a Sunny day in the rain

On Saturday, I got to spend time with my friend Sunny! She and I became friends at Western when we both lived in Birnam Wood, and we took TESOL classes together. It was POURING down rain when we met up today at Sinsa Station, but it was still a Sunny day! ;)

To get out of the rain, we stopped in for lunch at Nippong Naeppong, which was decorated with paintings of Simpsons characters and Marvel heroes. Sunny made me order the food in Korean, but then she had to clarify the level of spiciness we wanted (which I wouldn't have known how to say). At least I tried! The two soup dishes that we ordered had mussels, vegetables, shrimp, and noodles, and they were SO SPICY! At home, I usually ask for the highest level of spiciness when I order food, but here in Korea the spiciness factor is just a whole new level! I'm having to adjust my limits and stick with a mid-range level of spice when I order food. This food had me crying! It was delicious, but oh so hot!

After lunch, we walked to through to an area in Sinsa-dong called Garosu-gil, which means "tree-lined street".

  

After having all that spicy food, we needed some coffee to get our taste buds back to normal!

While we were walking around after our coffee break, we came across an acoustic music performance that was part of a music festival that was happening at various venues in Sinsa-dong that day. This guy put on quite a performance!

  

After the performance, we asked a man who was standing around outside to take our picture. Just after he handed the camera back, we found out he was the next performer at that venue! Haha, awkward! No wonder he looked confused when we asked him to take our picture...he probably expected us to ask someone else to take our picture with him!

As the sun began to set over Sinsa-dong, we decided to take a subway over to the Seoul Lantern Festival at Cheonggye Stream.

There were SO MANY PEOPLE at this festival! In the stream, there were various historical figures depicted in the form of inflatable characters that were lit from within. The result was a display where you could observe the significant figures of Baekjae, which was one of the three kingdoms of Korea before Korea was united. 

These circles represent various styles of traditional Baekjae patterns.

More historical figures. Each tableau had its own sign describing the figures and their stories, but there were so many people crowded around that I couldn't stop to read the description of each one.

FISH lights.

On our way back to the subway station, I noticed a large bookstore. We stopped in, and I was in HEAVEN! I have been looking for English novels since I arrived, and this enormous bookstore had a whole section of English books! I bought Les Misérables and P.S., I Love You. Those are two of my favorite movies, so it's high time that I read the books!

Thank you for such a fun day, Sunny! I look forward to many fun days in Korea with you in the future! :)