This weekend was wonderful. It had a great start at Grazie Friday night where we all eagerly awaited Candy's return from England. She was here in Korea visiting some of her friends for 2 months and just liked it so much she decided to come back and teach for 6 months! ^_^ The night was typical of a Friday at Grazie. Drinking and chatting with friends.
Saturday was much more interesting. Around noon I get a text from Jun Kwon (the owner of Grazie bar) inviting Nina, Travis, and I out for lunch. We were supposed to meet Mi Gyeong, but she never showed up so we met with Jun Kwon and our other Korean friend Rachel and went out to lunch at a delicious samgyeopsal restaurant. Afterwards Jun Kwon dropped us off near Hwangsung park so we could go to the Traditional Drink and Rice Cake festival. We met up with a large group of foreigners we know and the fun began. We went to the Foreinger registration booth where we got a shot glass necklace. It was a ceramic shot glass (which was refered to as the "horn of plenty" multiple times throughout the day haha) with a string around it. From there you take your shot glass necklace around to the soju and wine booths where they pour you shot after shot of different types of Korean alcohol. At each booth you can also buy larger bottles of the product. After going around the booths once we went to a food tent and ordered some food and (of course) some Makeoli. We sat and talked with a bunch of other foreigners who came down to Gyeongju for the festival. After a while we went around the alcohol booths again, checked out the rice cake booths, and sat in the grass drinking all the alcohol we had just purchased.
A note on Korean rice cake. It's not the rice cake you are probably thinking of - the round, crunchy snacks they sell in in Western Countries. This type of rice cake is a really chewy and sticky consistency. Some have different flavors, some had different fillings, and some are covered in different powders or nuts.
After the festival we got some Dak Galbi for dinner and headed to Grazie. Grazie is usually dead on Saturday nights, because we are usually there on fridays, but it was pretty busy. I sat and talked with some people I had just met that day or had only met once or twice. Also got to talk to True for a bit (I was happy that things were normal and I didn't feel awkward at all ^_^). We continued the night to London Hof (this bar is more typical of Korean bars-big tables with big comfortable chairs and couches), and ended with Norae Bang. It was a fun day. Not what I had expected. My original plan had been to go clubbing in Daegu with Nina, Jess, and Rach. But since they weren't getting a bus until 1030 and I was enjoying talking to new people (and didn't want to make the effort to stay in Daegu all night) I stayed in Gyeongju. I'm glad I did. I'm sure I would have had a wonderful time with the girls, but it was great meeting new people.
Sunday I woke up a bit too early for having gone to bed at 4 am after 13 hours of drinking. I woke up at 12 so I could meet Mi Gyeong at 1. She ended up not picking me up until 2, then we met Alexander, 재욱 (also referred to as Jude or "korean guy"), and Caspar. It took about 2 hours, due to traffic, for us to drive up to Seokguram Grotto. This is located at the top of a mountain, there are temples and the main attraction is a large Buddhist statue inside one of the temples. We took some neat pictures, had some good conversations, then went out for some samgyeopsal and ice cream. ^_^
Another wonderful weekend with amazing people in a fantastic place.
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