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...
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!
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