Friday

Friday was the big day. Won graciously invited us to have Chuseok with his family, so after his did the ceremony for their ancestors, we came over.

When we got there, his mother was slaving away at the stove. There was a big table in the kitchen jam-packed with plates of food. When no other plates would fit on the table, it was brought to the living room where we sat on the floor and feasted on freaky food.

There was bimbimbap which is rice with seaweed, radish, and other veggies.
There was beef/potato stew.
There was octopus. (I decided it was neither the time nor the place to try it)
There were whole fish. (I watched Won's mother carefully jab out and eat an eye with her chopsticks.)
There was dried seaweed, there were dips, there was kimchi, there was a ton of food.

After we ate our way through the table, a desert table, filled with fruit, was brought out. As we ate our way through the fruit table, our friend Elias came and another small table filled with the main courses was brought out.

Then, some relatives dropped by and we just sat on the floor and stared at them. After that, we went onto the roof and played cards and lounged in the sun until dusk.

That evening, we met up with our friend Sung for dinner, as though eating again was what we needed to do. This was Sung's last weekend here, so it was kind of a farewell. I have a semi-embarrassing story about Sung that I will tell about later.

Then, we went back to our apartments and sat on the roof with candles and a cake and looked at the full moon. It was the first time since I've been here that I saw the stars. So, after everyone left, Jess and I slept on the roof, where my face was promptly eaten by mosquitos. And it was worth it.