Blogs from South Korea, Asia - page 338

America has its fair share of commercial holidays. I won't list them, but you can imagine which holidays were created simply to sell things, and which holidays over time have become extremely commercialized. Well, in Korea, there's a day called Pepero Day. Now Pepero is a candy treat of sorts. It means "thin, like a stick" and is simply a thin cylindrical cookie-stick dipped in chocolate. Most Holidays are commemorating some special date, or event. Now, why would there be a holiday celebrating candy? Does it have some historical or religious significance? Or is there simply no shame at all in being direct about the commercialism of the holiday? I'm going to go with the latter, because it turns out that Pepero is manufactured solely by Lotte which is a huge department store in Korea. They ... read more

We have now moved into our nice new flat or apartment as they call it here. We are very lucky to have found such a big place as we have SEEN some horror stories - BASICALLY pokey bedsits and apparantly one teacherWAS RUMOURED to have been living in a classroom for 3 months !! Because Korea is ten times the global average in population density a lack of space means there are thousands of highrise flats or apartments called an "Apateu" OFTEN VERY SMALL. . Well it certainly paid off to shop around for a job with decent accomadation as we have landed a Brand new - Yeollip Jutaek "small size apartment buildings" of under three stories. From our bedroom window we have a view of the shops, hundreds of restaurants, bars, supermarkets and Andy's hagwon! ... read more

After sitting on the floor of a train for 2 and half hours we made it back to Seoul, and back to the same guesthouse. Since we were going to be up very early the next morning for the DMZ we headed straight to bed. (see seperate entry for DMZ). That evening when we returned from the DMZ we met up Roisin, Stephen, Craig and Amanda and went for a tradional Korean dinner in Insadong.We enjoyed some great food and some local beverages including soju, bamboo leaf wine and rice wine. Afterwards we met Krista in Route 66 for some Long Island Ice Teas before heading to Itaewon for some dancing and more crazyiness. The next morning (well actually it was the afternoon, we crawled out of bed and headed to Myeong-dong with Rosin and Stephen. ... read more

We caught a bus from Sokcho to Chuncheon, a major city in Northern Korea. Ciaran managed to "mildly" upset the bus driver over where we put our bags but after a brief standoff we were on our way. Two and half hours later we arrived and found ourselves a dodgy motel shaped like a castle to stay in. The next day we spent most of the morning trying to find the major tourist attraction in the city - the lake which we eventually stumbled across.We visited the statue park beside the lake and a Korean war monument dedicated to Ethiopian Soldiers who died in the war. After that we wandered around but found very little to do. After a lot of walking we headed back and watched a movie in our dodgy motel. Next Stop Seoul ... read more

Hello everyone! Our latest travelblog begins with our Halloweeen pictures! This year we went to a Halloween costume party here in English Village with many of our fellow teachers and friends. The party started at our local English Village Pub "Double Decker," and finished at "Saturn" - one of the residence halls here. As you can see, Larry and I went as a butterfly and a butterfly-catcher this year! We didn't have a lot of time and resources to get together some really good costumes this year, but we think we did alright...(Although at first glance, a lot of people thought Larry was a fisherman!) Our friends had some really fun costumes too, including secret agent spies, "couple t-shirt" outfits (when Korean couples wear matching clothes), and even some drag too! It was a lot of ... read more