Chuseok

So time to do a ton of blog posts!! I know it's been awhile since my last post, but we had a big holiday here in Korea last weekend so I've been enjoying my time off and not really had time to write any! So I'll start from the beginning, which is all about Chuseok.

Chuseok is basically a the Korean equivalent to an American Thanksgiving, except it's an even bigger deal. All the Koreans go home for the Chuseok Holiday, which was on Monday September 12th this year. So since everyone is traveling back to their hometowns, you want to stay away from the airports, trains stations, and bus stations on that weekend. Songdo was literally a ghost town last weekend, since no one is actually from here since it was just created about 8 years ago. It was so weird, no cars, people, nothing. Just us foreigners! 

Apparently for Chuseok teachers get gifts that Friday before, so I came home from work with some goodies, which was a nice surprise! Although they are not exactly things you get in America. Haha ya ok so my first gift I got from one of my kindergarden kids:

That was my first gift of the day, a fancy wrapped box of Elizabeth Arden beauty products. At that point I had no idea that it was normal to get gifts from the kids on Chuseok, so it was all very random to me!

Next I got this beautiful box filled with Korean rice candy and desserts:

Oh and then from the directer all the foreign teachers received a giant gift set of Laver, which is dried seaweed!! I actually tried some of it, but it tastes awful!!

You can't really tell how much is actually in there, but it's about a years supply of seaweed. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. Other than that I got some smaller gifts like boxed pastries, a Starbucks gift card, some fruit, and small rice ball desserts. Huge gift sets of Spam are also a very popular gift over here. They really love their Spam and Seaweed. Cassy got a huge gift set of Spam, so since we've both never even eaten it before we're going to find a decent looking recipe online and experiment. It just doesn't seem right letting it all go to waste without at least trying!!

So that's Chuseok in Korea, family, food, and spending time together. Of course I spent my weekend very differently, but I'll tell more about that in my next post!