Chuseok!

Last week was the American equivalent of Thanksgiving in Korea. It's called Chuseok, and everyone gets three days off to celebrate. Most of the country fled the cities and went to grandmother's house in the country. Since my parents were here, we decided to hang in Chuncheon and found it to be almost deserted.

Last week was fantastic. The parents came, they took us to restaurants where we ate too much and had a relaxing time. I fear it may have been too boring for them. Michael and I took them to some of the "cool" places in Chuncheon - Soyang Dam, Cheongpyongsa Temple, the Sculpture Park and many of our favorite hangouts. They got to experience Tuna World, a restaurant that Michael and I went to about a month ago and were stuffed with sushi.

Chuseok day we went to Outback Steakhouse, one of the few restaurants open. The food was okay and they gave us a Chuseok gift - four mini loaves of bread with sweet butter. We really wanted to take my parents out to a movie at CGV so they could experience the joys of assigned seating and vast amounts of legroom, but there was nothing playing in English last week. So we enjoyed some movies at our apartment and ate some junk food.

Thursday we headed off to Sokcho. There's not a lot to do in Sokcho after the beach season is over, so we went up to Seorak National Park for a while. The leaves are just starting to change and the weather was cooperating for once. We did a little bit of hiking and made it to a waterfall that we hadn't been to before. We also ate some special pancakes - which my mom was calling cinnamon bread. They're called Hoddeok, a yeasty bread filled with cinnamon, peanuts, and brown sugar. They are sooo good.

We went back to work briefly on Friday and then returned to Seoul for some last minute fun before they left on Sunday. The apartment is empty now, and Gizmo misses her grandparents. We are a bit more homesick but we are also excited that our time in Korea is almost at 8 months! We can't believe that we will be back in the US within 5 months.

Check out the photo album if you are interested :

Chuseok 2010