Since I've been away in Seoul for the holiday (Chuseok) I have not been bloggin'. I'm going to seperate the days as to not overwhelm.

Saturday:

I woke up to a beautiful sunny day to start my trip to Seoul. I was proud of myself in that I was able to take the taxi to the KTX (fast train) station, get myself on the train and get to Seoul without a single problem. I sat outside waiting for Sohee since it was also beautiful in Seoul and she came to get me shortly after. As I mentioned she and I had met a little more than a year ago as volunteers in Portugal. She and her friend Henry took me around the city a bit. We went to a shopping mall and made fun of a lot of the styles for men. We had sushi for dinner. Though I love Korean style sushi (kimbop), Japanese sushi is always going to be my one and only. We ended the night at the Han river. It was thriving with people at night because the new president made it into an area for walking, biking, entertainment and nightly water shows. Henry drove us home and I met Sohee's family. They were so very nice. Her mom, sister and brother were still up when I got there. Sohee's mom gave me some grapes, my very favorite fruit here. Her sister is 17 and her brother is 10. They were a little shy about speaking English, but it was cute. Her dad works like a maniac from 9am to 12am so I didn't meet him until I was about to go to bed.

Sunday:

Sohee's grandmother lives in the apartment next to them and she fixes breakfast and lunch for them. She speaks almost no English and I speak very little Korean, but she was so welcoming and friendly that it didn't matter. Breakfast is something I haven't had here yet because I make that for myself every morning (if making breakfast is boiling water and stirring in instant coffee). Korean breakfast is the same as they would eat for lunch or dinner. So, I had kimchi (spicy cabbage), egg soup, and other typical Korean foods I've been eating at school for lunch. It's no IHOP. Sohee calls IHOP food "very heavy" (she lived in San Francisco and knows the fatty fattiness of American foods). Later, her Dad took a break from work to take us to eat duck as a special occassion. It was barbecue style duck that we heat up on a grill at a table ourselves. It was delicious. Sohee called it Korean IHOP. Cute. Afterwards we had delicious citrus tea. It was very sweet orange flavored with bits of soft orange and lemon at the bottom. Sohee and I went shopping and her family went home. Her little 10-year-old brother had a little date to get back to. He and his girl were off to buy "couple rings". Dressing alike is a very big trend amongst boyfriend/girlfriends. I guess an easy first step is buying the couple ring together. We all made a big deal about it because he was just so cute taking calls from her at the restaurant in anticipation for the big moment!!

Monday:

Sohee and I took off on the subway and she showed me some more touristy areas. We walked through a traditonal Korean area of town. Even the Starbucks sign was written out in Korean letters. We also went to the business district which has a stream running through it, a palace looking over it and a big golden statue of King Sejong in the middle. I must say it was quite the scenery for anyone stuck in one of those massively tall office buildings. After a bit of touring she took me to Book Cafe. It is a chain, but every one has a different theme. The one we went to was beautiful! I couldn't stop raving about how cute it was... fairytale, secret garden style. We talked for awhile, reminissing about our camp experience in Portugal, which suprisingly we hadn't done too much of until then. We did a bit of shopping after and bought some shoes. Fake Toms are all the rage in Korea. I'm ashamed to say I bought a pair for 15$. Where are my morals/ethics/all the above??? I know that's going against the message of the original Toms designer. I did have a good laugh at the knock off name of one pair: Tops. Very clever eh? Afer getting a bit lost, we made our way up to the Seoul Tower. It's maybe the highest point... even if it's not, the view of the city lights at night is beautiful. There is a bit of entertainment at the top as well. What really tickled my fancy were all the thousands of love locks locked to the tower gate. Couples buy locks, attach a message of their love to the lock, lock the lock and throw away the key, leaving their love at the top of Seoul forever. That's some serious romance. We took the very long subway ride back to her house, ate some fried chicken (very popular here) with her family and watched a Korean drama (soap opera) that I've been keeping up with at the gym.

Tuesday:

I said goodbye to Sohee and her family, thanked them, and went on my way to meet up with my coworkers for another day of sightseeing or so we thought. We toured one palace/museum and an hour later, monsoon season came back with a vengance and prohibitted us from doing anything outside, so we had no other option but to get an earlier train and come back to Cheonan. I didn't miss much because I'd been in Seoul for quite awhile, but I felt bad for my friends. Soaking wet, we took the train back home and decided since we couldn't celebrate our vacation in Seoul that night, we would treat ourselves to Outback. Yes, we have an Outback here. It is very popular in Korea. There was one on every corner in Seoul. Cheonan has one and it is amazing. I haven't eaten any American food or really cared to, but that was one of the most amazing meals I've ever had.

And today is Wednesday:

It is officially Chuseok day. I've been reading, cleaning and watcing online TV/movies excessively. I haven't had much time to do nothing lately and it feels good. I'm really appreciating my alone time in Korea. I'm noticing that I need my space and time to read/write/think a lot more than I needed it back home. It might have something to do with living alone. Whatever it is, I like it.