Gift Sets

Chuseok, Korea's Thanksgiving equivalent, runs from September 21-23 this year. At this time of year Seoul gets very quiet as millions of people head back to their hometowns to spend the holidays eating rice cakes and watching dramas with family. I've read that the 5 hour drive to Busan turns into a 24 hour trip with all the holiday traffic. No thanks! We're spending our holiday in Beijing, though we expect things to be just as crazy at the airport tomorrow.

All month long stores have been devoting a lot of square footage to the sale of gift sets. When Koreans go home for the holidays they will often bring a gift set with them for the folks, and businesses will typically give their employees a gift set too. At our local E-Mart, the foreign foods aisle of the grocery department (the ginger ale!) was deemed expendable and was replaced with stacks and stacks of overpriced seemingly useless gift sets. We buy a lot of gift sets at home too, usually of the bubble bath variety, but Korean gift sets are a bit more unique.

Everyone loves a fruit basket, and Koreans are no different. How about a set of 4 cantaloupes for 97,000 Won (roughly $90 CAN)? If that's a little rich for your blood you could always go with 6 apples for 65,000 Won, but don't be a cheapskate- it's Chuseok after all!

This mushroom gift set for the ajumma in your life comes with it's original growin' dirt for a mere 890,000 Won ($800 CAN). Think of the jigaes you could make!

Mixed nuts for 130,000 Won ($115 CAN). Hey aren't these free at the hof when you buy a draft?

I don't know who would waste their $300 on this fish gift set... it doesn't even include the eyes! I expect a "fish eye gift set" was probably sold in the next aisle somewhere.

If any of my Korean BFFs or students out there want to know what they can get me for Chuseok this year, it's not too late to run to E-Mart and pick up this $3,000 CAN set of wine. I'm worth it!

Korea isn't the only country that loves gift sets. In Taiwan we received essence of shark's cartilage gift sets.

But the best set of all has to be the Spam gift set. I took this picture more than 4 years ago in Korea... it was probably one of the first laugh-out-loud products we'd seen here. I just couldn't imagine what kind of lucky soul would receive such a wonderful gift, but then I got my Chuseok gift from work on Friday:

...and there couldn't have been a bigger smile on my face. In the land of fish sets, mushroom sets and nut sets, nothing could have made me as happy as to receive my very own Spam gift set!!! Oh, the privilege I felt as I peeled off the shiny SPAM sticker to gaze at the tinned meat within. Happy Chuseok, everyone!

Banpo Bridge Water Show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc7UloWIAYM

29-degree sunny Saturday afternoons are another reason to love Korea in September. On Saturday we hung out by the Han River, reading and baking in the sun. We sat near the Banpo Bridge, which is the largest fountain bridge in the world, to check out one of the many water shows that are put on every day. On Saturday I believe the shows were at 12, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 9pm. It lasted for about 20 minutes and, though it probably would have looked better at night with lights, it's nice that the city puts on this show for park-goers.

I definitely approve of the soundtrack too!

Eungbong

Often when we take line 3 north across the Han River (and let's face it, that happens a lot- Myeongdong is up there) we've wondered what was on the hill in the above photo. First of all, the fact that there is a hill there at all is weird because the land along the river is very valuable and lined with high rise apartment buildings for as far as you can see. On top of this it looked like there was some kind of fort, look-out or hut on top that would be worth investigating. There was only one way to find out, so we looked on Google Earth, found out the name of the closest subway station, and took the train there.

After getting out of the station it was only a 10-15 minute sweaty hike straight up the hill. At the top was a pagoda (the "hut"!), a dozen old people and some public exercise equipment. The aforementioned sweaty hike was more than enough exercise for the both of us so we opted to sit around enjoying the view rather than lift weights.

Foreground: a Canadian wondering where the ice cream/cola cart ajumma is on this damn hill
Background: Seoul Forest and the Han River

There was a lot of concrete to admire.

We walked back to Oksu Station where we had directions to Haddon House, an excellent foreign foods store that we'd never been to before. Before heading there, though, we walked down to the Han River to check out the flooding we'd seen from afar on the train earlier. We've gotten a lot of rain lately, but from the looks of it it made for some easy fishing, and there were poles set up everywhere... though I don't know if I'd want to eat anything that came from the Han River!

