Chuseok

Chuseok is a long Korean holiday celebrated in September with a similar significance to our Thanksgiving. Our school gave us three days off. Most Korean's travel home to gather with family and friends. We celebrated the holiday with our friends Tanner and Juli, two other friends from TWU Mason and Conner, and Tanner and Juli's Korean friend Sun. Sun has adopted us as his friend as well and was very gracious to plan a trip to the beach near his home town - Gimpo. We stayed at a pension with a view over looking the water. It was a wonderful time with friends - sharing good food and company.

I now understand why directions for cooking rice tells you to first rinse the rice! This whole time I thought it was a silly extra step. It is difficult to tell in the picture but this is a brand new bag of freshly opened rice with "rice bugs" yuck! As Juli and I were debating on throwing it out Sun comes around the corner to save the day. Oh it's ok he said as he poured the rice into a pan and filled it with water. The rice bugs float to the top and you can scoop them out. Living in another country constantly teaches you new tricks in life!

BBQ

Sun and Johnny grilling

Morning tea :)

It is not uncommon to eat on the floor in Korea...just a little uncomfortable...but we are getting used to it!

The pension had all sorts of chickens, ducks, a turkey...and low and behold a rooster that we discovered bright and early the next morning!

They also had chili vines and other assortments of vegetables like pickles and squash