On our third day in the parks, we went to EPCOT! We started our morning in Future World where we rode Spaceship Earth (pictured below) and Soarin'. We were also able to ride Test Track. Test Track is a fun ride where you get to design a vehicle and then test your vehicle's stats against the stats of the cars that the people in your ride vehicle made. It was quite a fun ride. We also had the time to ride the Living With the Land ride where you go on a boat ride through where Disney grows many of the foods that are used in their restaurants. It is quite an excellent experience and a way to get away from the heat and humidity outside. You can also see some Florida lizard friends. After lunch in the Japan Pavilion, we went and rode Mission: SPACE. It is a very fun ride where you are operating a rocket that is on a mission to Mars. You experience G forces and have quite a great time! My dad and I really had fun! After Mission: SPACE, we went to explore the different countries in EPCOT's World Showcase. We were able to explore the Mexico, China, Japan, France, and Italy Pavilions. There were several other pavilions to explore but we wanted to be sure that we could get to the Magic Kingdom shortly to attend our evening event! Stay tuned for my next post where we talk all about the specially themed After Hours event we went to in the Magic Kingdom!
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A few weekends ago, I went with my mom to go see Dear Evan Hansen on tour. It was a wonderful show and I would gladly see it again! I love going to see musicals-- listening to and watching the diverse stories that are just so fun! This was a show that was on the more sad side but like most shows it ended with hope. I would love to see this show again!
It has been a while since I have posted regularly. I am hoping to be able to continue my posts about my Disney vacation this last summer soon. In the mean time, I have posts from this last month and more current posts that will be coming up! Take a look at my new bulletin board and I am hoping to add more to my classroom page and update my pictures page to include summer 2019 soon.
I also have some BIG news about my summer 2020 that I will be sharing around March or so. I am very excited about this summer and am excited to share it soon! Because we did a dining package for Fantasmic! we were able to get preferred seating for the show. We did not get to the show very early but we were seated right in the front row in the center of the amphitheater. The show was fun and magical but it was definitely different from the original in California at Disneyland. The original will always be my favorite as I have seen it many times and it was the first Disney show that I ever saw. I do like that the show here has its own amphitheater but the show itself left me wanting for a bit more of the content from the Disneyland show. It was a wonderful and magical way to end our day but I don't know if I would go see it again if I go back to Disney World. In my next few posts, I'll be talking about our third day in Disney World where we went to EPCOT and attended a Villains themed After Hours event at Magic Kingdom.
In planning, I knew I wanted to see Fantasmic! at Hollywood Studios. I also knew that I wanted to try and get preferred seating for Fantasmic! The easiest way I saw was to book a dining package that would get us preferred seating. This dining package did not cost us anything extra. We only had to use our dining plan credits that we would have used anyway for this meal. We got extra benefits for nothing extra! It was a great deal! We chose the eat at the Hollywood Brown Derby for our meal. When we arrived, we were served warm bread and we each ordered a drink. I got a peach drink that is pictured on the left and my dad ordered a strawberry tequila drink pictured on the left. They were both delicious and wonderful. They were also gorgeous! My dad and I both ordered the restaurant's signature cobb salad for our entree. I chose to get mine with chicken while my dad just got the plain cobb salad. This was the BEST cobb salad I have ever had. I don't think I can ever have a cobb salad that is as amazing as this cobb salad was! It was also GIANT. I could not finish all of it! We also had dessert in our meal. I had their grapefruit cake (pictured on the left) and my dad had a passionfruit cake/mousse thing. They were both extremely delicious. Mine was sweet, sour, and deliciously balanced with grapefruit flavor, white chocolate, and cocoa nibs. My dad's was fruity and exciting. This entire meal was wonderful and I would definitely do it again if and when I go back to Disney World.