At Haddon House we purchased some jalapenos to make jalapeno jelly. It's a favorite snack of ours and we've been craving it for over a year now. Unfortunately, it's not easy to buy pectin in Korea so I had to use gelatin to set the jam, which wound up doing nothing but creating 2 weird jars of pepper juice. Everything is an experiment in Korea!

Screen Golf

Last weekend we tried something called screen golf. I had never heard of screen golf the last time I lived in Korea but since I've been back I've seen signs for screen golf businesses on just about every block in the city. Korea has a lot of golf fans but not a lot of space for golf courses and the ones that do exist are very expensive, so screen golf has emerged as a less expensive option for golfers. I read an article recently that said there are more than 5,000 screen golf places in Seoul alone. That's like a norebang-level of saturation so we decided to see what the fuss is all about.

There's a shop in the building behind my apartment so that's where we went. We were given a private room, our choice of clubs and some gloves. There's a screen that projects virtual reality golf courses that are identical to the most famous courses in the world. I don't know jack about golf courses so we just let the adjoshi who worked there choose our course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQce2MiE4-U

The game is pretty simple (video above)- you just shoot the balls against the screen and they move along the course. It was certainly a good time but I'm a lefty and there were no left-handed clubs there so I think I would have enjoyed myself a lot more if I could have shot naturally. I didn't get my ball in the hole once and neither did Mel. Plus it was 40,000 Won for an hour of playing, which was pretty steep if you ask me. Despite this, I can see why there are so many of these shops in Seoul nowadays because it's a pretty fun way to relax with friends.

After our pitiful showing on the golf course we decided to do something a little bit more up our alley: norebang. And guess which artist just got added to the karaoke playlist?

Just call me Shawn Bieber.

Paging Dr. Fish

Mel pointed out earlier this afternoon that we came to Korea for the first time exactly four years ago today. If you'd told me in 2006 that I'd still be strutting around Seoul four years later, I'd have been pretty surprised. But, we're still here and Korea has been pretty good to us.

We didn't have any special plans for the day, and we're trying to live frugally until our trip to Beijing, so we decided to check out the nearby Dr. Fish cafe in Gangnam. At Dr. Fish you can put your feet in fish tanks where special fish will eat the dry skin off your feet. It's meant to feel like a pedicure.

It was raining, so we took a bus up the road (it's only a 20 minute walk) to the cafe. On the way there we passed by dozens of cafes that don't have fish that will eat your feet, but where's the fun in stopping at a cafe like that?

The cafe might be a little hard to find because the signage is all in Korean and it doesn't mention anything about Dr. Fish on the sign. The cafe is actually called "Namu (tree) something something". It's on the second floor of the big BSX building.

When we arrived we were told that we should first buy a drink, then finish the drink and finally we could use the fish tanks. The cafe was actually really nice and we were able to get seats by the windows overlooking Gangnamdaero, which is probably the busiest street in the country. We'd both been sick earlier in the week and missed one of our Korean classes so we brought our textbooks to study and catch up in the workbook. There was also a complimentary self-serve bread buffet, with a half dozen types of breads to toast up and butter as you see fit. We'd only had a light breakfast and took much advantage of this.

Nobody used the fish tanks the whole time we were there- at least an hour- and just as we were ready to use them a western family of 50 sat themselves down around the tanks. Actually, we noticed that the whole time we were there only western people were using the fish tanks. Maybe the Koreans know something we don't? Anyway, we had to wait a little while for our turn, but one of the waitresses actually approached us and offered to let us in next, which was pretty nice of her. We took off our shoes, showered off our feet and sat at our tank. It took me a good minute before I was ready to put my feet in that water, but after Mel pointed out that the entire cafe was basically staring at me, I decided to man up and serve my delicious feet to the hungry fishies.

It was revolting. I wanted to puke the whole time. Really. This is how Mel looked during our pedicure:

And here's me:

At first there was only a few fish on me but soon I looked down and there must have been 30 slithering their way over each foot. It felt like someone was rubbing gummy worms all over my feet. They were so hungry!! After a while... let's say 10 of our allotted 15 minutes, I was able to relax a bit, as long as I didn't look at the fish. I know I'm a puss, but how would you like it if this was happening to you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP6zHTmTVNc

When we got out of the water we realized things could have been much worse. There were only two tanks and the other one was full of much bigger fish... possibly piranhas. I don't know if I could have handled that business because their mouths were huge and they looked like they ate toes.

