foundation day weekend

The last holiday of the semester has just passed by very quickly and now it's almost time for the long, hard slog towards winter vacation with no more vacation days. Today was Korea's Foundation Day so we've had a long weekend away from school. In addition to this, Friday was mid-term exams so we had no lessons and the usually severe vice-principal let Casey and I leave school at 2:30. Very happy times! This weekend has been crammed full of activities. On Friday, I went to watch Aida at Keimyung University as part of Daegu's 2011 Opera Festival with some of my co-teachers. I have watched a few operas on television but I had never actually been to watch an one before so this was a completely new experience. The stage design and costumes were very lavish, and always the best part of theatre for me, but I really enjoyed the story of Aida.

On Saturday, I made my way to Jinju to visit their Lantern Festival. This involved events at Jinju's fortress which was very pretty and where we spent some time just sitting and enjoying the beautiful autumn weather. So nice to have sunshine but no humidity! As it got to evening, we joined the hoards of people to watch some fireworks and the lantern lights get turned on (for any Brits reading, it felt like a slightly classier, Korean version of Blackpool!). The lanterns on the river depicted scenes from stories such as 'Beauty and the Beast', traditional korean stories and even Santa Claus. I was much more enamoured with the tunnels of lanterns: some handmade by students and others bought by the public to ask for good luck and the such. There was a never ending market too with loads of yummy snacks and random things to buy! I bought some chrysanthemum tea because it looked very pretty, and I'm into tea ever since I went to a tea cafe in Seoul! Then did the usual find a foreign bar which feels exactly like Daegu, followed by Noraebang and concluded with Jimjilbang sleep.

Sunday involved much sleep to catch up and then today I went to my co-teacher, June's wedding. The wedding took place in a very nice hotel called the Inter-Burgo. The first part was the viewing of the bride which involved getting your picture taken with the bride. June looked beautiful but my picture with her is a bit strange because I just kind of leaned over the chair, oops! The ceremony was really busy and people talked throughout it! The sweetest part was when some Wolseo student's sang a song to the couple and presented June with flowers. There was then a massive buffet with more food than I think I've ever seen. After the wedding, I spent the day downtown shopping with Rebecca. Unfortunately, Daegu has a brand new fancy department store which is just too much temptation. To counter balance this extravagance we went to the best second hand/ vintage store in Daegu 'Fly to You' and found lots of amazing buys.