Banpo Bridge light-and-water show

The months of May and June had a surprising number of Korean holidays: May 1 - Labor Day (bank holiday), May 5 - Children's Day (national holiday), May 8 - Parents' Day (observance), May 28 (lunar April 8) - Buddha's birthday (national holiday), & June 6 - Memorial Day (national holiday), which commemorates men and women who have died while in military service or in the independence movement.

This year Children's Day fell on a Saturday, so we didn't get a day off work, but Buddha's birthday was on a Monday and Memorial Day was on a Wednesday. We used May 28 to relax at home and do some cleaning and organizing that had been neglected a little too long, but we decided to make good use of June 6. Our initial plan was to make a picnic lunch, then go down to the Han River to rent some bikes and bike along the river, eating our picnic whenever we felt hungry. Well, our plans changed when we walked outside in the morning to a heat wave and had sweat running down our backs by the time we reached our nearby local grocery store to buy the ingredients for our picnic lunch. Instead of biking along the Han River, we made a nice lunch and ate it at home before braving the heat several hours later for a afternoon of exploring a new area of Seoul.

We had seen an entry in our guidebooks for a bridge, Bangpodaegyo (Rainbow Fountain Bridge), in Banpo Hangang (Han River) Park, which has a light-and-water-show every evening. We had made a note to go see it before leaving South Korea and decided this was the perfect opportunity, especially since we'd initially planned to be near the Han River anyway. We headed out and took the subway to Gangnam station, where we had to walk a long ways underground and through a bunch of construction to get to the right exit. Once we emerged into daylight again, we had to ask several Koreans how to get to Banpo Park before finding someone who knew and pointed us in the right direction. A pleasant half-hour walk later, we came to the park and continued strolling down the walking trails beside the Han River.

As afternoon faded into evening, we found a place on the concrete bleachers on the left side of the bridge, along with a number of Koreans, some setting up tripods and expensive cameras. 8 o'clock rolled around, and we wondered if we were somehow in the wrong part of the park, since the bridge looked the same as before. Suddenly water started gushing from the other side of the bridge and music played on loudspeakers. Everyone waiting on our side of the bridge jumped up and rushed across the road to the bleachers on the other side. We found a spot wedged between excited Koreans and settled in to watch the moving water fountains with different coloured lights projected onto the spray and set to classical music. It was a pretty sight and a relaxing way to end the day. After five songs, the fountains, lights and music stopped, and we stood up and wandered down the pathway in the opposite direction, looking for public washrooms. When we came back to the trail several minutes later, the fountains had started up again, and we watched from further away this time before finally walking back to the subway for the hour ride home. All in all, Memorial Day had been quite memorable for us!

An interesting building built on a man-made island in the Han River

Another interesting building

A floating stage

Han River cruises lighting up the water as they watch the light-and-water show

Bangpodaegyo - Rainbow Fountain Bridge

Light and water! See light go! See water go! Go light go! Go water go!*

Shadows

On our walk back to the subway, we went through some walking tunnels under the road and found these interesting spray-paint pictures. :)

*The first two sentences happened to be the text Jonathan put in as placeholder after he uploaded the pictures for this post - I thought it was hilarious, added the last two sentences, and decided it needed to be a caption somewhere in this post. Yes, we are nerds. :)

Busan Trip - Day 5: Sunrise Festival

After getting back to our hotel room late the night before (or rather, early that morning) at 2 a.m., we had a short snooze and then went back out in the cold just after 6:30 a.m. for the second half of Busan's New Year Festival. The Busan Haemaji (Sunrise) Festival portion of the celebration was conveniently held at Haeundae Beach, only a few minutes walk from our hotel. In Korea the first sunrise of the New Year is lucky and an auspicious way to begin another year. It was definitely something we wanted to experience while living here. Festivities actually began at 4 a.m. and ran until 7:45, just after sunrise. But we felt that just witnessing the famous first sunrise of the year would be enough for us after a late night on New Year's Eve. Just after we arrived at the beach we heard drumming coming from one area a little ways away and we wandered over to see what it was. A group of young people wearing what we imagined was traditional clothing were sitting on the beach playing drums and cymbals and sometimes singing along. It was neat to listen to and we managed to capture a video of their songs. I (Ali) had no idea how in the world they weren't absolutely frozen after even a few minutes of sitting in the cold, hard sand with no jackets or coats and bare hands. We were all bundled up in base layers, warm pants and sweatshirts, and jackets and still got quite chilly waiting for the darkness to lighten and the sun to appear. Finally the sky gradually turned light blue, everyone pushed as close to the water as they could, and all eyes focused on the horizon to the east. 7:30 and no sun to be seen climbing above the ocean. But suddenly golden balloons were released from a huge arch on the beach and individuals who had purchased their own balloons or lanterns let them go into the sky. The scene was impressive. But still no sun graced our large gathering. Finally, at around 7:45 we saw a shadowy pinkness from behind the clouds floating on the horizon. The shadow became more pink and within minutes the sun rose out of the haze. It seems that clouds (or smog) had blocked the true sunrise. But no matter. At least we witnessed the sun's first rising of 2012 from one of the southernmost parts of South Korea. It was a fun experience and a memory we'll have forever. Soon after the sun was fully above the clouds, the crowd of thousands started to drift off the beach and headed toward the nearest cafes, bus stops, and subway station. Jonathan and I made a quick stop at a cafe for some toasty hot chocolate which started to warm us up. Then we headed back to our hotel room for another snooze before heading out for our last full day of exploring Busan.

