Bamboozled

On Sunday Jesse, Natalie, and I went to the Bamboo Park, otherwise known as the "Bamboo Forest Theme Park Juknokwon."

At first it was dark and scary and we didn't know whether to keep going or not.

But we pressed on and it was worth it.  We found some real live pandas.  One was playing soccer and he was particularly cool.  He didn't mind us posing with him.

Natalie had a moment of deep thinking with the panda...

Jesse prefered the pandabear hug...

And I gave the lil' guy a big ole high five

After meeting the pandas it was time to climb bamboo.

Jesse kissed a cow and he liked it.

A look-out point in the Bamboo Park. 

After the bamboo park we were really hungry and so we ate at the tourist restaurant outside the park's grounds.  I picked something at random off the menu and honestly I am still not sure what we ate.  One nice thing about Korean food though is that if you don't like the main dish you ordered, you can completely fill yourself up on all the side dishes, seen above.

After a little confusion about where we were supposed to get on the bus to go back to Gwanju, we made our way home.  It was a fun day! 

Thanksgiving Part 2

This past weekend I went down to Gwanju to visit Jesse and Natalie to see their new home and celebrate Thanksgiving.  Gwanju is about a 3 hour bus ride from my home in Suwon.  The ride there was relatively simple and I was easily able to go to my bus terminal in Suwon, buy a ticket to Gwanju, board the bus, arrive at the Gwanju bus station, and take a taxi to their apartment.

Jesse and Natalie live in a high rise apartment like most people in Korea.  It was actually the first apartment I had been in though because everyone I know lives in Officetels which are studio apartments only about 6 (or so) stories high.  The high-rise apartment like Jesse and Natalie have are usually 2+ bedrooms and can be 20 (or so) stories high.

I had prepared some food on Friday night so that I could arrive on Saturday and we'd basically be all set.  Not having an oven (no one in Korea seems to have an oven!) made Thanksgiving a little difficult but I think not only did I manage, I aced my oven-less Thanksgiving test.  I made mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, cream of mushroom soup, jello with fruit, and a no-bake pumpkin pie.  When I arrived in Gwanju on Saturday we finished up the stuffing that I had prepped, and some chicken gravy for the turkey chicken.  People in Korea don't eat turkey and while it is available in Costco and other specialty foreign marts, it was too expensive for us to justify.  Instead we settled on pre-cooked chicken from the Lotte Mart grocery store.  It certainly was nothing to brag about, but it sufficed.    





Jesse made the gravy while Natalie helped with the stuffing.  

Dinner was complete!  Time to sit down and say our thanks.  

Ta-Dah!  

Here is our Thanksgiving spread, chopsticks and all.  

From lower left: mashed potatoes, mushroom soup, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, 

jello, cranberry sauce, chicken, red wine. 

<-----  Our stuffing!

I could only find these rainbow marshmallows, 

but they tasted the same as regular ones.  ---->

<--- Natalie marvels over being able to eat Jell-O with chopsticks




































All things considered, I think it was a great dinner.  My favorite was, of course, the pumpkin pie!  I can't believe how good it turned out considering there was no baking involved whatsoever!  Huzzah!


***

After dinner we all went over to Jesse and Natalie's co-worker's apartment for a party.  Following that we went to downtown Gwanju to a bar where a lot of foreigners hang out.  Minus the creepy old Korean guy who kept hitting on Natalie and me, we had a great night dancing and laughing.

I am thankful for my family <3