Happy Chuseok Korea - The Beginning!

The first weekend of October was Chuseok in Korea, which is Korean Thanksgiving. I had booked a plane ticket to Taiwan to visit my cousin that teaches English there and I was really excited to get out Korea. Well, I showed up to the airport and found out my flight was canceled and my travel agent had also canceled my ticket without my knowing, but that is story I don't need to write on here. So, I contemplated what I would do now that I wasn't going to Taiwan. Turns out some friends were heading to Gwangju for the weekend and had room for me at the pension there, I just had to find my own way there. I decided to take the bus, which was super cheap, but about 4 hours long.

When we arrived at the amazing pension Carolina played bartender, 3PM isn't too early to drink is it?

We took a walk around the area and the greenery was breathtaking.

Two ajumma's working in the rice fields while we walked.

Our first night there we BBQ'd some delicious meat that Lindsay brought. We drank some beer and soju and played some fun drinking games.

We used some stools and chairs to re-create the six of us that spent Chuseok together: Lindsay, Duncan, Me, Nicole, Nick, Carolina.

The next day we got up at a semi-decent hour and headed to the famous bamboo forest in Gwangju. The pension owners drove us to this really nice nature trail and from there directed us to the bamboo forest.

This trail was beautiful and being in fresh air and nature was great.

Along the way we came across this really beautiful park.

They had some great stone statues scattered throughout the park. This tiger one was one of my favorites.

Carolina being shouted at by some angry Koreans. Even the fox behind her is scared.

We continued on our adventure to get to the bamboo forest. All it took was crossing the pond to get to our destination.

The entrance way to the bamboo forest was littered with panda's...Seems fitting.

Carolina and I put on our best Korean poses.

Just a beautiful view inside the bamboo forest. The bamboo was huge.

There was a nice waterfall surrounded by Panda's within the forest. When we finished at the forest we did some looking around.

Carolina and I rocked these hats, but we did not buy them.

After we played with the toys and hats we decided to try to some 떡갈비 (rice meat) and bamboo rice, which is what Gwangju is famous for. The rice meat is rather expensive and we didn't find it all that enjoyable for the price, but it was nice to say we tried it. When we finished eating we bought some groceries for the night and headed back to the pension.

September Goes Out With A Bang!!

Here I go, behind on the blogging again...wait, I never caught up. Anyways, I will continue with the happenings of life in Korea. September was quite a busy month, but a very exciting and fun one. I managed to get in some baseball games, which if you know me at all, I live breath and die baseball. I especially love the K-league because it is cheap, you can sit where ever you want, they have a cheer-leading squad, you can bring in your own food and drinks and my team, the SK Wyverns (the only Incheon team) have won the championship the past 2 years in a row. Basically, they kick ass even when the games are on a weeknight. Here was the first game I'd been to in about 3 months:

Incheon has the best baseball field in all of the K-league. I love watching games here. I dragged May out to her first ever baseball game and she loved it! The SK Wyverns WIN!! But, that's nothing new :) May, Erika and I couldn't resist a picture with the SK Wyverns cheer-leader master. He Rocks!!

Then a few days later I went to another SK Wyverns game:

The SK Wyverns stadium, B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!! A view of the outfield from the amazing seats we had for the game, which was the second last game of the season. Nicole came out to enjoy the game with me and some other friends.

Well, it was that time of year again, time for the English Golden Bell Competition with the grade 5 and grade 6 students. They were the only two grades that participated and the students were separated by their grade. I was in charge of asking all the questions to the students and I had the help of my co-teacher for their respective grade. Unfortunately, I can't find the pictures on our school website, so when I do I will be sure to post them.