We spent the rest of the afternoon riding different rides and seeing shows. We saw the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular show, rode the Rock 'n Roller Coaster and rode the Hollywood Tower of Terror. We also saw the Frozen Sing Along show and were able to see the Muppets as well. It was so fun! Near the end of our evening we headed back for Fantasmic! See my next post for my thoughts on Fantasmic! in Disney World. For our second day in Disney World, we started our day with the Early Morning Magic event at Hollywood Studios. The park opened at around 7am so we were leaving our resort quite early! When we got there, we were let into the park along with special wristbands that showed that we were a part of the event. The park itself was quite empty which made for a relaxed experience. This event included breakfast as well as several hours of exclusive access to the recently opened Toy Story Land. We chose to go get breakfast first as it was on the opposite side of the park from Toy Story Land so that we could spend as much time as possible exploring Toy Story Land. The breakfast included a hot entree as well as a continental breakfast spread. I had avocado toast and my dad had a southwest breakfast bowl. It was all quite delicious. After breakfast, we headed over to Toy Story Land to go on the new rides and to explore. The lines were extremely short so we were able to ride the new Slinky Dog roller coaster several times in a row as well as Toy Story Midway Mania and the Little Green Alien ride that would spin you around! It was time and money well spent! This event was not crowded at all and was very fun. It was definitely worth the extra money to have the low crowds and to be able to explore this exciting new land without any pressure to move quickly. We were also able to take a picture of us with the Toy Story Land Sign from a Photopass photographer without having to wait! It was so nice to go through this land without any lines and with just a few people. By the time we had left, the lines had over an hour long wait and the area was packed! I would definitely recommend this event to anyone looking for some low stress extra time in Toy Story Land.
After leaving Toy Story Land, we planned to spend the rest of the day in Hollywood Studios. In my next post, I will be talking about the amazing lunch we had and the excellent end we had to this day. I had planned a truly magical and exciting experience for us prior to us arriving in the park. We were eating at Cinderella's Royal Table! This restaurant is INSIDE the castle! We arrived at the castle and checked in. We were given a card with our party number on it and went into a small room where we waited with other families to meet Cinderella. Finally, our name was called and we were able to meet Cinderella and ascend the staircase into the castle. We were brought to our table and promptly served our drinks. We were also given a wand, a sword, and each a wishing star. We made wishes on those later in the meal but let's talk more about the food! It was wonderful! Here is my appetizer, entree, and dessert, as well as my dad's dessert. My appetizer consisted of a lovely seared scallop, lemon peas, and delicious mushrooms along with a gorgeous cream sauce. It was small but it had SO MUCH flavor! I really liked it! For my entree, I had chosen the fish of the day. It was a salmon on top of a bed of grains with veggies and a tomato sauce. I really enjoyed it and would definitely eat it again! (Please ignore the bit that I already had taken out of it! I was so excited to eat it!) My dessert (on the left) was a chocolate and raspberry mouse called The Clock Strikes Twelve. It was lovely! On the right is my dad's dessert which was a deconstructed berry cheesecake. It was also very delicious! We each got a wishing star in this meal. In between princesses coming and visiting our table and taking pictures with us, we were directed to make wishes upon our stars as an entire dining room. It was very fun! Below is a snapshot of the inside of the castle and from where we were sitting. It was quite cozy (read small) but it was comfortable and very nice. I am glad that I took the opportunity to eat here! My next Disney World post will be all about our experience at Early Morning Magic in Toy Story Land in Hollywood Studios! It was a joyous adventure!
After our late night at Animal Kingdom the night before, we woke up ready for even more Disney magic. What better way to spark the magic than to go to the Magic Kingdom! We started our day taking the Disney boat directly from our resort to the Magic Kingdom. Whether it is Disney World or Disneyland, it is such a fun feeling to walk down Main Street USA. Check out that view! Our first stop of the day was to the Enchanted Tiki Room where we listened to those wonderful birds and crooning flowers. We also made sure to stop into the Emporium on Main Street to ask about first visit buttons and we were promptly given these fabulous buttons to commemorate our trip! We then took a wonderful ride on Pirates of the Caribbean while we were waiting for our Fastpass window for Big Thunder Mountain to open. We went on Big Thunder Mountain and then used another Fastpass for Splash Mountain. While on Splash Mountain, we were stopped on the ride for about 3 minutes. It was pretty fun to be stopped on a ride with the lights on! Definitely a different experience! We then made our way over to the Jungle Cruise to use our last pre planned Fastpass of the day. Then the fun could really start! I'm very glad that I read up a lot on how the Fastpass system in Disney World works because I was able to get more Fastpasses right after we tapped in for our Jungle Cruise Fastpass. We got Fastpasses this way for Haunted Mansion, Mickey's Philharmagic, Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin (where I tried to max out the score and almost succeeded!), and Space Mountain! We were able to ride all of these rides with little to no wait in the course of an entire day WITHOUT getting to the park at the break of dawn! In addition to riding rides, we also spent time playing the Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom game that is exclusive to Disney World throughout the day. I'll be posting more about this in a later post as it is really fun! That night, for dinner, we had planned to go to Cinderella's Royal Table for dinner and had to pass the Tangled restrooms on our way there. It's only restrooms but they are gorgeous and wonderfully themed! We then made our way to the Castle for our dinner which was INSIDE the castle! Be on the lookout for when I post about how wonderful it was!
