Since the last time we posted, our weekends have been really busy! We've been out and about even more than usual.
Last weekend we took the subway to a big annual festival that is held in Korea. This festival celebrates the birthday of Buddha. Even though we weren't overly concerned about his actual birthday, we still thought it would be interesting to check out this event! Upon arriving we were greeted by a packed street, full of people, tents, and (of course) Buddhist Monks. As well, the streets were lined with paper lanterns, hanging from street poles, electric cables, and rooftops. It was very neat to see, and we even had the chance to make our very own paper lantern.
The crowd was surprisingly made up of almost 50% foreigners, so we felt somewhat at home amongst the English speaking Canadian, American and British people. As evening approached there was a large parade which took place. However it got fairly repetitive after 15 minutes...only so many lanterns you can see before it gets boring haha.
Moving on, we had a fairly standard week at school, except that we got to meet the official owner of our school. Surprisingly he is 25 years old (and only looks about 20), but he is a world famous Korean singer (singing in the unique style of popera). His name is Lim Hyung Joo, and he told us how he wanted to create this school to provide opportunity for children to be able to achieve what he has achieved himself. It was neat to sit down and talk with a celebrity, as he impressed us with stories of fame, such as rubbing elbows with madonna, and various other celebrities. We were particularly impressed when he told us he knows the Korean couple from the TV show Lost (since this is one of our favorite shows). We are supposed to go to dinner with him sometime in the near future, so we are both very excited!
Last weekend we ventured on our first trip outside of the city of Seoul. We hoped on the KTX train, and sped our way ( at 300 KM/h) to the city of Busan. Busan is the second largest city in Korea, with a population of roughly 3 million. We both saw a large difference in the people, places, and culture however. Busan was more casual and laid back, and far less developed than Seoul. The locals liked to stare at us more so than we found in Seoul...likely because they don't see as many foreigners in their areas. However we didn't let this deter us, and we had a fun weekend, even though it rained saturday and sunday!
On Friday we visited a popular beach in an area called Haeundae, and enjoyed a nice sunny day. This was nice, but fairly uneventful. The next day we packed up our bags and skipped over to a different district. Our plan was to take a ferry to a small island just outside the city, where they had a beautiful botanical garden. However to our dissapointment the ferry was fully booked, and we had no choice but to forget about it. We visited a famous fish market named the 'Jaemgachi fish market', where they had rows and rows of live fish, waiting to be scooped out of the tank and thrown into the frying pan. It was another neat experience, despite the pouring rain. All in all we had a really great weekend, even though we didn't get to see everything we had planned.
Now it's time to begin another work week. We truly do live for the weekends here, but I suppose that's everyone's story no matter where you live in the world!
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