추석 and Family Visit!

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My family recently came to visit me for the Korean vacation of 추석 (Chuseok), which is the Harvest Moon Festival. It’s considered a sort of Korean Thanksgiving since the families all get together and eat special food.
Thursday
They came in on Thursday night and I was supposed to go to the airport to pick them up (I had asked a coworker to cover my last couple of classes), but I realized halfway through the month that I had Open Class in my last class of the day that day. That meant that the students’ parents came to watch part of class. They had to give short speeches on a topic of their choice and then we had a debate on whether children should be allowed to have cell phones. We practiced for that debate so much so that it went smoothly. And then when I announced in class “OK, we’re going to have a debate now. Should children be allowed to have cell phones?”, one of my students yelled out “We have to do it AGAIN???”. Thanks, buddy.
After Open Class I went out for dinner with the other foreign teachers who had open classes (Only foreign teachers have to do this. The parents care more about how we interact with their children and how much we understand each other.) and waited for my friend Joel to come back with my family. I went to meet them in the middle of the downtown area, which was crowded as it was a Thursday night, and everyone goes out to eat and drink every night of the week. Koreans never eat alone. They were exhausted so I took my parents to their hotel right away. We talked for a little while and then I let them sleep. I took Lauren back to my apartment, where she stayed in our spare apartment. She was pretty tired too, so she went to sleep and told them I’d pick them all up for breakfast early the next morning.
Friday
Friday morning, we got breakfast at Dunkin Donuts so that Mom could finally have her favorite coffee in the world. Unfortunately, I did all the ordering and I don’t know anything about coffee. So I thought Americano was black coffee. But it’s not. It’s espresso and water. Whoops. We did some walking around Dongtan and saw my apartment and the neighborhood around my work. We also walked through Central Park, which is really nice considering it’s right in the middle of a city of skyscrapers.
The came into work with me at noon, but after meeting my supervisors, we left right away for lunch at Topresso, a sandwich and smoothie place close to where I work. After we had lunch, Dad went back to the hotel because his back hurt pretty bad and Mom and Lauren came to work with me. Our kindergarten assignment for the day was lunch and science with Camel Class. Camel Class has 8 7-year-old girls (Korean 7, so American 6) who have been studying English for 2.5 years. I picked the most difficult looking science experiment from our options (I ended up being extremely right about that choice) since I had helpers. After lunch, we made our own cranes, learning the words “crane”, “handle”, and “turn”. When that class was finished, we watched the kindergarten kids line up for their buses and head out. They got to meet Anna, who is actually insane, and I love her. If you’ve seen the Mother’s Day video I made, she’s the one who’s “making cookies”.
Mom went back to the hotel to check on Dad and Lauren came with me to my first class, which is my favorite. We talked about zoo animals and farm animals and the various activities that they could be engaged in. Lauren got to see how much English they’ve learned in 8 months, which I sometimes forget. But they were having real conversations! Mom came in toward the end of that class and we handed out little apple-pie tarts, which the kids were really excited about, because it meant PARTY! After that class, they came to my next class which is phonics. The lesson that day was M, N, and O. Fascinating stuff.
And then they crashed. It was 4 p.m. and I had another 3 hours of class left before we were heading into Seoul for dinner, so Mom went back to the hotel for a nap and Lauren crashed in our “nursery” (just a bed in a closet, really) while I finished my classes. After 7, we headed to the bus stop to catch a bus into the city. The bus takes about 45 minutes to get into the neighborhood of Gangnam and then we caught the subway a couple of stops to get to COEX, the world’s largest underground mall, and the location of UNO’s Chicago Grill. We met up with most of my coworkers, as well as a couple of former coworkers who have found new jobs in other parts of the Seoul-area. And a good time was had by all because it’s Chicago-style pizza and what’s not to love?
Saturday
On Saturday morning we managed to find a bit of breakfast at Paris Baguette before heading into Seoul to partake of some cultural activities. We headed to the neighborhood of Gwanghwamun to catch a tour bus to various palaces around the city, but by the time we got there I was skeptical of paying for a tour bus since we had to be in another neighborhood (Myeongdong) for a show later that night. Luckily, Gwanghwamun has many cultural experiences by itself. While looking at the statue of King Sejong (Korea’s favorite king), we found a museum underneath the plaza. And that museum was FREE. And the English audio-guides were FREE. It was pretty exciting. The museum was dedicated to King Sejong, whose claim to fame is inventing the alphabet, as well as some astronomical instruments that confused me, and Lee Sun-shin (or Yi Sun-Shin, depending on who’s translating. In reality they pronounce it more like Ee), their most famous military leader (naval genius, defended them from Japan at one point, invented the turtle ship). It was a pretty cool exhibit, and FREE.
We found lunch in the same building on a different floor and since they had a Shabu Shabu restaurant, we were obligated to go there. Shabu Shabu is a Japanese food where you cook meat, vegetables, and noodles in a broth in the middle of the table. It’s delicious. And one of my favorite meals. Unfortunately, your clothes tend to retain “the Shabu smell” until they are washed, but it’s not a bad smell, so it’s definitely worth it. Gwanghwamun is also home to the Gyeongbokgung Palace, of which my Seoul City Guide app has this to say: “Gyeongbokgung, or ‘The Palace of Shining Happiness’, was built in 1394, at the very beginning of the Josean Dynasty. It is the city’s largest royal palace replete with ancient buildings and relics.” This was all true. The grounds are enormous and a lot of the buildings were opened up and restored. The grounds also connect to the National Museum of Korea, at which we were able to catch a traditional dance/drumming demonstration. My favorite part was the hats with ribbon-dancers on top. The drummers were able to move their heads so that the ribbons would move in circles. It was pretty cool.