We finished our wonderful day in the best way possible, we went and met Mickey and Minnie! It was very nice and even without a Fastpass, we didn't have to wait long at all! We then hopped on the boat back to our resort and called it a night so that we could get ready for our EARLY morning the next day in Hollywood Studios! Our first night, right after we got to our resort, we went to Animal Kingdom for an After Hours event. Disney is now hosting events where limited numbers of guests get to enter the park and spend the evening in the park. They call these events After Hours and they hold them periodically at Magic Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and at Animal Kingdom where we were! When we got to the park, we entered through a designated After Hours entrance and got special After Hours wristbands. After the park had officially closed to general guests, cast members were stationed at certain checkpoints in the park to check if you had a wristband or not. They would then direct you where you needed to go! The event started officially around 9pm and lasted until midnight but we were able to get into the park starting at 7pm. The first thing we did when we got to the park was go on a safari! On Kilimanjaro Safaris, we were able to see a BUNCH of different animals. Can you spot the lion? It was a BLAST! We then went to get some food and had some delicious ribs! After this, the event had yet to start and we had fastpasses for the Animal Kingdom nighttime show called Rivers of Light. It had been raining quite a bit before and during the show but it was very enjoyable and was great to watch. By the time the show was over, our event had started so we got started riding some rides! The first thing we rode was Expedition Everest which is a roller coaster. The special thing about this coaster is that it goes backwards! It was very exciting. We then went to Pandora and started exploring over there. We rode both of the rides with very minimal wait which is one of the selling points for these After Hours events and were able to ride Flight of Passage at least two or three times. It was AMAZING! I can see why people normally wait 3+ hours for it during the day. We were then able to get some drinks and ice cream. They were included in our admission to this event so we were able to walk up to any food cart and simply get whatever we wanted at no extra charge. We ate a ridiculous amount of ice cream! We then went to Dinoland USA and rode Dinosaur which is built on the same track as Indiana Jones in Disneyland but has a dinosaur theme. It was very fun and quite exciting! This day was our travel day so we were a bit exhausted but this event was so much fun! After having ridden a few more rides, we got more ice cream for the road and made our way out of the park where we saw projections happening on the Animal Kingdom Tree of Life. We then boarded the bus back to our resort and by the time we were back in our resort, we were reunited with our luggage!
All in all, it was a wonderful travel day with an amazing event! In my next post, I'll be talking about our first full day in Disney World! Stay tuned to see where we went, what we did, and what we ate! For the entire 11 days and 10 nights, we stayed at Disney's Wilderness Lodge Resort. We were located in a nature view room. Now, unfortunately, I forgot to get pictures of the inside of the room but the room was almost exactly the same as the pictures shown on Disney's website. Our resort was themed for the Pacific Northwest so it was kind of like something we'd see back home but it was a gorgeous resort! There was a spacious lobby with lots of seating and a giant fireplace modeled after rock layers and a river leading out from the lobby all the way to the pool. The resort had many areas to relax and unwind from the day. There were also several places to eat in the resort.
