Chuseok

This week was a Korean holiday called chuseok. It is a 3 day holiday and is almost like the American holiday thanksgiving. Most people go to their parent’s house and share traditional Korean food dishes. Most restaurants and shops were closed, so that means we did not have classes for those 3 days. While this holiday was going on I had dinner with a few of my Korean friends and just explore different areas in Seoul. I visited a place called Gyeongbokgung Palace, it was the main royal palace of the Hoseon dynasty. It was built in 1395, but some parts got destroyed over times and have been rebuilt. The palace was extremely large, it was almost like a private neighborhood or community just for the King, which is very hard to comprehend. There was even a private pond or lake that had a boat for him just to lounge on. It is free to enter the palace if you wear a hanbok. It is a traditional Korean dress that is usually worn on special occasions or anniversaries. I didn’t wear one this time that I visited, but I will wear one on my next trip to the palace. Me and my housemates also decided to visit lotte world again this week. They were having a special Halloween event this week where they had a zombie prison that you could visit. It was actually pretty scary and hard to get through. But, it was something cool to experience, I don’t think I would do it again. The inside part of lotte world had a parade going on where they had people dancing in costumes and small parade carts with characters. So there were many families with their kids celebrating the event. This time when we went they had different rides open. We went during Chuseok so I was very surprised that there were many people there, there were so many people that the wait lines were 2 hours long for each ride. So we didn’t get to enjoy many rides, but it was still fun to be at lotte world again. We actually planned to have a picnic at the Han river, which is a very important and famous river in Seoul, but the weather this week was not good and it rained a lot. But, next time we will go there and ride bicycles next to the river when the weather gets better. It rains a lot during this time because it is typhoon season here, but the weather is still very hot and humid. Hopefully, it will start cooling down soon.