My Holiday by Clayton Dean
Well, tomorrow (Monday) is the last day of my Chusok holiday and it has been a great time. It started on Friday night with a violin recital at the Seoul Arts Centre with Tracy, one of my new Seoul friends. One of the other teachers at the school was nice enough to give me free tickets and, although classical music is not my supreme favorite, it was an enjoyable evening.
We woke up the next day at five thirty and headed off for a free trip to the bamboo forests of Damyang where we attended a traditional music festival and got to do a tour of the area. The bus ride was really long but I slept almost the entire way so it was fine. The bamboo forests were really beautiful and made a lovely sound whenever the breeze stirred in the leaves overhead. Coupled with the scent of green tea, which is often grown in these forests, the atmosphere was quite serene. Later in the evening we also got to do a short tour of an old garden where we were treated to another traditional music performance. Unfortunately, I was unable to take my camera with me on this trip, so I’ll have to steal some pictures from Michael and Tracy to put up for you guys.
On Tuesday I joined a group of SMOE teachers on a walk through one of the larger palace complexes in Seoul. It was a good group and the palace was pretty amazing with old traditional style buildings, watercourses, beautiful trees, and a lovely greenhouse. There are pictures of this available on my Flickr site.
The following day a bunch of us went out to the Korean Folk Village in Suwon, about a two hour subway ride away from where I live. We spent the day checking out a traditional Korean village and watching performances by acrobats, dancers, musicians, and trick riders. The scenery at the village was really beautiful. There was also a World Museum on site that was pretty odd in that the perception of certain cultures is much different here than it is at home. Oh, and I rode a dinosaur.
Thursday was a caffiene-fueled full day of rides, games and food-on-a-stick at Lotte World, apparently the largest indoor amusement park in the world. It was wild. I haven’t been on any rides like that in a long time and many of these surpassed my limited experiences of WEM’s Galaxyland and the odd county fair. One of my favorites was the Gyro Swing which was (you could probably guess by the name) a huge swinging and spinning contraption to which are fastened approximately forty willing individuals. At apex you’re probably a good eighty feet off the ground and moving sideways. Too much fun! I missed out on the mechanical bull though and was thoroughly disappointed. We got there at about 11:00 am and almost shut the park down, leaving at 10:30 p.m. What a day!
I took Friday to relax and watch some downloaded movies, play some guitar and just generally recover from all the excitement. Then, last night, we went to Skunk Hell, a punk bar down in Hangdae where a bunch of local bands were putting on a show. We stayed for three or four of the bands and then headed off to Brix where we just relaxed, ate hummus, and smoked a hookah (mmmm, strawberry smoke). The night ended with a slumber party at Tracy’s apartment where we watched a break dancing competition until the wee hours of the morning before finally going to sleep.
It’s been a great week and I’ve already got more plans lined up for weekends later on. Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving back home,
Me.
We woke up the next day at five thirty and headed off for a free trip to the bamboo forests of Damyang where we attended a traditional music festival and got to do a tour of the area. The bus ride was really long but I slept almost the entire way so it was fine. The bamboo forests were really beautiful and made a lovely sound whenever the breeze stirred in the leaves overhead. Coupled with the scent of green tea, which is often grown in these forests, the atmosphere was quite serene. Later in the evening we also got to do a short tour of an old garden where we were treated to another traditional music performance. Unfortunately, I was unable to take my camera with me on this trip, so I’ll have to steal some pictures from Michael and Tracy to put up for you guys.
On Tuesday I joined a group of SMOE teachers on a walk through one of the larger palace complexes in Seoul. It was a good group and the palace was pretty amazing with old traditional style buildings, watercourses, beautiful trees, and a lovely greenhouse. There are pictures of this available on my Flickr site.
The following day a bunch of us went out to the Korean Folk Village in Suwon, about a two hour subway ride away from where I live. We spent the day checking out a traditional Korean village and watching performances by acrobats, dancers, musicians, and trick riders. The scenery at the village was really beautiful. There was also a World Museum on site that was pretty odd in that the perception of certain cultures is much different here than it is at home. Oh, and I rode a dinosaur.
Thursday was a caffiene-fueled full day of rides, games and food-on-a-stick at Lotte World, apparently the largest indoor amusement park in the world. It was wild. I haven’t been on any rides like that in a long time and many of these surpassed my limited experiences of WEM’s Galaxyland and the odd county fair. One of my favorites was the Gyro Swing which was (you could probably guess by the name) a huge swinging and spinning contraption to which are fastened approximately forty willing individuals. At apex you’re probably a good eighty feet off the ground and moving sideways. Too much fun! I missed out on the mechanical bull though and was thoroughly disappointed. We got there at about 11:00 am and almost shut the park down, leaving at 10:30 p.m. What a day!
I took Friday to relax and watch some downloaded movies, play some guitar and just generally recover from all the excitement. Then, last night, we went to Skunk Hell, a punk bar down in Hangdae where a bunch of local bands were putting on a show. We stayed for three or four of the bands and then headed off to Brix where we just relaxed, ate hummus, and smoked a hookah (mmmm, strawberry smoke). The night ended with a slumber party at Tracy’s apartment where we watched a break dancing competition until the wee hours of the morning before finally going to sleep.
It’s been a great week and I’ve already got more plans lined up for weekends later on. Wishing you all a Happy Thanksgiving back home,
Me.
posted by C. at 12:31 AM
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