We were able to eat at almost every meal location in our resort. We had breakfast at Roaring Fork which is one of the quick service locations. We were able to do a lot at this location from getting breakfast to getting quick snacks like ice cream and fruit as well as fill up our refillable mugs that we got with our dining plan. We also ate at Geyser Point which was another quick service location out by the resort's pool. It is named for the resort's geyser which is modeled after Old Faithful at Yellowstone. The geyser erupts every hour during the day. It is quite cool to watch! There were two sit down restaurants. One is a character meal that we went to in the middle of our trip. The other seemed to be an interesting experience with all you can eat skillets and sassy wait staff! In regards to transportation, we had a couple of different options. My favorite option was using the boats to get to the Magic Kingdom. It left every 20-30 minutes and it was a short and beautiful boat ride. Another option was taking the Disney buses to wherever we needed to get to. There were designated bus stops for each park and our bus only stopped at one other resort before heading to the park. We also could have taken ride share services like Lyft and Uber. Disney also has its own comparable service through Lyft called Minnie Vans. We did not use this service but it would be something to try next time. Overall, it was a wonderful resort to stay at and I would definitely choose to stay at this resort on my next trip! Disney World has some lovely housekeepers. They are called Mousekeeping and many people tip them. To hold our tips for our trip, I decorated a bunch of different envelopes so that we could just load our envelopes and set them out each day. I had a ton of fun coming up with ideas for all of my envelopes while waiting for my 6am flight on the day we left!
The day before going to Disney World, my family and I went to a Seattle Mariner's game. It was a TON of fun! We were able to get wonderful seats near home plate and had such a great time! We even got to get our dose of garlic fries (we ate them so quickly I couldn't even get a picture)!
After sending our luggage off, we made our way to our gate a proceeded to wait until it was time for our flight to board. We had decided to splurge for this leg of our journey and fly first class. It was AMAZING! I had so much let room and I got to drink out of real glass cups! After this first part of our journey to Orlando, we had our very short layover! We climbed aboard the airport's shuttle and got to our gate just in time to board! No waiting necessary! In this first class experience, we got so much food! There was yogurt and granola, cinnamon bread, a frittata (of which there is no picture) and a smoothie! There was also mini water bottles all around and many many different snacks! We also each got a quilted blanket for the flight. It was so comfy! Our airline also provided entertainment screens to everyone instead of having a screen in the back of each seat. I was not the biggest fan of this model as the screens were not all charged and it was difficult to find a good place to set the screen in flight without it getting in your way. The flight though was very good! After disembarking the plane, we made our way to the tram to go to the ground transportation area where we walked to find Disney's Magical Express Kiosk. We scanned our magic bands with a lovely gentleman who made sure we had taken care of all of the things we needed to before directing us to the numbered lane to wait for our coach bus that would drop us off at our resort. After boarding the bus, we rode while the bus played videos on the screen about helpful Disney tips and fun animated shorts. The bus made one stop before our resort and then we had made it!! I'll be posting more about our resort in another post so please look forward to that!
We had a very fun event to go to this evening after we had gotten settled in our resort and by the time we had returned to our resort after the event, our luggage was waiting in our room for us! It was so convenient and caused no hassle! Disney World is an AMAZING experience! There is so much to do, see, and there is a lot to plan for.
I started planning for this trip over a year before we actually left for the trip. I researched all of the different places to stay, things to see, and things to do. The first thing I decided was where I wanted to stay. I had plenty of resorts to pick from and I eventually decided on Disney's Wilderness Lodge Resort. I am going to post about our resort and how nice it was in a later post. I also planned out how many days I wanted to go and if I wanted to get a Disney Dining Plan (I'll add a post about this later). After deciding what resort I wanted to stay at, I got in touch with a Disney travel agent. They are AMAZING! They do not charge for their services and they will help you get a great deal on your vacation. I went with Small World Vacations and they were able to save me almost $2500 on this vacation because even after I booked, they were able to attach the Disney Free Dining promotion that was happening for when I was there to my vacation. I saved a bunch of money on this! Disney Travel Agents are a great way to go! Next came figuring out what parks I wanted to go to and when. There were a lot of moving parts that came with this decision. It mainly revolved around dining reservations. At Disney World, for all sit-down restaurants, you can make reservations 180 days in advance. From what I read online, it is extremely important to get these reservations done at that 180 day mark. I got up around 4 in the morning to make sure I got the reservations that I wanted. I got what I wanted! At 60 days out, I was able to pre-select 3 fastpasses for each day I planned to be in the parks. Again, I got up around 4 in the morning to make sure I got all of the fastpasses that I wanted. Again, I got what I wanted! I also planned out extra events put on by Disney to attend like After Hours events, dessert parties, and VIP tours. Don't worry I'll post about ALL of this!!! There was so much planning that went into this trip! I'm sure y'all will see just how much planning went in through all of these posts! In the middle of July I went to Disney World! I spent almost two weeks there with my dad. It was such an amazing trip! Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting all about Disney World. I'll be talking about the planning I did as well as what I did and particularly what I ate throughout the 10 nights and 11 days I was there for. Hope you all look forward to it!
