Chuseok---> food and celebrations

Okay, so I'm ridiculously behind on my blog! Sorry, I got really lazy!
I would love to catch you all up on everything all at once, but that will be annoying for everyone, so I've decided that I'll just post my 'catch up' in a sort of quick succession. So, I'll be trying to update y'all over the next week. :)
So I started this post right after the Chuseok vacation. I was going to tell you about Chuseok and give you sort of a cultural lesson with pictures, but I'm just going to leave what I wrote and skip the pictures of Chuseok. Sorry.


So, Chuseok.
Chuseok is, as I have said before, basically the equivalent of America's Thanksgiving. At Chuseok the family first prepares memorial food for their ancestors, and lay all the food out on a table in front of the memorial shrine and then bow three times in respect. Then, the family sits down and eats lunch together (I am still unsure if they eat the memorial food in front of the shrine, or not...either way, they eat something)
Another custom is to visit the grave of your departed loved ones and pull all the weeds out that have grown during the past year.
The traditional foods eaten are Song Pyun (Sweet sticky rice balls with sweet grain/ red bean inside) Jawn (Korean pancakes) Japche (rice noodles and veggies) and freshly harvest fruits and grains.
Traditional drink is Makkoli (rice wine).
Some traditional entertainment and games are Ssireum,(Korean wrestling) Ganggangsullae (Circle Dancing) and just the usual other types festivities:shows, dances, etc.
My Chuseok vacation consisted of going out with friends, going to my Korean friend's house, and going to Everland, an amusement park near Seoul.
I was really excited to go to my Korean friend's house for Chuseok because I was hoping to experience a real Korean style holiday, but unfortunately for me, her parents were at the grandparents for the holiday and my friend and her brother didn't want to go, so it was just us. No Korean food or traditions for me. Oh well. We had fun. We made Italian food and watched movies and drank wine. Good day.

On the trolly to Everland! 

Everland was so awesome! I went with some other TaLK scholars and we had a great time. Our timing wasn't so great though. Apparently, the weekend of a holiday week isn't the best time to be going to an amusement park, and we all should have known that. But, there was a big discount for foreigners to get into the park, so what were we supposed to do? NOT go?

Josie, Annette, Esther, Me. Entrance to Everland!

Biggest wooden roller coaster in the world! And I photo bombed her lovely shot! hahaha

Biggest wooden roller coaster. 0_0

Waiting in line for the wooden roller coaster....we died of old age. Good thing there were coffins readily available!

Scary village! Ack!

Scary eye/bat tree....

I think this place was called "Aesop's Village" 

It was a cute place.

I really liked that little building.

Yes...of course there was a k-pop store. No, I didn't buy anything, but I took a virtual picture with Psy. I can't find it though, sorry. :(

And Russia was here too!

We ran out of gas, so we had to stop and fill up! And then make ridiculous poses...

So, that was Everland. Fun times, fun times. :) I also went to the Busan international film festival  with Esther and Josie (both are TaLK scholars like me) so that will be my next blog post.

As always, please leave a "like" or "nice!" or "I hate this!" in the comment box to let me know you've read my post so I can post (or not post ^) more in the future!
It's starting to get really cold here!
Laters!
~TWGA