On the Flipside: A Korean Adventure (2): St.Patrick's Day Korean Style: March 14-18

Between March 14th and 18th, we celebrated two holidays in Korea. The first was White Day on Thursday March 14th. This is a holiday that follows up Valentine's Day in Korea. This time round, it is up to the boys to give candies to the girls that gave them gifts on Valentine's day. Although it sounds like a very odd holiday (I don't understand the origin of this name), it was nice to get candy presents from several of my students. The "it" candy gift to give are those Chuppa Chups lollipops. Not that I am counting, but I got 6 and some other Korean candies. My yoga studio was even handing out the lollipops and wishing the ladies a Happy White Day when I went after school. Ian also received several lollipops at school.

The second holiday we celebrated was St.Patrick's day! But before, I get to that I just wanted to briefly describe my interesting staff dinner the night before. On Friday night, my school organized a staff dinner to welcome the new teachers. We went to a nice BBQ place where we actually had our own private room. Besides the BBQ meats and kimchi, there were some other interesting side dishes. In Korea, when I go out for meals (especially with my co-teachers) and see things I don't recognize I like to try things first before I say no. Jiyoon pointed to two sides and asked if I had tried them before. My answer was no, and after I asked what they were, she offered me some. The dishes were raw cow liver that was diced into 1-inch cubes and sprinkled with sesame seeds and the other was raw cow intestine that looked grey and bumpy. At this point, I was a little nervous and sceptical but tried both anyways! It turns out I wasn't a fan of either since there really wasn't much of a taste. I think people eat it more for the texture which was not something I was too fond of. After dinner, the karaoke machine was set up. My vice principal came over to my table, handed me a book of songs and simply nodded. So I ended up singing Dancing Queen with two of my co-teachers, Jiyoon and Cindy. I also somehow ended up being one of the back-up dancers when my principal sang a Korean song. It was quite the experience singing in front of my entire staff, but it ended up being pretty fun. We ended the night by making a circle, holding hands, swaying and singing an old Korean song, well of course I didn't sing, I just smiled. Needless to say, it was an interesting night.

On Saturday, we celebrated St. Patrick's day in Seoul! After a few skype dates in the morning, and my first outdoor run of the season, we headed to meet our group of friends. We then all headed to Sindorim for the festival held by the Irish Association of Korea. There was a lot of green, Irish music, dancing, green food and green drinks. It was a really fun, sunny afternoon. It was also the most foreigners we had yet to see in one place since coming to Korea. That night we headed to an Irish pub in Itaewon.

Sunday was a lazy day, of reading, grocery shopping, and walking around Bupyeong. We treated ourselves to Coffee Besco, a coffee shop where you get your own private little room to have coffee. One of the best part is that each drink comes with a slice of delicious cake! Here are some pictures from the past few days :)