Korea is great about creating random holidays.
For example, April 14th was Black Day.
To better understand what Black day is you have to back up a few months.
Feb 14 (which we celebrate as Valentines Day) is called Red Day here.
On that day, it's actually the girls who give gifts and food to guys.
Then on March 14, the guys return the favor on White Day.
As you could guess, Black Day is sort of a consolation to those (single) people who didn't get anything.
Noticing a pattern? It just so happens that the 14th of every month is "couple related"
so on Jan 14, couples make scrapbook albums together, May 14 is rose day, etc.
In case you were wondering, Black Day is called "black" because you eat noodles covered with a Black sauce...the ultimate despair food...
Another creative, random holiday is Peppero Day, which pays homage to a famous Korean candy - long, skinny, chocolate coated pretzel sticks. It's no coincidence that it also happens to fall on November eleventh (11-11).
Apparently, on that day, there are packs of peppero sticks hanging from trees everywhere. Bummer that I miss both this day and Feb 14 - no free candy for Luke...
Sunday, April 15, 2007
A Time For Tourism
This weekend was a blast.
There was a team of MBA students from Azusa Pacific coming through on an Asian tour. They stopped by my school and I got to hang out with them for the weekend and go with them on their tour of the area. This was a blessing in many ways. One, because since I'm not here with an official 'program' I really haven't gone anywhere on the weekends. And two, it was great to be able to make jokes and laugh with people who understood your culture.
Saturday, we traveled to the ancient city of Gyoung Ju (used to be the largest city in the world about 1500 years ago with 2 million people), got to see temples, the world's largest granite buddah, ancient tombs (over 200 several stories tall hills and preserved against gravediggers because they were ingeniously surrounded spherically by 20ft of rocks) and our day was completed with a trip to the bathhouse/spa.
Let me tell you a little more about that last part. Quite an experience (because us westerners aren't used to the whole being naked in public bath houses thing - men and women in separate rooms of course). The bathhouse/sauna place we went consisted of a number of temperature-regulated pools and sauna rooms. The idea was to go from one extreme temperature pool to the next (ranging from 20'C to 50'C) Interspersed between were trips to different sauna rooms with moist herbal scents. The concept is that by going to the various extreme temperature pools, your pores open up and all the gunk and dead skin cells come out. At the end (like after an hour) you scrub everything off and shower. It's amazing how much dead skin you have. Afterwards we all felt relaxed and smooth.
There was a team of MBA students from Azusa Pacific coming through on an Asian tour. They stopped by my school and I got to hang out with them for the weekend and go with them on their tour of the area. This was a blessing in many ways. One, because since I'm not here with an official 'program' I really haven't gone anywhere on the weekends. And two, it was great to be able to make jokes and laugh with people who understood your culture.
Saturday, we traveled to the ancient city of Gyoung Ju (used to be the largest city in the world about 1500 years ago with 2 million people), got to see temples, the world's largest granite buddah, ancient tombs (over 200 several stories tall hills and preserved against gravediggers because they were ingeniously surrounded spherically by 20ft of rocks) and our day was completed with a trip to the bathhouse/spa.
Let me tell you a little more about that last part. Quite an experience (because us westerners aren't used to the whole being naked in public bath houses thing - men and women in separate rooms of course). The bathhouse/sauna place we went consisted of a number of temperature-regulated pools and sauna rooms. The idea was to go from one extreme temperature pool to the next (ranging from 20'C to 50'C) Interspersed between were trips to different sauna rooms with moist herbal scents. The concept is that by going to the various extreme temperature pools, your pores open up and all the gunk and dead skin cells come out. At the end (like after an hour) you scrub everything off and shower. It's amazing how much dead skin you have. Afterwards we all felt relaxed and smooth.
Monday, April 09, 2007
Fun times
As is usually the case, my weeks are rediculously busy, with school, work and youth group - then I have fun all weekend. This picture highlights one of many adventures I had last Saturday, including explorations of the city, a trip to the local seafood market (and live octopus...), getting my computer fixed, and eating a ginormous Baskin Robbins Ice cream cone
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