"Cause baby you're a FIRE-WORK!!

Yup, that's right...FIREWORKS TIME!!!

This past weekend was not only Halloween, but it was the Fireworks Festival in Busan as well. Did I go? YOU KNOW IT!

Friday night Sam and I headede to Janggye to have an amazing duck dinner at our friend Ricardo's spot and then we all headed out early on Saturday to Busan. We grabbed the 10:20 bus, and slept until we woke up in a VERY rainy Busan.

We headed to check-in at a hotel...and a "LOVE MOTEL" was what we got! It had HUGE beds, fluffy bathrobes, toiletry kits, half naked women on the walls, and etc.

We headed out to pick up with last little items for our costumes, then made it back to the motel to get ready.

Since it had poured rain all day, I was worried about them cancelling the fireworks....but we got ready and headed to the beach anyways. There were cruise ships in the water, where the fireworks were fired from, but only a few fireworks were lit. The rest had been postponed until the next night due to the rain. At least we got to see some!

Then it was time to show off our costumes....I was WHERE'E WALDO!!! The guys were facebook, and their costumes were a hit (of course, any costume you can write on always ends up being great, right?!!?) I found another Waldo, and even Waldo's nemesis, Odlaw...so it seemed to be a success for me! Plenty of costumes were out and about, from superheros, to TV characters (breaking bad), to classic characters (Red Riding Hood), and so on. Korea does it right!! We were in the University area, so everyone was having a blast all done up all night! I even found a spot with Thai beer (wooo hoo Singha!!).

Sunday when we got up, we went to an AMAZING burger place on the beach - we sat on the deck and filled out bellies and nursed our hangovers before hopping on the bus back to Jinan.

Next weekend - Hanok Village for lantern making, and a traditional Korean Wedding!!!

Ghamsamnida,
Apes :)

Festy all the time!!

Every weekend it seems like there is a different festival...NOT a bad thing at all!

2 weeks ago my Friday school was closed due to JINAN DAY!!! Yes, my tiny little town has its own festival. What did this consist of? They set up the soccer field as a concert arena and had performers all night (yes, it ALSO included a Gangnam dance-off for little kids). The venue was surrounded with food and drink tents, and carnival games. I ate and drank all night with Jinan friends, and their friends that came to visit. We got to see all the "lanterns" (aka Paper Mache floats) in the river, and I even won some prizes at the games! I saw all my students, and danced with a few of them.

This past week was BIBIMBAP Festival in Jeonju. Bibimbap is a dish that reminds me of a taco salad. Meghan, Sam, and I headed into Jeonju and went to the traditional Hanok Village and milled around with the thousands of other people there for Bibimbap. Which was HARD to find. We found Makgeoli (a liquor) quite easily and did plenty of taste testing of that, but we wanted Bibimbap!! Finally, we just went into one of the restaurants there and ate. It might not have been at the open festival, but we could still see the festival out of the window.

After the fest, we headed to a "festival" for a friend - our buddy Tony was leaving to head back to America. So we went to the usual Foreign hot spots and partied into the wee hours of the AM. His "fest" was all about him - his close friends even made a video about their time with him. Now he is off on his next adventure - grad school in the states.


Ghamsamnida,
Apes :)

Bus problems

So on wednesdays I take a bus to school. The bus is apparently unreliable so it can come at 830 or a few minutes after.

Today I got up and headed to the station like every other wednesday and asked for my bus everytime a new one came. I kept getting told no.

Well now it's 900 and I'm still waiting. I've called to my 'boss' (for lack of a better term) and he talked to the man at the station. The bus left without me and the next one comes at 920. My school starts at 900. Awesome.

Gamsamnida,
Apes

Merry Chuseok

Nope, not Merry Christmas - MERRY CHUSEOK! Thanksgiving for Korea - who woulda thoughts that Korea would have Thanskgiving too! Theres is a little different than American Thanksgiving (but a little of the same as well).

In Korea we got Monday off work, and Korean travel to their home towns to spend a long weekend with their families. Kinda like in America! BUT - no turkeys and stuffing, and no talk of pilgrims and indians.

While we got Monday off, there was also a Holiday on Wednesday - so my town cancelled the Tuesday classes. That means....A 5 DAY WEEKEND!!!! WOOOO HOOOOO. 

So what did I do for it?

Originally I was going to visit my Thailand Tesol buddy, Kim, over in Japan or my Polish buddy, Bart, over in Hong Kong...but then I checked airplane tickets. Looks like I'll have to take a rain check on both of those visits.

So I ended up making no plans - which worked out PERFECT!

Friday night I met up with some new girlfriends in Jeonju and went to a beach party! While there, I ran into a Jinan-ite (like myself), Tony, and met his friend, Mike who was visiting from Seoul.

Satrday since I was in the city - I got some apartment shopping done, and then headed home to sleep off the night before. Then I met up with Tony and Mike for some pizza and we headed over to my friend Sam's house to hang out while his friend Megan was visiting from her town. Apparently it was "bring a friend weekend" and I didn't get the memo!! Oh well...

We ended up staying at Sam's till about 2am playing games, and listening to Mike play his guitar. Sunday we were all going to meet up to go hiking on Maisan Mountain (horse ear mountain) but my body was too exhausted. So I met up with the 4some for dinner, and then we headed off to...NORIBON!!! That's Karaoke for you westerners. We spent a few hours drinking and singing our hearts out in our private room. Afterwards, the party moved to my place, and turned into a You-Tube DJ party until everyone passed out.

Monday Megan went back to her town, and Sam and I went to Seoul with Mike. We got in late Monday night, and met some of Mike's friends before we turned in for the evening.

Tuesday we got up and it was ADVENTURE TIME!! Where was our first stop??? Putting some "Seoul" into our "Gangnam Style". Yeah - see what I did there?? Well, check out what I did here...

Hey...sexy lady!!!

After lunch and afternoon coffee in Gangnam, we headed to one of the many shopping districts where we spent way too much money.

Once it was dinner time, we headed back to Mike's neck of the woods and met up his band, and another band, grabbed some street food and headed to the park to listen to the 2 bands do a jam session. It was great just relaxing in the park, and the Koreans who came and went seemed to really get into the music as well.

Then on Wednesday it was time to head home. We had gotten a small taste of city life, got some western errands done...but it was back to the slow life of the country for me and Sam.

Gamsamnidah,
Apes :)