Balloon-filled arch

Traditional drummers/cymbalists playing on the beach

Just before official sunrise

Balloon release  symbolizing hope at official sunrise

Helicopter fly-by

The sun finally deciding to come up out of the haze

Couldn't get us and the sun in it, but it's back there somewhere

Jonathan capturing the sun

Musicians playing as they leave the beach

2012 New Year's statue for the Year of the Black Dragon

Ali was so cold after getting back to the hotel room she crashed on the ondol (heated floor) for a nice early-morning nap

For pictures and commentary about our other days in Busan, click the links below.

Day 1: Haeundae Beach

Day 2: Yongdusan Park

Day 3: Busan City Bus Tour
Day 4: Fortress & Temple
Day 4/5: New Year's in Busan
Day 5: The rest of New Year's Day

Busan Trip - Day 4/5: New Year's in Busan

After spending the day on Sabbath out in nature, we headed back to Haeundae Beach for a Pizza Hut supper and a little downtime at our hotel before going back out for the New Year's celebrations. We went downtown and back to Yongdusan Park where the New Year's Eve event was taking place. As soon as we got out of the Nampo-dong subway station, we were met with huge crowds of people. The line for the escalators up to the top of the mountain stretched nearly all the way back to the station and we stood in the line for about 20 minutes before we finally reached the escalators. They were all turned off so we had to climb all 297 stairs to the top and then walk all the way around the park to the one entrance that was open. We managed to squirm our way to close to the front of the crowd to watch the midnight tolling of the Citizen's Bell and the subsequent fireworks. We really loved experiencing New Year's Eve in another culture. So many new and exciting things to listen to and watch!

In a Haeundae Beach mall while waiting for our pizza supper

Heart-shaped waffles being sold near the line to the escalators

Crowd nearing the first set of escalators

Citizen's Bell minutes before midnight

Busan Tower at night

Us in the crowd at the top of Yongdusan Park

Citizen's Bell ringing in the New Year

Midnight confetti

Lots of cameras out to capture the action

New Year's Eve revelers found a place to watch the festivities

We were in quite a crowd at the top of Yongdusan, so as soon as the bell tolling and fireworks finished everyone pushed to get down the mountain quickly and catch the subways to their homes. The subways stayed working for an extra hour that night to ensure everyone could get back to their dwellings, but even so our subway was soo squished that when we got to the second station after we got on, there was no room for the other passengers waiting on the platform. They didn't look too happy and we felt so bad for them, but were glad we had made it on the subway, otherwise it would have been a long and expensive taxi ride back to Haeundae Beach.

Funny-looking face on a building as we left the mountain after the celebration

Cheery Christmas lights along the street

For pictures and commentary about our other days in Busan, click the links below.

Day 1: Haeundae Beach

Day 2: Yongdusan Park

Day 3: Busan City Bus Tour
Day 4: Fortress & Temple
Day 5: Sunrise Festival
Day 5: The rest of New Year's Day

Christmas and Boxing Day

Our Christmas was enjoyable and relaxing! We especially loved being able to celebrate together for the first time ever! It sure beats only being able to chat on Skype... Christmas evening we had Fabrice over for a Christmas movie (Elf!) and then he took us to a department store, La Galleria, not too far from our apartment. We enjoyed the views from the eighth-floor balcony, browsed through a completely Korean bookstore (not my favourite type of bookstore...all the covers looked so appealing, but I couldn't understand one letter...), and ended up in the basement eating amazing American food!

Boxing Day (December 26 for those of you who aren't familiar with the Commonwealth holiday) was literally boxing day for us. We started to pack up our things and do a final cleaning of our apartment. In amongst the cleaning we also managed to find time to take Fabrice out to Toujours, a local patisserie and coffee house, for his birthday. Tuesday we continued packing, cleaning and moving furniture back into the rooms we found it in and today our apartment is empty of all our items (except the row of suitcases standing near the door) and ready for the next set of Seocheonan institute teachers to move in. We'll miss living in our spacious apartment and walking through the now-familiar streets of Cheonan, but we're excited for our 5-day sightseeing vacation to Busan, a city in southeastern Korea. Next term will be very different for us, but I think it will be good, too. Please pray for us as we move and begin a new chapter of our lives in South Korea.

Finished Christmas calendars (we managed to find them in the international aisle at E-Mart)

Eiffel Tower & Ferris wheel in front of La Galleria

Hedge bunnies

Smurf village (with oddly-sized animals)

La Galleria looking up from the ground floor

La Galleria's changing light walls displaying Christmas trees and snow

Christmas-themed blueberry cheesecake from Paris Baguette

Scrubbing the cupboards
(That purple bottle is the best all-purpose cleaner I've ever used! Sadly I can't read the name...)

The line between scrubbed and unscrubbed...

Jonathan vacuuming 

Tourjours bakery below, coffee shop above

Interesting coffee descriptions... (we decided to stick to hot chocolate and herbal tea)

Coffee beans on display

The infamous Kenyan coffee (refer to menu above)

An improvement on the traditional North American right-side-up Christmas tree 

Fellow Seocheonan teachers outside Tourjours - Fabrice, Ali & Jonathan

Neat circular walking bridge around a large intersection

View from the top of the walking bridge

Suitcases lined up ready to be shipped to Seoul while we head to Busan for the rest of our term break

Last picture of our apartment as we walked away to catch a taxi to the KTX station