It's Chuseok Time in the City...

It's our second Chuseok spent in South Korea. This is a view from our local Home Plus. Time to dust off your hanboks and visit the family. It lasts three days and since two of the days are on the weekend, it is a shorter than the usual Chuseok Holiday.

Curt (hubby) leaves for a business trip on Sunday so he will miss most of it anyway.


I was surprised to receive a gift from my cleaning lady. She gave me this wallet with 1000 won ($1 US) in it. It was very thoughtful of her.



Today, I'm going to Seoul to meet up with Hellena and to check out a maedeup supply store hoping to find one that will supply the U.S. The owner of the maedeup shop where I take class will not give me information on her cording so I need to look elsewhere for a source. I have a U.S. company that will carry the cording so at least that is taken care of.

We found these crackers at Home Plus.

My Korean girlfriends are coming over for a sleepover tonight and then tomorrow we are going to visit the set of the Korean drama "Full House." It was filmed near Incheon and Hellena was able to find a taxi driver that will take us on a sightseeing tour for two hours. I'm so excited.

The Chuseok Holiday

The Chuseok Holiday is the biggest holiday in Korea. This year (2007) it is celebrated from September 24-26. It is a time when Koreans leave their homes to travel to their hometowns all over Korea. Many people visit the grave sites of ancestors and tend to the graves. They will also leave food and drink in honor of their ancestors. It is also the time that traditional Hanboks are worn. Gifts are bought for parents and grandparents. Our local Home Plus had a huge section devoted to Chuseok gifts. There were fruit gift boxes and even Spam gift boxes. My husband brought home a "Dove" gift box filled with "Dove" products.

It is a time to gather together and be thankful, very much like the U.S. Thanksgiving. The main food of Chuseok is songpyeon which is half moon shaped rice cakes filled with red beans and sesame and steamed over pine needles. Families make songpyeon the eve before the holiday and it is an old Korean saying that whoever makes the prettiest songpyeon will have the best looking spouse.

National Holiday - Korean Style

The egg truck I see every morning on
my walk to the Suwon Station

A couple of views of the street I take to the Suwon
Station

Today is Constitution Day in South Korea. Now, back home in the States, you would be confident that your husband was not working today, right? Not in Korea, it really seems up to the company whether it is a working day or not. My husband had originally decided to make it a four day weekend, taking Monday off and then the holiday today (Tuesday).

While we were at breakfast in the hotel yesterday, two co-workers of Curt's (my husband) came to eat and then mentioned that the company had changed the holiday Friday night from Tuesday to Monday. My husband never got the message. It was a good thing he had decided to take Monday off. I was really surprised at this change but my husband, who has travelled to Korea and China said that it is not uncommon. He was just surprised that no one told him!

He also told me that if a holiday falls on a weekend, the company doesn't give you the Friday or Monday off like we do in the States. It's all about culture! Oh, by the way, he did decided to go into work today. It was suppose to be a rainy day and the hotel room was getting a lot smaller for him.

I also had a major crisis. I am probably one of the few that wears sunglasses over here. I can't live without them. One of the screws became really loose on my frames and it was making the leg really wobbly and I was afraid I would loose the screw. Oh yes, I still wore them when I needed to. I found a sunglass store near the Suwon Station and decided to see if they could fix them. In the States, I've never been charged for even a missing screw but who knew and I was willing to pay anything. The salesclerk took my glasses, retightened both screws and put it into this steam machine to clean them. He then took them out and thoroughly dried them. I was sooooo thrilled. I asked how much and he said, "Free, only free." I thanked him profusely and now not only are my sunglasses fixed, I can see through them. I can't tell you the last time I cleaned them.