P,P,P,Peppero!

Last thursday was a rather special day here in Korea, not special in the I-get-the-day-off-to sleep-in-and-drink-hot-chocolate-in-this-freezing-cold-weather kinda way, but rather in a here-some-snacks-for-you kinda way. Basically, the 11th day of the 11th month (11/11) has become known here in South Korea as Pepero Day.

Pepero Day is similar to Valentine's Day and is named after the Korean snack 'Pepero' (pepero's are chocolate dipped sticks of bread or biscuit...yumyum!):

It's held on November 11, since the date "11/11" looks like four sticks of Pepero (*ummm...what about a biltong day back in South Africa???*)  It is mostly  young people and couples who exchange Pepero sticks, other and other 'romantic gifts' Lotte (one of the largest food and shopping groups here in South Korea...even with its own designer Department Stores and cinemas) denies starting the holiday and instead states that they noticed a bump in Pepero sales around November 11th and after continued popularity they decided to then encourage the holiday with special gift boxes and other promotions. Hmmm ya right Lotte! Especially as they makes 55% of their yearly sales in November!

According to one story, Pepero Day was started in 1994 by students at a girls' middle school in Busan, where they exchanged Pepero sticks as gifts to wish one another to grow "as tall and slender as a Pepero".  Sweet :)

While every other Teacher we know was showered with yummy chocolate snacks,. I had a measly 3 little sticks sitting on my desk when I got to school...but hey who's counting :)

*Some memorable moments*

This weekend saw Farmboy and myself, as well as our buds Claire & Jonno head into Seoul for the lantern festival in celebration of Buddha's birthday~well that was out intention anyway~what we really got up to was a slightly less cultural excursion :)

So up with the birds, 5:45 alarms went off to get to the station for 06:30 to board our cool train to Seoul at 06:50. With some yummy egg mayo samies, and some delicious "smudge" made by Jonno and some even more delicious french toast with bacon and cheese made by FarmBoy...we began our descent into Seoul...oh and not to mention the yummy rotten strawberries.

We arrived in the bustling metropolitan of Seoul at about 9 am and then made our way down into the subway with vagrants and city slickers left right and centre. Suddenly, we had an idea~about a certain very cool indoor (and we found out later, outdoor too) Amusement park not too far away and so paid for our tickets and headed for fun~filled morning at Lotte World!

We were all so very pleased with ourselves for being foreigners as we got our half price tickets and then made our way into a magical world of colour, screams and of course little Korean kiddies going CRAZY!***

We soon realised there was another whole section to the park and found further exciting and thrilling rides on Magic Island...which included The Gymno Drop & Gymno Spin thingy and of course Atlantis Adventure which saw Claire in tears at the end and all of us with our hearts in out stomachs!

So after some much anticipated adrenaline rushes, we all made our way to see if we could find the Lantern Festival we had heard so much about from our dear ex-Daejonite, Kerry. At first, we were slightly disappointed, then our spirits were raised slightly as we made donations for the cute little home-made lanterns and then found ourselves some seats among the large (and i mean large in every sense of the word) American gatherings happening left right and centre (and the sudden realisation that actually we like being foreigners and no, we don't want to make small conversation with you about teaching). After waiting for many minutes, Holly's Coffee house across the road looked rather inviting, and we headed there for some delicious hot choc and coffee and blueberry muffins. We proceeded to head straight home due to the let down of the festival, and of course to catch our train on time!

So all in all, a day filled with sun, tears, laughter, screams, sweeties, and a man telling FarmBoyand myself

"You do realise this is a public place"

after I was leaning on Dales arm after a long day of walking around town, but I guess this is Korea, and the closest couples actually get to one another is to wear matching shirts~But all in all a marvelous day!
Next stop..Busan for the long weekend!