The whole Dr. Fish experience was really weird but I'm really glad I tried it. I'm writing this a few hours after we went and I will say my feet do feel different. If I were to choose one word to describe how they feel I'd say they feel shaved. We'll have to try the piranhas next time...

The Simpsons In Korean

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWYJv80i_Ck

When I was growing up, if I was really desperate for something to watch on TV I would watch the Simpsons in French on CBC. It was always really weird to hear Homer's French voice... it's just never seemed right.

The last time we lived in Korea, the Simpsons Movie had just come out but none of our students really knew who the Simspons were. Since we've been back I've noticed that you can buy all kinds of Simpsons products everywhere, just like you used to be able to in the 90s at home. I've even seen an "I didn't do it" t-shirt. The Simpsons are animated in Korea so maybe there's a little bit of hometown pride going on.

Check out this video of the Simpsons dubbed in Korean. Homer's voice is pretty well done, but I don't know about Marge. My favorite part is when they change "Go Isotopes" to "Isotopes Fighting"!

Sokcho and Seoraksan

When I think about the things I've really enjoyed doing since being back it Korea, I would say our weekend trips to some of the peninsula's smaller cities have been the most fun. In the last few months we've gone to Jeonju, Suwon, Chuncheon, Samcheok and Incheon, and this weekend we decided to visit Sokcho. Sokcho is on the north east coast of Korea, about 3 and a half hours from Seoul by bus. We were mainly interested in visiting the beach because, well, it's September... how many more beach-worthy weekends are we going to get?

The best part about long bus trips in Korea is the rest stops! We always look forward to the 15 minute visit and dream about the snacks we will buy. The rest stops are always very clean and have lots of little restaurants to convenience stores. Of course, this is Korea, so some of the snack choices might be a little eclectic... octopus balls, anyone?

The bathrooms are outfitted with these futuristic hand dryers. It's like drying your hands with a vacuum cleaner.

When we got to Sokcho it was after 10pm on Friday night, so we just dropped our bags at a love motel called "New Town" (a little past the E-Mart) and then went out in search of food. We usually spend a little more to stay at a nice love motel, but I don't think any of the motels in Sokcho were built during this decade. The place we stayed at was only $40, had a computer with internet and it was clean, but there was no whirlpool :(

There weren't many restaurants open by this time of night and the ajumma running the place where we ate must have wanted to close because she wasn't too happy to serve us. She actually let out a big sigh when we ordered our meal. The frozen samgyupsal and warm (pretty sure she used tap water!) naegmyeon was easily the worst Korean meal I've been served. The ajumma closed the door as soon as we left the building and was probably quite happy to see us go. We wandered down to the beach, had a drink, and hung out for a while. The beach is only a 5 minute walk from the bus station so it's really convenient for visitors.

At night it had felt like our love motel was in the middle of nowhere, so I laughed when I woke up and looked out the window. We were 2 minutes from a giant lake with a park around it, and about 5 minutes from a big tower.

We wandered down to the lake for a look-see and then paid the 1,500 Won to go up to the top of the tower. It was only 15 floors, but it gave us a good view of the city.

A bug landed on the window when I was taking pictures from the tower. It's my favorite picture from that photo shoot.

We had lunch at the E-Mart and left our bags in the lockers there too (a free way to dump your bags for the day). We ordered cheese oven spaghetti for lunch and when our number was called to pick up the spaghetti I got to the counter just in time to see an ajumma squeezing ketchup all over the tops of our pastas. I grabbed some napkins to wipe off the ketchup and we ate. It was very good.


After lunch we went to the beach. It was beautiful and nowhere near as crowded as Eurwangni Beach was 2 weekends ago. The water on the east coast is so much clearer and bluer than on the west. We had really good luck with the weather too because some rain had been forecast but we got nothing but sun, sun, sun all day long.

We were worried when we got there because there was a sign that said no swimming was allowed, but loads of people were swimming anyway and life guards were on duty. The water was really wavy though, probably because of the typhoon last week, so every now and then policemen came by and whistled for people to get out of the water. Everyone just went back in when the fuzz left, though, so it wasn't a big problem.

