Chuseok in Korea is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month. It's a three-day holiday that marks a celebrations and traditions regarding the harvest/ecquinox and ancestral/familial roots. It's considered to be an ancient shamanistic festival, with many of the rituals ingrained with the harvest and ancestral 'thanksgiving'.
Even though Chuseok is a 'holiday', many Koreans find it to be a stressful period. Just ask the women. They spend most of their time in the kitchen preparing songpyeon and being the general 'caretakers' at these giant family gatherings. The men perform harvest- and maintenance jobs and handywork.
Anyway, not being Korean, myself, I got the opportunity to spend some time relaxing. I met some buddies in Busan, and made a couple more while I was there. Highlight of the weekend - four of us shooting 'pew pew' roman candles on the beach and then being told off by disgruntled locals to the police. The serious-faced policeman told us, "Don't do that!" The sly curl in the lawman's lips along with a healthy chortle were both evidence, though, that he enjoyed incident reports of this nature.
On Monday I joined another friend in Gyeongju for a couple days. We biked around town and hiked along Namsan. We made friends with Arno the Frenchman and Yudith the Dutch girl. Gyeongju is a super historical city, filled with tombs, ancient stargazing observatories and a bunch more. Highlight - watching as a Russian pulled up in a scooter and, in mixture of Russian, Korean and English, flirted with one of the girls in our group. It was a real Aladdin's 'I can show you the world' kind of moment, except for a carpet she would have been escorted around on a bright yellow scooter.
Even though Chuseok is a 'holiday', many Koreans find it to be a stressful period. Just ask the women. They spend most of their time in the kitchen preparing songpyeon and being the general 'caretakers' at these giant family gatherings. The men perform harvest- and maintenance jobs and handywork.
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| Sunset from Haeundae Beach (as best as can be done with a potato-lens camera phone) |
Anyway, not being Korean, myself, I got the opportunity to spend some time relaxing. I met some buddies in Busan, and made a couple more while I was there. Highlight of the weekend - four of us shooting 'pew pew' roman candles on the beach and then being told off by disgruntled locals to the police. The serious-faced policeman told us, "Don't do that!" The sly curl in the lawman's lips along with a healthy chortle were both evidence, though, that he enjoyed incident reports of this nature.
On Monday I joined another friend in Gyeongju for a couple days. We biked around town and hiked along Namsan. We made friends with Arno the Frenchman and Yudith the Dutch girl. Gyeongju is a super historical city, filled with tombs, ancient stargazing observatories and a bunch more. Highlight - watching as a Russian pulled up in a scooter and, in mixture of Russian, Korean and English, flirted with one of the girls in our group. It was a real Aladdin's 'I can show you the world' kind of moment, except for a carpet she would have been escorted around on a bright yellow scooter.
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| #squad |
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