I live in such a beautiful place. I live less than an hour to the north or the south from a beach. A while ago, with a friend, I went and explored one of the beaches. We hiked down on to the beach and walked around the beach. We went over to the rocks and were able to explore the tide pools around. There were so many sea anemones and starfish. It was so nice! I hadn't been to tide pools since I was in elementary school.
Here are some pictures from that day! There are also some pictures from another beach where the hike down included a bunch of spruce trees! I celebrated my mom's birthday with her a while back. We went to see Gabriel "Fluffy" Iglesias. We spent most of our day exploring and shopping and ended our day at his show. He was great! It was a really good way to celebrate my mom's birthday!
At my school, in Kindergarten, we make gingerbread houses at Christmastime. Here is my setup for my class's gingerbread house making day. Now is the time to ask yourself, "Is it really a day in Kindergarten if there are no crazy surprises?" Your answer should be, "NO!" BECAUSE . . . about 1 hour after these pictures were taken and kids were coming in and I was showing them how to make their gingerbread house, the power went out! So, we had the fun and exciting experience of making gingerbread houses in a completely dark classroom with lanterns and travel lights. It really was an experience and made for an interesting morning of Kindergarten as we were all dismissed early. At least the kids will remember this! I know I will!
There was this really fun event called "Enchant" at SafeCo Field in Seattle that happened and I decided to go with my family. It was such a fun event! There was a light maze that covered the ENTIRE field! We had to find each of Santa's reindeer and mark them off on a scratch off card. It was so much fun and the lights were GORGEOUS!
I've discovered that a small benefit of living in a small town is that there are little holiday community events all over the place! I got my weekly town newspaper and the entire front page was dedicated to these different events. Tonight, I went to the holiday parade and tree lighting ceremony. There was also a town wide sale event put on by the local businesses. I actually didn't get to see much of the parade as it was really short and I was late but I got to see a few floats. I only got a picture of one float that was a small train but I did get a picture or two of the town tree being lit. There's the little train. It was really dark and I didn't want to use flash so it's quite a poor picture but the train was so cute! Here's the tree. Again, it was a low light picture so it's not the best quality and the gas station sign is in the background but it really is a cute tree. Also, at the tree lighting, there was Santa and Anna and Elsa from Frozen. The kids from town were really enjoying those special guests. I've got 13 days left before my winter break begins so I've got to hurry up on my report cards and all that jazz so that I can spend the next week or so not stressing out too badly!
So, when I originally planned on posting this, I did not have a job. I completed my time at my local theme park and I went out and did quite a few fun things. I thought I might share a few of the cool things that I have done now that summer is over (I have procrastinated A LOT in creating and finishing this post!). Hiking! So I got to take a day trip to Silver Falls about forty minutes from my house! I went with one of my friends from high school and two of her friends from college. It was such a fun day and it was cool to see all of the different waterfalls. We ended up hiking about 6 miles to see most of the falls. It was so fun! Back in July, one of my all time favorite Kpop artists, G-Dragon had a tour date set for Seattle. I decided to buy a ticket and go. My mom and I drove to Seattle, explored, I went to the concert, and then we spent the night and went home the next day. It was one of the BEST concerts I've ever been to. I would definitely go to see him again if he ever comes near where I live! Here are some pictures from the concert (the quality is REALLY low but I guess that's okay!). I also put in some pictures from exploring Seattle! For my best friend, I helped her decorate her mortarboard for graduation. She is a big fan of Game of Thrones so we designed it and got it all put together and I think it turned out pretty well if I do say so myself! As a REALLY late birthday present/graduation gift, my friend and I also went to a local winery for a tour and a tasting. We went for the afternoon and it was a gorgeous day and the wine was fantastic! I also went to our local art fair that happens every year! It was really fun. They also had a car there that people could draw on so I drew Franklin the space monster on the car. I also took a fun picture of the attack owl sign because I just think it's funny that there is an owl that attacked so many people that they had to put a sign up about it. :) So that's a few of the things I did over the summer. I'm sure I did more but these seemed to be the big fun things that I did.
