Korean Folk Village, Tourist activities at Seoul Tourist Information Center, Reattempt at Yeouido Cherry Blossom Festival
Friday was Happy Day again at Dah-un Jin. This time, the school took the students to the Korean Folk Village in Suwon. Just so happens that was on our list. Just so happens they invited me along, too. It is, as it sounds, a traditional Korean village, set up to show what life used to be. The kids (and some teachers) got to pound rice cakes, which, after splinters from wooden mallets were removed and bean powder was applied, we ate. It was really pretty there. It's such a different kind of pretty than is Ohio, and it's always so strange to be in it in real life. It is nice still to be experiencing completely new things as a young adult.
On Saturday afternoon, we went with Korrine and some of her friends from Adventure Korea to do some low-key tourist activities at the Seoul Tourist Information Center. Koreans love photo ops, so we took some pictures with cardboard celebrities and dressed in Hanbok. We also picked up a bunch of brochures and an illustrated guide to eating Korean food. There was even a phone set up for making free three-minute international calls.
Saturday night we were invited to a Beer Tasting Bonanza hosted by Chris and Heather Jones, a couple from our church. I will mention first their friendly dog, Koree, who let us pet and play and scratch his chin. We had a dog once, so very very long ago. You may recall him as such:
Hufflepup.
What a sleepy little babe he was.
But now we are in Korea and Tater is in Cincinnati with his grandmom, and I will end this aside to say that we very much appreciated Koree's affection last night. We also appreciated the opportunity to taste and very skillfully, with our excessive knowledge and experience, grade a variety of beers. We looked up beer tasting criteria even and filled out score cards to describe things like mouthfeel and aroma. Dan and I are not drinkers, obviously, because we are total babies, but that almost made it nicer to be able to taste a few without the commitment to a full 12 ounces. We tried Beck's, New Castle, Guinness, Sam Adams, something German starting with a W, and Mike's Hard Cran-Lemonade. I get now why beer drinkers think Mike's Hard is grammar school, because after a sip or two of Guinness, the Ade seemed completely non-alcoholic (read: tasty). Heather also made food pairings for most of the beers. We had orange sweet potatoes for the first time in months (Korean sweet potatoes are white inside) and hamburgers and guacamole and other things. Yay for guacamole.
Today, Sunday, we went to a church that meets in the chapel of Yonsei University. This is the University at which we attended the Park Yong Ha concert, but this time we got to look around a bit. After that, we decided to right our ill-timed, ill-planned failure trip to Yeouido for the Cherry Blossom Festival. I'm glad we did, because it was blooming, bustling, and bawesome.
