a petition for the redefining of "weekend"
It's late Thursday, technically Friday morning. I'm coming off a five-day weekend. I've decided that I prefer five-day weekends to five-day work-weeks.
There is a lunar holiday here in Korea. It's called 추석 (Chuseok), and it lands on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar used here in Korea (the same used in China and elsewhere). It's a full moon holiday, something about the harvest. Shows how much I know about Korean holidays. Actually, it's a national holiday here and they throw in a bonus: the two days immediately preceding and following the day of the full moon, which is great, as long as the date lands on Tuesday or Thursday. This year, it landed on a Tuesday.
I vegged on Saturday and most of Sunday. The latter night we went to the zoo. Not to that crappy bar here in Daejeon, but the real zoo. Where there are animals. There was a sort of sad safari tour which cost ₩9,000 where you rode in a bus that was decorated like a lion and it drove through sets of double gates to see some lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!, elephants, giraffes, zebras, ostriches, some horned animal (it was named in Korean, so I don't know the English name), and of all things, a donkey, which the driver/tour guide felt necessary to mention was the same animal that was in Shrek.
The rest of the zoo was okay. There were more lions, some monkeys, jaguars, tigers, polar bears, black bears, otters, seals, wolves, llamas, camels (one-humped and two), hyenas, birds, a Saint-Bernard (beats me), a baby lion (very cute), and a kind of raccoon. Lacking were gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees (no apes of any kind!), turtles, snakes (no reptiles of any kind!), penguins, peacocks (no fancy birds of any kind!), frogs, newts, and salamanders (no amphibians of any kind!). In fact, there were no indoor exhibits of any kind!
Monday afternoon I went to Seoul to meet a friend, Steve, who I'd worked with at my previous place of employment. We had dinner and did some bar-hopping around 홍대 (Hong Dae; a district in Seoul near Hong Ik University). Imbibing of mostly beer ensued.
Tuesday morning my uncle woke me up far too early in the morning and took my cousin from Washington, D.C., and me to a bunch of places in Seoul. Since it was a holiday, the regular congestion of Seoul's streets was none to be found. In fact, as we drove along one bridge that crosses the Han River, I distinctly recall there being something like 8 cars in total on the bridge, with no cars even going in the opposite direction. That evening the Korean residents of the Noh family met for the traditional Chuseok gathering. Lots of food. Lots of people. I came back to Daejeon with my American cousin that night.
Wednesday I vegged. I topped off the night with a brisk walk and dinner and a painful stomach ache that went away after a couple of hours, some TLC, a hot towel, some peppermint tea, and four little pills.
So waking up today felt a lot like Monday, but I was glad to remember that in fact it was Thursday and that I only had three classes today and that tomorrow would be Friday and that the weekend is already here.
In fact, Jackie's birthday is on Sunday. I've yet to get a present. I guess that should be my priority this morning.