Thursday, October 3, 2019

Chuseok Holiday

For those of you that do not know, Chuseok is, in simple words, Korean Thanksgiving. All the shops close and students go home to see their family. Now, with all the Korean students gone, shops closed, and family thousands of miles away, what are the international students to do?

Fortunately, many tourist spots are open (and free!) during Chuseok weekend. My friends and I took advantage of this four day weekend by going to one of the palaces as well as the Seoul Tower.

Gyeongbokgung Palace

On Thursday, the first day of the Chuseok break, we embarked on a journey towards the Gyeongbokgung Palace. This palace is quite close to the Sungkyunkwan University campus so it was convenient for us.

An experience that I highly recommend while coming to Korea is wearing a hanbok to the palace. A hanbok is South Korea's traditional clothing. I was hesitant about this at first because I thought it would be offensive for a non-Korean to wear the traditional dress of Korea. However, after asking many of my Korean friends, they told me that Koreans actually feel flattered when foreigners enjoy their culture (in a respectful way).

Before going to the palace, we went to a hanbok rental shop. For the most basic hanbok, it was W20,000 (~$17) for four hours.

Not only did wearing the hanbok make me feel like a princess, but we got into the palace for free!

The palace was beautiful. I could not describe it in words as a picture would be better to capture its beauty.




 Namsan Tower (Seoul Tower)

On Friday, it was the official day of Chuseok. This means that most stores and restaurants were closed unless you were in a very touristy