Time has flown by since I’ve been in Korea and I can hardly believe that Thanksgiving has already passed. This year, Thanksgiving was a bit strange for me because while my family was hanging out together eating turkey and mashed potatoes (yum), I was teaching middle schoolers on a Friday morning. It was a weird day for me because I was sad to miss spending time with my family; being apart from them has made me appreciate them even more.
However, some friends and I planned a Thanksgiving trip to celebrate the holiday too! We wanted to go somewhere very low-key and where we could grill and chill. My friend found the perfect Airbnb in a city called Yeongam which has a population of about 10,000. I have actually already been to Yeongam when I hiked at Wolchulsan National Park so I was a little familiar with the area. It only took about an hour and a half bus ride to get there which was very convenient.
The Airbnb was great! It was a traditional Korean house called a hanok and was the second house on the property. The Airbnb hostess was a Korean woman who lived in the house right next door and she was very helpful in getting us settled in. On the property, there were two jindo guard dogs who were very cute and a lot of chickens who were very noisy, yet entertaining. The hanok itself was really cool; it consisted of three rooms: the middle room was similar to a living room, and the two rooms on either side were bigger rooms that each had a kitchen. Only two of the rooms had ondol heating (floor heating) so that’s where we spent the majority of our time. The other major aspect of a hanok home is that there are no beds or furniture. Our beds were pads that we laid down each night and picked up in the morning. I thought it’d be uncomfortable, but in reality I slept really well. All those years of camping are really coming in handy! When we ate, we sat on the floor around a little table. It was such a great experience and something I’d always wanted to do in Korea.
Our Thanksgiving was spent just like a normal Thanksgiving minus the fact that we were in Korea. We mainly just hung out, played games, and ate A LOT of food. On Saturday our day started with a walk through town to find breakfast. The town was much smaller than we thought and we were definitely the youngest ones there. Other than the people we saw at a
little market, we didn’t really see anyone else. The houses in the town were beautiful though! They were mostly hanok and had nice yards with gardens and were well-kept. It was a bit surreal to be walking around in such a small town in Korea. It was so beautiful and peaceful.
We did eventually find a cafe and it was well worth the walk because it was such a cute place. It had a nice yard where you could sit and had a great view of the mountains. The only slight downside was that their only food option was cake, which now that I think of it, wasn’t a bad thing.
After our cake we were still hungry so we followed some street signs that pointed to a restaurant to get lunch. We were the only people in the restaurant while we were there and we had a whole separate room to ourselves. It was also cool because the restaurant required you to take off your shoes upon entry and we had to sit on the floor, which was a first for me. After four months of living here I can finally say I’ve been to a restaurant where we sat on the floor (Dad, I can finally say yes to this question!). We discovered that the restaurant served
duck and chicken so we decided to order a whole chicken to split amongst the five of us. It was delicious! We started out with some side dishes that included jeon (one of my favorites), oranges, hard-boiled quail eggs, corn, kimchi (of course), and various other pickled vegetables plus a few unknown items. Next, we had some spicy chicken that we wrapped in lettuce, followed by rice that we cooked in the leftover chicken sauce. At this point we were all pretty full, but the food just kept coming. The owner brought us the rest of the chicken cooked in a delicious broth. Finally, he brought us all black sesame porridge to conclude the meal. At the end of the meal, it truly felt like Thanksgiving: I was stuffed and ready for a nap.
Later that afternoon we decided to hike a bit in the bamboo forest behind the Airbnb. We ended up hiking to a Confucian school and saw a cave that Dr. Wangin, the man who founded the school, used to study in as well as a carving of him on one of the rocks by the cave. Near the cave there were these huge boulders that reminded me a lot of Elephants Rocks State Park in Missouri. We spent a long time just climbing around on those and exploring which was so much fun.
For dinner that night we had a Korean bbq. We attempted to use the grill outside, but when the coals were dying and even the blow torch couldn’t revive them, we moved the grilling inside to the stove. It was still a fun experience though and the barbeque turned out really well! We played some games after dinner and then ended our night with s’mores! It was a great day!
Although my Thanksgiving wasn’t the same as usual it still contained the most important elements: good food, good memories, and great people. I’m so grateful for the friends I’ve made here and the experiences I’ve had. Being away from home has made me reflect on all the blessings I have in my life and has made more thankful for the little things. All in all, while it was a little bittersweet to celebrate Thanksgiving without my family, I had a great time with my friends in Korea.
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