This heart-shaped tree is a must-visit for photo shoot purposes if you visit Sokcho Beach. It's on a pier next to the beach. A little cheesy but cute nonetheless.

After we left the beach we needed to find another love motel, and we figured that since all the hotels around the beach were a bit po-dunk we'd try the other side of town instead. There's a port on the other end of Sokcho where ferry boats come and go from Russia, so we knew there would be a lot of motels over there too. There was, but unfortunately they were just as unimpressive. We went to one place and asked how much it was for one night and the guy said $30. We asked if they had any whirlpool rooms. He thought about the question and said yes, but the price went up to $35. This seemed like a fair deal so we exchanged our money for a key and went to check out the room. Clean, ocean view, but our "whirlpool" turned out to be a skinny bathtub. Oh well, it did the trick for the night.

On Friday night we had been surprised to see how sleepy Sokcho was, even right by the beach. On the way to our second motel by the port we'd passed through "Rodeo Street" which seemed to be a bit more happening. We decided to go back there for supper. We thought we'd just get on any bus going in that direction and we'd get ourselves there, but since the first bus we got on started to drive us into the mountains we got off and hailed a cab. Rodeo Street turned out to be just as sleepy, but there were some decent stores to look around in. We ate at a Pizza Hut full of Russian tourists and I can recommend the potato pizza (with no corn) without hesitation.

Rodeo Street also had a Puma store right next to....

a Pama Store. Oh Korea, I love you and your loose copyright laws.

We went back to our motel and checked out the area around the port. There's a bustling seafood market there and the street we stayed on was full of shops selling dried squid and fish. 40 dried fish for only 5,000 Won sounds like a deal to me, but once you have them what do you do with them?

There was a traditional gazebo-type thing on a hill over the sea that we went up to visit.

We bought some sparklers and had drinks by the sea. I had one eye on my drink and one eye on the rat that was scurrying around us.

The signs around the port were labeled in Korean, English and Russian. #1- now I totally want to go to Russia, #2- anyone know how you pronounce that backwards "R" letter?

On Sunday we took the #7 bus (across the road from the bus station) to Seoraksan. We hadn't really come to go hiking because it was so hot, but Seoraksan is supposed to be Korea's most beloved mountain so we figured we should pay it a visit. It was a nice area, but if you're looking for an interesting place to go hiking, Maisan Provincial Park in Jinan is much cooler.

A guide map at the park said that this waterfall was only about an hour hike with a difficulty level of "easy", which sounded like the path for us. The path did get a little steep at times near the top, but we survived and the waterfall was nice.

There were a few dozen people relaxing in the water and picnicking at the top of the trail. We stuck our feet in a hung out for a while. It felt really nice after the sweaty climb.

When we got back to the park entrance we decided to take a cable car to the top of one of the peaks. Like I said, it was way to hot to be hiking up that high, but it didn't seem right to visit a mountain and not make any effort to go up the mountain at all. We were happy that we took the cable car. It was only 8,500 Won and the view was nice.

We went in some irregal areas to take pictures.

When we got back down to the bottom of the mountain we visited this giant (it was massive!) Buddha before leaving the park. We had some bulgogi and bibimbap at a tiny restaurant in Sokcho and then caught the 4:40pm bus back to Seoul, hoping to be home by 8:30pm to get ready for work the next day.

Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way! At some point in our trip, maybe an hour outside of Seoul, a message was played on the bus informing us that due to the traffic conditions we'd be taking an alternate route. With that, our bus pulled onto a road heading towards some place called Munmuk. I had a feeling this was not going to end well. Yes, Korea is the only place I've ever traveled in where you can be in the middle of nowhere between two rice patties and STILL wind up in a traffic jam. It was after 11:00pm by the time we got home, tired, hungry and desperately needing to pee. It was still a great weekend, and hey- the traffic could have been worse. There was a traffic jam in Beijing not long ago that lasted for 9 DAYS!!

Oh and by the way, we're going to Beijing in two weeks. *insert sound of doom noise here*

Tropical Storm Kompasu

When we lived in Taiwan there was always talk of typhoons. Typhoons would explain all weather systems. "It's raining because there's a typhoon in the sea" "It's sunny because a typhoon is coming" were typical Taiwanese explanations. We started getting into the habit of tracking the typhoons on the Wunderground website, but our tracking always ended in disappointment. During our 6 months in Taiwan, not a single typhoon hit the mainland. They always floated over to China, Japan or off into the sea.

