Happy Chuseok!! (Korean Thanksgiving)

Chuseok: Chuseok can be compared to Thanksgiving - only instead of a Thursday, it always falls on a full moon day. Koreans wear their traditional clothing, called bannocks and they leave out fruit and food for their ancestors. They come together as families and play traditional games, which I was fortunate enough to learn and play with the kids! 

We had three days off of school so I decided to take a trip to Jeju Island, which is known as the Hawaii of Korea. I had already booked a really cheap flight months ago but I came to find that traveling around the island solo can be very difficult. There were two different foreigner tour groups heading to the island for Chuseok so I decided to cancel my flight and go with one of the tours. I had a blast. We took a ferry to the island which was long and dreadful compared to the 45 minute flight I could have taken BUT I met so many awesome people from different areas of Korea so the positives of that definitely outweigh anything negative I encountered during the trip.

Jeju In a Nutshell: There was a total lack of sleep and a total lack of sleeping space on the ferry ride over so there were the people who made due on the floor for some shut eye and the people who stayed up drinking overpriced beers on the deck. Can you guess which one I was? When we touched down in Jeju our first stop was Loveland - with a proper buzz in tact. Loveland is a sex theme park with lots of inappropriate and hilarious statues. I'll refrain from posting pictures out of respect for my mother's eyes. What's funny about this "theme park" is that Korea is an extremely conservative country yet they have these statues of naked people all over the place. Whaaat?! It was a good time and my new drinking buddies and I cracked jokes the whole time. We definitely started Jeju with a bang, and every pun was intended with this sentence.

You could either sign up for an all day tour or have time to veg out on the beach. I'm a 'get shit done' kind of person so I signed up for every possible tour. 

Jeju is an island formed from a volcano so there's a lot of attractions that consist of these volcanic results. I had the opportunity to walk into my first cave, which was formed from lava. I hiked a volcanic crater. I saw a giant Buddha statue. I saw waterfalls. I put my feet into the most amazing ocean my feet have ever known. Everything was wonderful.

 Jeju is famous for their mandarin oranges and mannn, was that juice ever so delicious! I also had the privilege of buying some mandarin chocolate. Mmmm mmmm mmmmm. My favorite was taking another ferry to a smaller island close by. I rented an ATV and got to ride around the island. Driving the ATV was absolutely petrifying and I thought I was going to get taken out by a bus around every corner but the view was so absolutely amazing!! Nothing but ocean 90% of the drive around the island. I was scared yet I was smiling the entire time. I guess the scariest things are really the most worthwhile.

My second favorite is my roommates. I signed up for the trip solo and there were surprisingly lots of other people who did that too. I was put in a room with three girls from Ireland. I, ironically, have an Irish last name. We had proper fun (can you see the European accent rubbing off on me here?) No, but these girls were seriously a good time and I'm glad because I usually get the short end of the fun stick in situations like this.

All in all, Jeju was great. If I had my international drivers license, I would have preferred to rent a car and discover the island for myself. But I wouldn't have came to that conclusion if I didn't attend the trip in the first place. I label it a win.

Ear piercings: I have my tragus and my anti-tragus pierced. My elementary students commented on it the other day and thats when I realized that none of them have their ears pierced. They are a group of five, 10 year olds girls. I just figured that nowadays most people get their ears pierced when they are super young babies. I just thought it was weird that none of them have their ears pierced. Who knows.

New cellphone: I caved and I decided to start my own cellphone plan! I was tired of trying to rely on finding wifi to be able to communicate with people. My plan for an Iphone is about $65/month which is surprisingly really cheap compared to a cellular carrier like Verizon.

busy bee: My friend and her friend are coming to Korea!!! Im so excited. Erica and I became really good friends when we studied in London during our first semester of Freshman year. She also lives in Revere - literally 15 minutes from my house. What are the odds! I'm super pumped for her to come and I'm going to convince her to bring me some ranch dressing.

Peace out!