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Today was the first full moon on the Korean Lunar Calendar. Mr. Kim invited Jeong Woo and his family and I to Cheongdo for a festival to celebrate the event. The 9 villages around Cheongdo collect wood and prepare a very large (the largest in Korea) bon-fire. Koreans traditionally make a wish this day for a good harvest, good health, etc. In America, we normally believe that telling your wish might make it not come true, but I'll tell you mine. I just wished to "be happy." So far, my wish has come very true spending time in Korea with wonderful people and seeing places and events like tonight. After the festival, Jeong Woo's family took us all out to dinner for one of my favorite dishes. It's called gal-bi. It's a yummy way pork is prepared. We then went to Mr. Kim's house for coffee & tea. It was fun there and nice to visit him in his home and play around with his young children. Most Korean kids are afraid of me, but Mr. Kim teaches English in a local High School and his children are more accustomed to Americans than most. After that, Jeong Woo's father and mother took us shopping! They were very gracious and bought lots of food, a toaster, and a pressure cooker for rice. Koreans generally eat rice every day and Jeong Woo is a horrible cook and always burns the bop ( 밥 or rice). So no more burnt bop...yeah! What I learned today about Korea: 1) I saw a woman who had to be in her 70s dancing to traditional music. I gotta remember to do that when I hit 70.
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