The last weekend of September pretty much went out with a bang. I spent the weekend in Seoul with Rudy and friends to attend the Mass Freeze at Co-Ex mall and then the Mass Freeze after party. Basically, if you don't know what a mass freeze is, it's when a large amount of people all freeze in place at the exact same second for 5 minutes in a largely populated and busy place. What better place than the massive Co-Ex mall?!?! I wasn't able to get any pictures because I was involved in freezing, so unfortunately I have none of the actual freeze, but I do have after party photos :)

On the way to Co-Ex for the freeze we saw this delivery driver lying on the ground after he crashed it. The cops kept trying to talk to him and get him to move, but he was still (I thought for a moment he was dead). The worst part was, cars were rude enough to honk because of the back up of traffic due to the accident. How ignorant can you be, I mean seriously?!?! Mass Freeze After Party pictures:

Caroline was in charge of the Mass Freeze and she did a great job. We became really good friends that day. LA, Rudy and I are 3 very fun and fabulous females. I met Kristina for the first time at the Mass Freeze after party. I loved the Kool-Aid shots she was selling! This is Park Seong Woo, he was a model, who was shorter than me, how does that work?!?! Anyways, he was kind of cute, but I mostly loved his glasses.

I spent most of the day Sunday hungover and recovering in Seoul before I headed back to Incheon.

GLOBAL GATHERING!!

The second last weekend of September is going down in the history books!! A bunch of us headed to Seoul for the weekend to attend the last outdoor festival of the year, Global Gathering. This is a giant outdoor festival with DJ's and the like, that started in the UK and has, well, gone global. Since it was all the way in Seoul and most of us were attending Friday and Saturday night we decided to get a pension in Seoul, so we could crash there and store our stuff.

Nick, Duncan and Chris decided to buy matching outfits for the festival and let me just say, AWESOME! Carolina, Bianca, Erika and I represented the girls. Chris and I at Global Gathering. Carolina, Bianca and I found a tent where we could dress up and take ridiculous pictures, so we did just that. Carolina and Bianca are loving Global Gathering, or it's the beer?!?! Nick spreading a little bit of the Nick loving. It was that time of the night, or should I say morning where crazy stuff happens...LOL!!

Friday night was awesome, we got to see The Prodigy perform and DJ Pendulum, both of which were great shows. We didn't end up getting back to the pension until the wee hours of the morning and we had to be up Saturday to do it all over again. I ended up leaving the pension without the others because I was going to meet Lindsay to have lunch in Hongdae together and then head to Global Gathering early, so we could chill out and catch G-Dragon and 2NE1 perform.

Lindsay enjoying her strawberry margarita at Dos Tacos pre-Global Gathering. I too enjoyed a delicious raspberry margarita. The fashion in Korea can sometimes be a bit to be desired. This is one of those times when she (girl in pink) should have looked in the mirror and been like, "Hey, I look like my grandma!" and then changed. Lindsay and I excited for G.D. and 2NE1 to perform. May and I put on our sexy while we wait for G.D. and 2NE1. FINALLY. G-Dragon takes the stage, he is from my Korean pop group Big Bang, but he is my least favorite member. However, his solo album is pretty good and his live performance was as well.

Check out the short video I took below of him performing his first single, Heartbreaker.

2NE1 is who I was most excited to see perform and they didn't disappoint me in their performance. They are fabulous and by far the best female group in Korea. they can sing and dance.

2NE1 chatting with their fans at Global Gathering!!

The rest of the night was spent watching DJ's from all over Europe perform, meeting random people and drinking and dancing with friends.

The original Global Gathering gang manage to get a pretty great group shot :)

Nicole Returns from Canada

After a one month hiatus because she went home to Canada for a visit, Nicole returned to Korea. We started the night off with an Incheon United soccer game.

Carolina has a weird way of showing Holly that she loves her. Nicole and Holly together at last after one month apart. Carolina and I enjoying each others company at the soccer game. Carolina, Holly and I share a special picture perfect moment at the game. Lindsay and I are only pretending to be thrilled to be at the soccer game. May at her very first Incheon United soccer game and she has lived in Korea for 10 years. Carolina and Chris show a little loving at the soccer game.

After the game we headed to Guwol-dong to have some food and drinks at Rio's and to hang out.

Paul came from Seoul to see Nicole, watch some soccer and drink with friends. Carolina, Nick, Chris, and Duncan enjoying the drunken times at Rio's.

I was really hungover from the Friday night reunion party in Yeonsu and was not feeling the whole drinking vibe, so I stayed sober Saturday night. May, Holly and I left around midnight and headed home.