Now, here we are in Korea, a country that isn't the least bit tropical but has certainly felt that way this summer, tracking a typhoon. It's due to hit tomorrow, but due to my previous experiences I'm still skeptical that it will amount to anything.

I asked a Korean friend about the typhoon today. "We (Koreans) don't care about that," she said. "Seoul is safe. No trees."

You don't CARE that a typhoon is going to be dumped on our asses tomorrow morning? At home, on the east coast of Canada a hurricane is currently expected to hit land this weekend and the news stations have been reporting it for days now. I know we live in a concrete jungle here in Seoul, and call me a typical Canadian, but we bought extra water and dug out the candles after Korean class this evening.

I hope it hits. I've been waiting a year now to experience a typhoon. I've got my supplies. I'm ready. Cancel school. Bring it on.

UPDATE: The Typhoon actually did hit Korea around 6am this morning. I heard strong winds outside around that time but fell back to sleep pretty soon after noticing. I've read online that there was some significant damage- 3 people died, there were power outages, lots of fallen trees and closures of all the subway lines that don't run underground. Where we live there wasn't too much damage visible. A tree next to our apartment was a whole lot closer to our kitchen window this morning than it was last night, and there were a lot of fallen leaves on the on the walk to work. Speaking of work, both Mel and I had our morning classes canceled for the first 2 hours of the day... not that either of our schools felt this information was important enough to tell us. It all added up to a weird kind of day, and guess what? Another typhoon is on the horizon. We'll be tracking that one too...

A Shanda Kind Of Weekend

The sucky thing about working in Korea is that your friends are constantly leaving! Rare is the waygook who sticks around for years on end- trust me, the kimchi isn't that good. After this weekend we are minus one BFF in Korea :(

We miss you already, Shanda!

Eurwangni Beach

On Saturday we went to Eurwangni Beach for the day. I'd been moaning about wanting to go to the beach for approximately a year now, so we jumped at the chance to go when we finally had a sunny weekend with no plans.

We took the subway to Incheon airport and then took a 20-minute bus ride to Eurwangni Beach. The beach was nothing special but a relaxing afternoon by the water was just what we needed. It was scorching out- over 40 degrees with the humidity- so we coughed up the 20,000 won (!!!) for an umbrella and ran into the water. I must have been a little too excited to get into the water because I ran in with my wallet in my pocket at first!!

Mel and I were happy to be beach bums.

There are a lot of things that people do at the beach in Korea that are a little bit different than you'd see at home. Firstly, 95% of the people were wearing clothes in the water. By clothes, I don't mean just a t-shirt and shorts. People were wearing hoodies, cardigans, visors, bandanas over their faces, protective arm sleeves, dress shirts and dress pants into the water! I felt like a tramp in my swimming trunks.

After we'd spent a few hours we decided that we were enjoying ourselves so much that we should spend the night. The beach had wifi so I was able to check the weather forecast on my ipod to see that it would be nice on Sunday as well, so our minds were made up. Check out the beautiful sunset.

The area around the beach is relatively undeveloped, with just one small strip of restaurants and motels surrounding it. When you walk past each restaurant an employee will try to stop you and convince you to eat there.

We learned a new word! The symbol above, pronounced "huhwee" means raw fish. If you enjoy huhwee than you'll love the restaurants at Eurwangni, because every single one seems to sell the same thing.

If you're like us and you'd rather suck on a lemon than eat huhwee then there's a couple of galbi restaurants and some convenience stores to eat at as well. We had an old favorite, samgyupsal and naengmyeon for supper and it was really good.

If neither of those dining options tickle your fancy, then why not eat a dog? After our meal we wandered around price-checking hotels and found this pen full of dozens of crying dogs. Sure enough, when we read the sign on the building it was a dog meat restaurant. We live behind a dog meat restaurant in Seoul but this was the first time I'd ever seen a pen of puppies waiting to be eaten. I don't know if I could eat beef if there were a bunch of cows behind each restaurant, so I'm not sure who this cage full of pathetic pups appeals to.

