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Sunday April 30th,
U Ga's flight left out of Seoul this morning, so Ben
and Charlotte, who had gone with her to the airport,
decided to spend the day in Seoul with me. I met them
at the train station in the early afternoon, and we
headed over to Itaewon district for a real Western
breakfast at the Canadian pub. To us, our breakfast
also included a few rounds of Bloody Marys . . . after
all, Ben just had to say goodbye to his girlfriend . .
. Afterwards we wandered around Itaewon for a little
while, had some incredible cocktails on a patio in
some back alley way, and then met up with several more
of my Daegu friends who were also in Seoul for the
weekend. We had a fabulous dinner at a Mexican
restaurant (I hadn't had Mexican food in so long!),
and then we headed over to Dongdaemun Market to watch
the lantern festival. See, on Friday, there's a
holiday for Buddha's birthday, and traditionally, the
Sunday before Buddha's birthday, there's a parade of
lanterns and gorgeous painted paper floats that starts
at Dongdaemun Market, and goes all the way through
Insadong, and end somewhere around Tapgol Park. The
whole thing was incredible. I felt like a little kid
at the Santa Claus parade again, just ooh-ing and
aah-ing over everything. The precision of the
watercolour painting, and the shapes, and the
traditional dresses, and the drumming were all
incredible. Everyone was in a great mood-- some woman
next to me gave both Charlotte and I these really
pretty flower corsages in the shape of lotus flowers
(which have some kind of significance to Buddhism). I
wore it all the way home, and will keep it forever,
probably hang it somewhere it my apartment for the
time being.
It amazes me that even after being in Korea for a
year, there are still so many more things to see, and
so many more new experiences to have. Also, seeing so
many of my "old" Korea friends has pretty much cured
my slight case of homesickness. This weekend was
great on every count!
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