Korean Cultural lesson

We finally found a class that teaches Korean to English speakers at church.  We had been looking online for  University classes but they were going to cost us a thousand dollars each, the church classes are free :).  The class had been going on for a month, so we are going to have to catch up.  The teacher is more than willing to come early before class to help us learn the basics of the language, which will help a lot.  So pretty soon we will finally be able to order off the menu in restaurants, rather than pointing at pictures and praying it doesn't burn our taste buds off.

Our first class on Sunday was really tough since we barely know the alphabet and the class was already able to do dialogue with each other, but we will get there soon enough. The teacher of the class wants us not only to understand the language but also the culture of Korea and to help with that she planned a field trip for the next day.  The field trip was to Namsangol traditional village, we took a few friends from church along with us (A.P. and Dennis). The village is a replica of a Choson period village and has areas to learn about Korean life during the Choson period.  The group decided to go to a traditional tea ceremony and learn about proper etiquette, much to the chagrin of Cathleen. After the boring Tea Party we stayed to watch an exciting traditional music festival, which had some drums and dancing. 

Just waiting in front of the tea house

After the festival a couple of us went out to eat at this amazing pancake house in the middle of downtown Seoul called Butterfingers. We had to wait 40 minutes for a seat but it was well worth it. We had some death by chocolate pancakes with  two huge scoops of vanilla and Oreos 'n cream ice cream, and was topped off with an amazing amount of Chocolate syrup over everything.  We fought each other for every last bite of chocolate heaven that was on the plate. After our bellies were full we head back home but the night was still young.  So we went with AP and Dennis to a karaoke room and spent two hours singing at the top of our lungs, and for the record Jeremy did get the highest score of the night (I guess it was technically morning).  After that we hit the hay around three in the morning, Happy Chuseok.