Buddha's Birthday

It's Buddha's Birthday again, and though Chloe was quite tired from her night out, we still decided to head to the city for the parade. Chloe had seen the parade when she visited Korea last year, and was really excited to show Sam the rice paper floats that breathed fire. That's right. Paper and Fire. We met Katie and her friends, including everyone who was out with us the night before, and scored some

decent seats where we could take millions of pictures. It wasn't as exciting as last year; there were large groups of Koreans dressed in hanboks representing different groups (or so we assumed based on their banners). You get tired of that after awhile. The floats started showing up, and they were as amazing as last year, if not the same floats. Sam did enjoy the paper dragon breathing fire, and was just as surprised as Chloe had been.

We didn't stay long, being tired, so we headed back to Ansan before

the parade was over. We saw an awesome Korean couple on our walk

to the subway, some kind of Korean Elvis and his lady, with a Korean

afro and very tight pants. It's hard to take a subtle picture without

using flash, let me tell you! Then on the subway, we ran into Melissa who had joined Chloe the night before. She had just had dinner in Myeongdong, and was also on her way home. It's still kind of funny that very few Koreans go to see the parade for Buddha's Birthday; Melissa had no idea it was happening.

Monkey Beach

Chloe: I hadn't been out dancing with the girls for awhile, and everyone kept talking about Monkey Beach, so I decided to join them in Itaewon. We met at the Loft first, because drinks are free for the ladies. A couple of my students joined us actually, thought they left early. I can understand; a table full of girls in a club offering free drinks to ladies, you start to draw a lot of creepy men.

So after having a few drinks, we took a cab to Apgujeong, where Monkey Beach was located. Monkey Beach is awesome, because when you order a drink, you get it in a bucket. No joke, picture little sand buckets on the beach, except filled with deliciously flavoured drinks and a bunch of straws. That was kind of awkward actually; Melissa and I split on a Melon flavoured drink, and put it on a shelf right next to us where we could watch it. And we did watch it. We watched as some strange girl walked up to the shelf, and took a sip out of her straw. I looked at her, reached for my drink, and pulled it away. It was kind of funny, and she apologized profusely. I didn't really trust the drinks in the place after that, so spent the night dancing. It was a small bar, with too many people crammed in, so it got hot quickly. But we had a lot of fun, and didn't end up leaving until about 4:30. Fortunately, Melissa lives in Ansan, so we could share a cab home, and she crashed at my place until the subway started again at 6am. It was fun, but I think I'm getting too old to be staying up all night long.

Oh, I almost forgot! You get to keep the buckets! Most people are either too drunk or too busy dancing to remember, but not I!

Katie and Laura at the Loft.

Children's Day

Korea has some interesting holidays, but by far the best excuse to get a random Wednesday off work is Children's Day, "The day on which to esteem the personalities of children and plan for their happiness." And since Chloe and I are teachers, we got the day off too. We took the opportunity to sleep in past seven o'clock, and then head to Asia's largest underground shopping mall. What we didn't realize until we got there, was that everybody in Seoul had the same idea. It was the busiest mall I've ever seen, busy enough that you literally had to let the flow of people dictate where you went. Needless to say, once we found the line for the aquarium, the line was hours long and we had to pass on it. We also had to miss out on the kimchi museum (what?). Instead we waited until we were drifted toward the food court, and made a break for it. One thing about Korea, no matter how busy a food court is, there's never a line at Sbarro. After two deliciously normal slices of pizza, we picked up a jig-saw puzzle and made our escape.

Much more relaxing than the mall, was the Buddhist temple complex across the street from the mall. There was something profoundly peaceful about standing in a 1200-year-old temple in the middle of a 10-million-person metropolis. It was relaxing to say the least after that mall experience. After that, it was back on the subway for the long trip home. At home, we started our jigsaw puzzle (how could we not play with toys on children's day?) and drank piña coladas to celebrate a well-deserved Wednesday off.