber crowded with people now that you were able to fire a cannon down any street and not hit a single soul...
So since you have to book early to go anywhere far away over Chuseok we decided to do a bunch of mini trips around where we are and since living in a big city (they say 700,000 people here but some say a mill...it can easily feel like a billion) was getting to us a bit we decided to do some island hoping off of incheon. What a relief it was to get outside of the city and get some fresh and quiet air! The first night we stayed on Muuido Island which is just off the island the airport is on. Getting there was a nice adventure which consisted of taking the subway, a taxi, 2 ferries, and a bus but once we got off the last ferry it was well worth it. This island is very small sea side town with a small mountain range cutting through the centre. We didn't know we could hike it so we didnt have the right shoes but we definately plan on heading back there to hike the small mountains there.
Ryan at the fish market!
Once we got to where we were staying which was listed as a beach side resort we set up shop. These rooms werent at all what we had thought as they were traditional Korean style beds aka lay your but down on these few blankets we've laid down on the floor for you and go to sleep that way.
Since we decided not to spend much time in our rooms we decided to do some exploring of the beach near our rooms. With the tide out there was a lot of muddy beaches which allowed for many local people to dig for shellfish. There was always people out digging for something. We also explored the small island off our beach called Shilmido. To get to it you had to trek across some rocks when the tide was down (see the photo).
No one lives on this island so it is nice and remote. The first day here was warm but very overcast so when we woke up the next morning to a beautiful sunny day we took advantage of the beautiful weather by exploring the rest of Shilmido island since we barely touched it the day before. We hiked the path that cut through the island and brought us to a quiet and remote beach...we were the only ones there for most of the time we were on this beach. It was so amazing and both this beach and the beach on the main island had many rocks to climb...which meant lots of fun for me (ryan)!



When we decided to head back to the main island we realized that the tide had come in and now we had to trek back to the island through the water...luckily it hadn't fully come in yet so we could still walk across but it definately made for an interesting walk back!



Once we were finished here we packed up our things and headed back to the main island with the airport (Yong-yudo) and headed to a very popular beach...we weren't overly happy here as it was quite commercial and the street was lined with wierd seafood restaurants that tried to pressure you into eating at their place, foriegner or korean, walking or driving, they would step out infront of you and try and get you to come in. I think there was a very popluar restaurant at the end of the road so people were trying to cut off customers on their way there. We only stayed here for about an hour and then decided to head back home to Bucheon. Our trip home was a bit of a rollar coaster. We encountered our first bit of racism here as a bus driver wouldn't let us on the bus and then went we stayed persistent he finally said he would but for 10, 000 won which is about 10 times the regular fair....so we got off that bus and took another one which got us to the airport as we knew we could find a place home from there. Here we found that there is a bus that goes from the airport to Bucheon for about 4 bucks wich works out well for any visitors we have coming and also for when we end up flying somewhere...so in the end it turned out to be good that this happened as we found something useful out of it.

---

The next day we decided to visit somewhere closer to home so we walked over to Ainsworld which is an amusement park here in Bucheon. It was quite interesting as it had a bunch of tiny model buildings from famous places all over the world. It was a lot cooler than it sounds as all the models were really well done and placed in scenes and everything. Really worth the visit! Its like i've been all over the world...and only for 8 bucks! Pics are below:

Big finish to a cool show we saw and yes that is a girl he's wearing as a belt.
Laura at the white house!
A touch of dutch!
who's leaning?

---

Now its Tuesday which is the actual day of Chuseok and we had heard there was some festivals down by city hall in Seoul so we headed there. We spent about an hour here checking out the different events the had going on including traditional Korea games aswell as all the people dressed in their Traditional clothes. It was quite neat seeing this side of Korea. Also don't think we've seen as many foriegners since we've been here as we did at city hall. After we has seen all there was to see at city hall we decided to go for an adventure through Seoul to find Namdaemun, one of the markets we had heard a lot about. Thinking it would be closed we figured we would be able to find where it is since the city is somewhat empty and them come back on a day it was open. After a missed turned led us to one of the gates of Seoul (see pic) we eventually found the market only to discover about half the shops were still open. We found this very wierd since it was a such a big holiday and everything else was closed. We spent some time here and got a lot of cool sounviners, definately looking forward to heading back when everything is open. They have so many beautiful things at these markets...really cool!

gate of Seoul....old meets new!

---

So wednesday is our last day of the holiday...Laura's feeling a bit worn out from all of our adventures this weekend and I have a lead on a guitar so I went out on a solo trip to visit this guy and check out the guitar. Turns out the guy is Canadian and has lived here for 10 years. He shows me a bunch of guitars (some way above my price range) and I settled for one that was well in my range and sounds great...its a tab beat up but still has a awesome sound to it...

so that was our Chuseok adventure....there will probably be many blogs added here as I do nothing at school but watch the clock go by...so expect frequent updates!!

for more pics of these and all our korean adventures just click here!

---