Boseong Tea Fields...

Festival season is officially here in Korea again, and I'm so excited! Although it was nice to get some rest and relaxing weekends over the winter months, I love having a reason to travel around Korea. Festivals give me that reason!

Some friends and I signed up for a tour with Enjoy Korea to go to the Jindo Sea Parting Festival. An added bonus to this trip was going to the tea field in Boseong, The Daehan Dawon Plantation, which is exciting because this place was also on my Korea bucket list! 

On Saturday morning, we left Daegu around 9:30. Three hours later, we found ourselves at the Tea Fields. It was raining, and I was nervous that the tea fields were going to be lack-luster. What we found was the opposite! The fog and the rain added such an awesome look to the fields. PLUS, we hit the 3 day window that the trees bloom with those beautiful white flowers. 

The only issue with the rain, was hiking to the top of the hill. The dirt steps had turned to slippery mud, and when we got to the top we couldn't see the tea rows on the hill, because of the fog. BUT, at the top of the hill we found a magical pink azalea forest covered in fog.

After climbing up the hill in the mud, and back down we went and enjoyed some green tea products. Kyle and Sarah got their green tea and had it timed to the perfect steep. Ben bought some green tea ice cream, that was surprisingly awesome!

After a few hours at the tea fields we were back on the bus again, and off to our final destination of Jindo...

Sian's friend visiting from South Africa, Vee, Thomas, Sian, and Ben

White Day & Love Motel....BUSAN

This past weekend everyone stayed really busy...Friday was "White Day" here in Korea. Saturday was the night we all celebrated St. Patrick's Day, and Sunday was the Holi Hai Festival!

 What is "White Day", some of you might ask? Well, In Korea the 14th of every month is a love related day of some sort. Some of the months are really obscure, but February, March and April are well known holidays. 

All of us from the western world are familiar with Valentine's Day on February 14, well March 14th "White Day" happens in Korea. Valentine's Day in Korea is a holiday for the men! Girls give their men chocolates, and the really special guys get homemade chocolates. I made Ben chocolate covered strawberries, because I'm just that awesome of a girlfriend..

On White Day, these acts are reciprocated. Men who received this "chocolate of love" on Valentine's Day are expected to return the favor by giving gifts, most of them being white. White Day was first celebrated in 1978 in Japan. It was started by a National Confectionery Industry Association as an "answer day" to Valentines Day in which they marketed giving marshmallows and white chocolate. Now, it is mostly hard candy and white things that are given. 

April 14th is "Black Day". If you are an unmarried 20-something year old and you didn't receive anything on the 14th in either February or March, you can join the other singles at the Chinese restaurants and eat jjajangmyeon (noodles with black bean sauce). My co-teacher told me that this is a last attempt that all single people are in one place at one time and might just meet their soul mate! 

ANYWAYS, Ben and I had a pretty low key White Day dinner at a really great Korean BBQ place that has steak on the menu. It's one of my favorite places to eat. He also brought me some of those cheeeeeezy Korean chocolate gifty things:) I was just happy to have him in Daegu to be honest!

The next day we went to Busan for St. Patrick's Day and Holi Hai. We decided to keep knocking things off our Korea bucket list. One thing: stay in a love motel with a circle bed....

The area around Haeundae Beach is full of love motels. I have never seen so many of them. A love motel in Korea is a motel that you can pay an hourly rate or a night rate. Koreans use them to do things that they couldn't do at home, and us foreigners use them as a cheap place to stay. We can usually find one for 30,000 -40,000 won, but we heard that Busan love motels were going to be more expensive!

We walked around for awhile and asked prices. Most of the ones we were talking to didn't have a round bed and they were also 80,000-90,000 won, so we kept moving on to the next one. Finally we found one and asked to see the room. That sold it!!! It was amazing! 

The place that we stayed at was called "Comma", and it was only a few blocks from the beach where the festival was going to take place, and only a block or so from the Irish pub that everyone was at for St. Patrick's Day! It was a great location! 

Ben is modeling the circle bed...

