Chuseok and beyond...

This past weekend was Chuseok, the Korean Thanksgiving. It gave us a few extra days off, which was nice, but the timing wasn't really ideal (last year, I went to Taiwan for a few days ~ just having come back from Europe made that an impossibility).

Simon, the orphan kitten, is thriving with his new family. No news on what his real name is. It was great to watch him grow and develop over the few days we had him: he went from baby-bird-skinny to actually playing and running just over the weekend.

Nina and her friend Patty came up from Suncheon for Saturday and Sunday. We met them in Gwangju, with the idea of "guiding them back to Mokpo", which we didn't really do, since we had no clue which highway led where. It says something, though, that it was such a novelty to ride in a car that wasn't a taxi!

That evening, a group of people (mostly from Gwangju and mostly people I didn't know) got together on the wee Shinan beach down from my apartment. We had a bonfire (I even got marshmallows!!) and lit off firecrackers (thanks to Nina, who arrived with a ton of firepower). All in all, a very nice evening.

Yes, we *did* go to my Principal's house for Chuseok. I'll admit that I was expecting the traditional feast, complete with hanbok (traditional clothes) and song-pyeon (special rice cakes) and such. Instead, we had a really awesome casual Korean meal. I think they were impressed with how much Ty and I both ate: There's something to be said about home-made vs. school cafeteria food. The Principal's daughter, So-yeong, is a doctor in Seoul and fluent in English, so we did all of our communicating through her, but I learned a lot about my Principal too: For example, they have been a host family for 3 Fulbright exchange participants a few years ago. This is great news, meaning that he's dealt with foreigners before me, and is probably a bit more open to our strange behaviour (you know, like not eating meat). We still got a few typical Korean comments ("Oh, you can use chopsticks!"), but I was happy to discover that I have "lucky hands" and, according to the Principal's wife, that will make me *ahem* a good wife and mother.

On Tuesday, I met up with Zach and a new arrival named Terry on a leisurely stroll up Yudal mountain. Ha! We were soooo freaking hot and hungry that we ended our death march early and took a cab back to my apartment. It's fun having new blood in town, and it's nice to be able to help new people out. We took Terry on a "field-trip" to Homeplus. We'd all been in that situation of getting to a grocery store and not understanding a thing, so it was pretty cool to help her with that.

Now, Ty and I are looking forward to next weekend ~ like, in 2 days ~ when we'll be heading to the east side of Korea to do some Scuba diving and get our Advanced Open Water certification. We'll also be participating (as a part of the course) 2 beach cleanups and 2 underwater cleanups through PADI Aware. We're both, understandably, pretty psyched about this, but are also facing the reality that if we ever want to leave this place with our finances intact, we're going to have to start living on a "b-word" (that would be bbbbbbbbbbudget).