Day Off! - Wednesday Oct. 3, 2007

Yeah! Today is a day off! It is a Korean holiday of how Korea came to be. I don't know the whole story, but it involves a god coming down from the sky. I got to sleep in today which was pretty wonderful, and it was a lazy day. My host family and I went to a 짐질방 (Jimjilbang) today. There's a big difference between the jimjilbang I went to today and the ones that I usually go to. This was a natural one where trees are burned in small rooms outside (made from natural materials) until it looks like the whole room is on fire. Men come and shovel out the tree excess tree material.

Then when the room cools for a day, it is used as a sauna. The further down the room, the cooler it is, but all are used as saunas.

After the saunas, we ate at the restaurant nearby. My family ate 삼겹살 (Samgyapsal...grilled pork) and I ate a type of seaweed soup. I ate sooo much! We headed home after about 4 hours there.

The area was very beautiful. This is a pic of my host bro and me on the bridge between the restaurant and the saunas.

After dinner, 현주 (Hyeon Ju) came over to teach me how to use the internet site for the Friday club. Apparently last time I went out with the group, I was part of the Sunrise Club, meaning that they stay out until sunrise. I figured everything out and also figured out that every episode of Prison Break is on the site. I need to catch up with that show. 1) Because I have never seen any of the episodes and 2) Because the show is so incredibly popular in Korea. 현주 stayed here for about an hour and a half. It was so nice of her to come here and show me everything. I have spent the rest of the night watching episodes 1 and 2 of Prison Break. Maybe 3 is next. I'm heading to Chuncheon tomorrow with hopefully more sleep than I got before Andong!^^