We headed back towards the subway so that we could get to Myeongdong for our show and stopped for some candy that a man was selling to people waiting to cross the street. We couldn’t figure out what the flavor was, but it was difficult to chew. The vendor told me that it needed to be chewed slowly (cheon-cheon-hi). I found that letting it dissolve also worked pretty well. Through some internet investigation, I found out that the flavor is squash. It’s called HoBakYeot. According to the internet: “This type of candy is made by carving out the insides of a squash and steaming the contents until it is soft. The squash is then boiled with sugar, glutinous millet, corn syrup, rice and nuts, in an earthenware pot called 솥. Before the candy settles, the pieces are cut into blocks.” It was pretty good. It wasn’t very sweet, which I’ve found is pretty standard with traditional Korean snacks.
We headed over to Myeongdong, which is always crowded with people. The day doesn’t matter. The time doesn’t matter. It’s always packed. But that’s where the theater is located for NANTA, Korea’s most popular show. There are very few words, and the words that are in the show are in English, so it’s also popular with the foreign population and tourists. It’s sort of like STOMP meets Food Network. The general idea is that they’re chefs and they have to prepare several dishes for a wedding that night. It was really fun! After the show we got galbi (traditional Korean barbecue) with a couple of my friends. I love galbi and one of the most interesting things about trying new galbi restaurants is seeing their different side dishes. At galbi restaurants you pay for the meat that you’re grilling and they give you as many sides as they feel like. There’s always kimchi, and it’s usually worth a try at each place, though I’m still not a fan. There’s usually some sort of salad with dressing, which I enjoyed at this particular restaurant. They also had a cold pumpkin soup, which was pretty interesting. And at the end of the people, supposedly just because it was Chuseok, the owner (who basically stood next to our table the entire time) brought us glasses of fruit juice. She said it was strawberry, but we weren’t entirely positive that she got that one right. It was EXTREMELY sweet. After dinner Dad’s back was in quite a bit of pain, so we headed back to Dongtan for the night.
Sunday
On Sunday we had originally planned on going hiking in Suwon, a large town close to Dongtan, but it was supposed to be really rainy. We changed our plans, so that we went into Itaewon for brunch. Itaewon is the international district, so we went to an Irish place for their all-day breakfast, though I believe Dad was the only one to order that. Lauren did some music/make-up shopping in the area before we headed to the Korean War Museum. They had beautiful grounds and a lot of tanks outside. Inside they had exhibits on Lee Sun-Shin (we were experts at this point), the Korea-Japan Wars, and the more recent Korean War, as well as exhibits to recent hostilities between the Koreas. In the middle of the afternoon I started to feel sick for undetermined reasons, so we headed back to Dongtan with plans to meet later for dinner. But Lauren and I both fell into deep sleeps. I woke up at 11 and woke her up to make sure she ate something. Then we fell right back to sleep.
Monday
Monday morning Lauren wanted to find some magazines/more music for her friend, so we headed back into Gangnam to see if the Kyobo Tower bookstore or ArtBox was open. Neither was. So we headed back to COEX to see if anything there was open. It wasn’t. But the aquarium was! So we went to the aquarium in the underground mall, which was much better than I thought it would be. They had seals and sharks and a bunny…. Right. A bunny. In an aquarium. We felt really bad for it.
One the stores finally opened up (it was the actual day of Chuseok, so they had holiday hours) we did the shopping that Lauren wanted to do. Then we headed to Insadong for some more traditional Korean shopping. Insadong is considered the most traditional of all the Seoul neighborhoods, so we got some Korean street food and shopped for Korean crafts. I bought birthday presents for all the birthdays I’ve missed (baduk set for Stuart (baduk is a traditional Korean game like GO or Othello), fancy bookmark for Dad, striped silk bag for Lauren) (I bought Mom’s birthday present in Malaysia. It was a nice, lightweight scarf). I also bought a set of silk placemats and chopsticks for the house. Mom and Dad bought a set of celadon mugs and saucers with painted cranes. We caught a bit of a musical performance with traditional instruments, and then we headed back to Dongtan to celebrate my friend’s birthday at Ashley, a Western-style buffet place. After dinner we went back to my apartment where we rounded up the other teacher still left in the building and had ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins, a Korean tradition. Though they usually bring the cake to the restaurant. I’m not so comfortable with that as I still fear getting yelled at in Korean. And we have a nice roof that we have access to with benches and the weather was good, so we ate it there.
Tuesday
They left Tuesday, so we were going to go into Suwon (the location of the airport bus) to look at the Suwon Fortress before they headed out, but they decided that they’d rather clean my apartment. I know. Weird. We tried to find a dehumidifier, but failed. And then we ate some Pizza Maru, my favorite. It has green tea crust. Which is something you didn’t know you were missing in your life.
After lunch, we headed back to my apartment, picked up their luggage, and walked back to the cab stand. I told the driver where to take them and they found their way back to the airport.
I wish they could have stayed longer, but we all have commitments, whether they’re work or school, so I’ll just have to wait for next May when I can come back to visit!

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Comments

[Mom]

Great visit!
Thank you for being such a wonderful tourguide for us. We loved seeing you and meeting some of your students, co-workers, and friends. We look forward to your return home (for a visit) in 2012!!