Vacation

Hello all! I had a very spontaneous and eventful vacation this weekend. Allow me to give you day-by-day highlights:
 Wednesday: I enjoyed a wonderful, home-made Moroccan meal with Mariem's family. They flew here with Mariem and have been exploring Korea for the past two weeks. It was so lovely to meet them all and enjoy good food and company. We had salad, a main course consisting of seasoned potatoes, meat, and olives (eaten by scooping it up on some bread), and a fruity dessert!
  Thursday: This was Chuseok-day proper. My friends and I explored some palaces around Seoul, which had free admission for the holiday. Later that night, Mariem and I went to Itaewon and went bowling! It was a good time.
  Friday: Mariem and I started the day by visiting a dog cafe, which is basically a coffee shop with about 50 adorable dogs running around sniffing for treats, posing for pics, and tolerating endless pets.  They have plenty of cafes around here of this sort, including raccoons (hoping to visit one in our time here). After this, we headed to Seoul Forest, a large park/garden/sculpture garden/nature area. We saw beautiful flowers, butterflies, and a great view of the Han River. It was nice to get some fresh air.
We ended the night by going out to a "Norebang," which is basically a private room for you and your friends to sing karaoke. It was a strange concept to me, but turned out to be a great time!
 Saturday: Some friends and I decided to travel about an hour and a half outside of Seoul to a West Coast beach called "Eurwangni Beach." Though the east coast beaches are much better, this was very refreshing to visit! We noticed that Koreans tend to not swim and do not wear swimsuits, but rather their normal clothes. We went swimming nonetheless, layed around on the sand, and took a walk along the shore (in which we had to wade in the water quite a bit--we felt adventurous).

Today was spent shopping around a bit, cooking, and just generally taking it easy. Ready to start school up again tomorrow! Thanks for reading!

Sharing a meal with Mariem's family. 

Roomie selfie!

Having a lovely chat at the dog cafe. 

Karaoke at the norebang!

Wading around at the beach! Or rather, striking an odd pose.