On Saturday, I got tickets to go see VIXX in concert! My friend went with me and I met some new people! It was such a good concert and I had such a fun time!
My friend and I had really planned to go to Busan particularly because of Spaland. Spaland is a Korean style bathhouse. There are the typical baths and there are saunas and other spa services. I had done a lot of research on Korean bath houses and decided that this would be an excellent place to start. SpaLand is a bit more expensive than normal bath houses and there is also a 4 hour limit for being there (many bath houses and saunas are open 24 hours and allow you to be there for as long as you want). When we got to the department store that the bath house is housed in, we had to search for just a moment before finding our way to the entrance of the bath house (it had a separate entrance from the department store). Once we found the entrance, we went to the reception desk and paid our entrance fee. After this, we were directed up an escalator and had to take off our shoes and put them in our assigned shoe locker. This first locker was only for our shoes. The key to that locker matches a bigger locker in the actual women's locker room. The key is also the method of payment when you are in the facilities. All purchases are kept track of on the key so you don't have to carry cash with you as there are services and goods that cost extra in the bath house. After putting all of our belongings into a locker, it was time to get ready for the baths. As bath houses are quite normal and embraced within Korea nudity in a bath house is completely normal. I was surprised at how easy this was for me! I felt right at home especially because it's not like I was the only person. After a quick shower, I tried out almost all of the different baths in the literal bath room. There were really warm baths as well as quite cool baths. My favorite baths were the outdoor baths that were surrounded by a privacy fence and roof. There were rocks all around and one of the baths also had a small waterfall! The water in these baths was also special. One bath had sodium bicarbonate and one had sodium chloride to make the experience even better. Additionally after soaking for a while I got myself a traditional Korean body scrub and face mask. This entailed one of the bath house employees using a coarse loofah-esque towel called an Italy towel to remove dead skin and dirt from my entire body. Online, people said that it was quite painful but I found it really pleasant and I would definitely do it again! My skin has never been so soft! After that amazing experience, I returned to the locker room and headed into the vanity area where there were sanitized brushes and combs available as well as hair dryers, skin care products, tissues, q-tips, and anything else I might have needed to finish my bathing routine. I then changed into my sauna clothes that were given to me when I entered the bath house and went to explore the different saunas. This particular bath house and sauna has a large number of saunas. I at least looked into every one but I only spent time in one that was mildly hot and one that was a bit cold. The others were way too hot! They even burned my feet when I went in as we were all barefoot at this point in time! I also spent quite a bit of time in the outdoor foot bath. There were areas to sit in the foot bath, different temperature foot baths and a textured area to walk on. It was quite pleasant and I could have stayed out there for quite some time! The bath house also has a relaxation room with reclining chairs and individual TVs as well as other spa services and massage chairs. There is also food! I did not get any food from the restaurant but from the one of the little cafe kiosks I got a pomegranate vinegar drink that was delicious and refreshing and I got the traditional korean bath house baked egg. These eggs are supposedly baked in the heat from the saunas and hot springs. They are very brown and have a unique color for the whites of the eggs. However, it tastes just like any other hard boiled egg. In addition to my sauna gear, I learned how to fold my towel into the traditional "sheep's head" hat. It was surprisingly easy and I felt super cute! At the end of my time at SpaLand, I felt super relaxed, soft, clean, and completely satisfied! I would definitely go again and I would encourage anyone who goes to Korea to go to a traditional bath house and sauna! It was so great and I could have spent such a long time there!