Hotel prices were ridiculous!! Small, no-name hotel rooms in outside of Seoul rarely cost more than 60,000 Won for a jacuzzi suite, but the prices for standard rooms were averaging around 80,000 Won a night and one was over 100,000 Won. That's what you get for a beach side hotel at high season, I guess. We thought we might be better off just heading home, but we found a place for 60,000 Won and decided to stay there. The room was small! It wouldn't have been worth half that price in any other location, but at least it was clean and the bed was comfortable. No jacuzzi, though :((((

The TV only featured a dozen channels and they all seemed to be trying to teach me English, so we decided it was time to go drink some beers on the beach.

When we got back down to the beach with our mat and some Cass we were surprised to find that it was just as busy, maybe busier, at 9pm than it was during the sunny afternoon. There were hundreds of people digging for clams (the tide had gone out quite far- I took the above picture of the strip from the edge of the tide), shooting fireworks and hanging out.

The beach was full of creatures at night time! Like I said, we were walking across the mud to the edge of the tide when all of a sudden I heard Mel scream and run away from me. When I looked down I saw a huge crab scampering away from us and then realized that I was walking barefoot on approximately one million mudfish (picture above). It didn't take me long to get out of there! Then, when we were walking back up to the sand, we realized the mud that we were walking on was covered in baby crabs running in and out of their little crab holes. It was time to return to the sandy part of the beach.

When we got back to the beach we started the difficult task of finding our beach mat again in the dark. It didn't help that there were hundreds of people on similar mats everywhere. When I finally found the carrying bag to our mat I looked up to see that the three boys in the above photo had taken our mat to use for themselves. They tried to save face by acting surprised that I would ask for it back and I didn't even get a "solly" out of them for their thievery! Also in the photo above you can see a 4-year old shooting off roman candles all by himself at midnight.

Everyone loves fireworks at the beach, and it really felt like the 4th of July that night with all the fireworks that were being shot off. However, most of the people shooting off fireworks were not really doing it in the most responsible way. Minutes after sitting back down on our mat a group of 50-something drunk adjoshis planted a half dozen fireworks in the ground about a meter behind our heads. We thought we were being bombed when they started going off, and quickly got choked out by all the smoke so we moved downwind a bit. A few minutes later they were ready for the next round, but by this time they must have had a few more shots of soju because they hadn't even bothered pointing the fireworks at the sky. They had some of them pointed
at us! As they started firing at our bodies we dove down, flat on the mat to minimize the imminent scarring. I was scared to look up because I was sure I'd get on in the face. I saw a guy a little bit down from us on the beach get hit. Then, a completely different group of guys bought some fireworks and just ran around on the beach shooting them at each other like they were guns. Somebody needs to show these fools a safety video.

The next morning we woke up to the sound of the crying dogs from the dog restaurant. Yep, it was time to start another day at the beach. We shelled out another 20,000 Won (!!!) for an umbrella and made ourselves comfortable. The sky started out even clearer and the water even warmer than the day before. Seoul felt a million miles away and we were happy.

It was fun to watch our neighbors cooking their meal. We noticed that most people had brought little burners and charcoal to make their own food and it all looked pretty good. Our neighbors, however, had a little trouble getting their fire going. The solution? One old man found a rusty old oil can and ripped it apart in total disregard of the tetanus he would certainly contract and decided to burn the charcoal in that. The other adjoshis thought that was brilliant and within minutes they had a rusty samgyupsal feast on the go that had us feeling very hungry. Luckily, Family Mart had just gotten a new shipment of ham and cheese sandwiches to tide us over.

After our neighbors saved face by pretending not to notice their granddaughter pulling at our umbrella and spitting up all over Mel's backpack, and another couple saved face by pretending that they didn't just step on my foot with their shoes, we decided to head into the water again, where were joined by a boy in a (what I hope was a rust proof) wheel chair, a million people in sweaters, too many tubes, some mudfish and a hovercraft! We spent hours going from relaxing under our umbrella to swimming in the water and it was a perfect, perfect afternoon.

We took the bus back to the airport, where we hoped to get something to eat before heading home. We had to go with Kraze Burgers because, unfortunately, the hangover soup was all sold out. Guess everyone else had a good time on Saturday night too!

A new work week has started but I can't stop thinking about the beach and planning out when I'll have my next chance to go. Luckily, Korea has summer-like weather in September as well so maybe in 2 weeks we'll be able to go. I don't want this summer to end!!