Not only was there a circle bed, but there was a circle jacuzzi tub! OH MY GOSH! Korea doesn't have bathtubs, so all of us foreigners greatly appreciate when we have one available to us!
YUP! I took a long bubble bath, and it was amazing!
Not only was there circle bed and a circle Jacuzzi tub, but everything was amazing! There was a large flat screen TV (didn't use it), a computer, multiple showers, sinks, and the nicest toilet I have ever sat on! ahahah!
It played music when you sat on it and it had all of those weird bidet features. Even had a fan... That was interesting to say the least!
We ended up paying more for it, but we used the excuse of White Day to justify the extra cost. It was barely more expensive than the other ones, and they were not nearly as nice. Plus, I was able to talk them down on the price even though we were checking in 5 hours early! I feel like it was a good buy and I'm glad we did something unique for the special weekend...
I would do it again, just for the tub!

Holi Hai...A festival of color and love! - BUSAN

We couldn't have asked for better day with nicer weather for this festival. Holi Hai was put on by the IIK (Indians in Korea). Holi Hai is Hindu festival that is really big in Indian, and luckily the Indians in Korea are cool enough to share this tradition with all of us in Korea.

As we walked to the beach, we saw some guys putting saran wrap on his canon camera, and I asked if I could buy some saran wrap for my camera as well. They were so awesome that they helped me wrap up my camera and it worked pretty well! I wasn't able to review my photos, so it was like the good ol' days when you had to wait to view your film! Luckily, I think I got some fabulous shots!

When we got to Haeundae Beach in Busan we got our color powder, free samosa, and coke. The samosa was so good and just what I needed!
Once the countdown happened, color powder was thrown everywhere. There was "loud Bollywood" music as according to the schedule- with lots of dancing and continuous colors being thrown!

The fun is pretty obvious in the pictures...

 I took special pride in Ben's face, because I made it what it was...Every color was present and the final outcome was awesome...He was beautiful! ahaha
After the festival we brushed off ourselves, and used a wet wipe, (mull tissue) to clean off our faces. Then we went and ate Mexcian food! What a great day!
It was a bit of a hike home, with a train, bus and bus. Ben had a train, bus, bus, and bus, so I made it home before him! Also lost my puma bag on a train and had an emotional breakdown because I didn't get to say goodbye. Also cried for the peanut butter oreos, dried mangos, and grape juice that also perished in the bag.... :(

St. Patrick's Day- BUSAN...

For St. Patrick's day many of us were in Busan for the upcoming Holi Hai festival, so we made a weekend of it! The place to be was the wolfhound pub. It was an Irish pub, and was decked out with St. Patrick's day decorations. Some of my friends spent the entire day there, drinking and eating and socializing. Ben, Stefanie and I took the train in the early afternoon and Ben and I joined our friends after we had settled into our love motel.I made reversible green mustaches for people to enjoy while we were there. I thought they turned out great and the best part is that I got most of them back without being damaged and can reuse them in school! 

New School Year Teacher Dinner...

Back to school, Back to school... Oh Billy Madison get out of my head...

This last week we started our new school year, and while we just had a teachers dinner with the old principal as a leaving do, we also just had a school dinner with the new principal and teachers. This time we went to a place that was known for their "black chicken soup", or at least that was how it was translated to me! yay! Oh, and I was told that I wouldn't like it because it is healthy....
Of course this healthy word made me nervous so I didn't know what to expect, but this teachers dinner ended up being my favorite so far! I ate sooooo much. I didn't eat much of the "black chicken soup" but I scarfed down the rest.
We started off the meal with marinated duck. It was delicious! We made it like barbeque and wrapped it in our lettuce leaves. Because of seating being weird, Hyuni and I ended up sitting with the 3rd grade teachers, so yay, new friends for me. I learned from my new friend that Westerners don't like garlic! News to me...since I LOVE garlic! I set him straight, no worries...
The salad dressing that was on the lettuce was AMAZING, so I ate it all and asked for more...
Then came the soup. It was black. It looked like the kind of fake soups I would make as a kid by putting mud, grass and other stuff together. The other teachers thought that was funny. They didn't even eat the soup. I think that is a sign. I finally found out that it was sesame seeds that turned the soup black. Interesting...
I ate a ton! Which in my mind, since I pay every month out of my paycheck for these meals, I NEED to eat a ton! Considering what I have eaten in the past, I have a lot of ground to make up! :)