Happy Cheusok

Sept 30 - Oct 4
Coming at you late again. This is all about the short week and long weekend I had after my rainy trip to Ulleungdo Island.
This week went really fast since I was only at work for 2 days and then off again for the long weekend while the Koreans celebrated Cheusok, or Korean Thanksgiving. Most of the kids were back from exams, but we still did a lot of creative writing and essay writing steps instead of the usual essay writing that I teach.
Before we knew it, it was Thursday night and we were done for the week and we were off to have some drinks in Gangnam to kick off the long weekend. It was a good night that got way to late, as usual, but was nice to see some of the people from the elementary school that I hadn't seen for a while. I woke up late on Friday and hung out at Seoul Forest for the better part of the afternoon with Blake, Alex, Zack and Lindsay, before getting ready for the Friday night party we had planned at Jamesons.
The plan was to go to his apartment and have some drinks and make t-shirts with iron on patches we made. However, everybody was running a lot later than we had planned and Margaret wasn't feeling very well so it never turned into the get together we had planned. Either way, Brian, Blake, and I showed up and had a few drinks and chatted for a couple hours before heading out to Hongdae, a party area we rarely frequent since it is on the other side of town. Emily and Danielle met us there and we bar hopped for a while until settling on a club for the last couple hours of the night. After some dancing and drinking we grabbed some street food and headed home around 4.
On Saturday I woke up again late but still just in time to get ready and go to the Seoul Center for Performing Arts, to see a French photography exhibit (not very impressive) and then an outdoor performance for the Cheusok celebration. The performance was OK but something I could have done without, since the two hosts spent too much time talking and some of the acts were a little lame. Either way it was something cultural for my weekend. After that I went down to the River to meet Blake, Brian and Jameson for a few beers but just as I got there it started to rain. So we quickly got out of there and went to the new Gold Bar 3 in Sinchon and had our drinks there, which turned into me waling 30 minutes home at 4 in the morning because I was too impatient to wait for the rest of the guys to share a cab with me.
Sunday was a rest and recover day, I cleaned my house and did some laundry before meeting Blake for dinner and eventually calling it a night. I think the strangest thing about the whole weekend was the lack of Koreans and traffic in this city. Just like Thanksgiving back home, many people go back to the cities they are from to have dinner and celebrate, so the city was down to I figure 20% of its regular population and traffic. I was kind of nice to be in a quiet city again.
Be home soon, and can't wait to see everyone.