This last week was a bit of a vacation week for Korea. There were many holidays. There was Children's Day, Buddha's Birthday, and an Autumn Holiday all right before a weekend. This meant we got about 5 days off. It was a nice long break! I decided that I would go to Busan on the southern tip of Korea for part of my trip. I was there just for fun but also to visit the family of a friend from the United States. I was lucky enough that they generously offered to let me stay at their apartment for my stay. I took the KTX train from Seoul to Busan. It took about 2.5 hours to get from Seoul to Busan on the bullet train that travels near 300km/h. Until last December, this train was the fastest train in Korea! It was a nice and easy trip. I got to the train station, redeemed my ticket that I had bought online and waited for my train to arrive so that I could board. The train ride itself was very comfortable. There are outlets to charge your devices, free Wi-Fi, and the seats are decently sized. Once I got to Busan, I took the subway to my friend's family's subway station. It took about 30 minutes. I was met by my friend's family and at their apartment, I was greeted by a fabulous and delicious home cooked Korean meal. There was bulgogi, japchae, and soybean paste stew. It was so good! The next day, we went to a skywalk lookout where you can see about five islands off of the coast of Busan. It was beautiful and the skywalk was really cool! I also went out to the 40 steps monument that is a bit of a memorial for the many wars that Korea has had. There really were 40 steps! After this, I wandered for a while and I ended up finding this extremely busy street market. There were so many vendors and many people buying things. This market also covered several blocks of the street. It was really cool to see! At the end of the day, I got to have chicken and beer or chi-mek in Korean. It was super delicious! The next day, I met up with my friend that I usually adventure with in Seoul and we went to the Shinsegae Department Store in Busan which holds the Guinness World Record for the largest department store in the world. We were not there for the department store though. We were there for SpaLand. I'm going to be doing a separate post for SpaLand because it deserves it but SpaLand is essentially one of the fanciest Korean bath houses and saunas in Korea. It was an experience that was both interesting and amazing. I would definitely go again!
This weekend was the Lotus Lantern Festival that one of the Seoul Buddhist temples puts on to celebrate Buddha's birthday. There were many events and lots of activities! My friend and I went out to see what this festival was all about. It was so much fun!! Starting a few days prior, there were lanterns set up for display around Seoul. We went and looked at the lanterns in the Cheonggyecheon stream. This is a small man made stream in the middle of Seoul. It is gorgeous! Because it was still daytime, the lanterns weren't lit but we did get to see many lanterns that were lit in the parade that night! This parade was about 2.5 hours long but it was definitely worth it! There were so many lantern floats and so many people in the parade! It was AMAZING! After the parade, there was a post parade celebration that the festival put on. It was so much fun! Initially, we all migrated towards the stage that they had set up in the middle of the street that was closed for the parade where there were performers getting ready to perform. Those of us who were closer to the stage were instructed to just sit down on the pavement and we did. It was really cramped for a bit but I'm so glad we were so close! After a bit of music, we all stood up and got to dance together. We did some traditional Korean dances where we are all in circles and dance around. My friend and I didn't really know what was happening but there were some really kind ajjumas or old ladies who quickly grabbed our hands and helped us into the circles! We danced for probably about an hour and a half doing different dances to more traditional music. Near the end, there were dancers up on the stage leading us in simple dances. It was AMAZING! Also, throughout the dancing, there were cameras showing people up on the big screen. My friend and I ended up on screen quite a few times, it was great! There was also pink confetti being released for almost the entire time. This experience was quite magical! Saturday night was magical but Sunday was still very fun! There were many cultural and traditional events and activities. My friend and I went to the street in front of the Buddhist temple that was blocked off and we walked the street and did a few activities. I wrote my name in Korean and made a gorgeous lacquered keychain! My friend and I also ended up entering a lantern making contest for foreigners at the temple. Neither of us won but we did make friends with the girl who did eventually win when we were making our lanterns. She flew from Japan specifically for this festival! Her lantern was GORGEOUS! Pictured is my lantern not hers! The temple itself was also decorated in lanterns. There were too many lanterns to count in this temple! It was amazing! There were also lanterns from the parade on display! This was an amazing festival and I would love to come back every year as it was a fantastic experience where I felt the generosity and love of the Korean people!
A few weeks ago, my friend and I decided to go to Seoul Forest. It's not much of a forest but a really large park with significantly more trees and grass than the rest of Seoul but it is definitely not a forest. We walked all around and got really hot and really tired but it was a really nice day and the "forest" was quite nice as well. It has many different areas with different features. There is a small lake, a playground for kids, sculptures, a deer corral, and much more! |
AllisonThese are the chronicles of my time before, during, and after student teaching in South Korea! Archives
March 2020
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