Chuseok(Moon Festival) in a hotel

Chuseok is one of the most important holidays in Korea. It is similar to Thanksgiving Day in America. Similarities between Chuseok and Thanksgiving day are giving thanks for the harvest and spending time with family. However, to married women in Korea, Chuseok is not just an innocenet family gathering. It means lots of housework and cooking.

Maybe more than half of married Korean women start suffering from 'Chuseok stress' even before the day comes. We have to prepare many meals for ancestor-memorial service as well as 3 meals a day for the family during the whole holiday. And after it's all over, we end up with loads of dishes to wash. I don't understand why women have to work? Why not men? It is very unfair. But I don't have the power to change the oldest and most unfair tradition in Korea.

Though, my main task was to wash dishes, I was worried because the number of dishes would be tremendous. Fortunately, this year my parents-in-law decided to go to a hotel in Seoul to rest. Hooray!:)

Here are some pictures of our peaceful holiday at a hotel.

There was a club lounge that served 3 meals a day and many drinks including tea, beer, wine, Champaign, Perrier,etc. In the picture, I am reading a album entitled 'Beautiful small villages in California' and am drinking Orange cream tea.

These are evening snacks, mostly great with wine.

This is an automatic wine machine. Just pull the nozzle to fill your glass wine.

This is outside the hotel.

The Chihuahua named Kong-al in the picture is a pet for my parents-in-law.

The hotel has many hardcover English albums.

We hung around Myung-dong, a trendy area in Seoul.

The swimming pool was free to use for club lounge guests.

We had a full day's rest at the hotel during Chuseok. Although sleeping in there is not as comfortable as sleeping at home, the hotel's already prepared meals gave me real rest, making this Chuseok very comfortable. I suggest husbands should spend a day with their wives at a hotel as a gift after Chuseok?

Healthy life

Everyone would say that health is the most important thing in life. Yes, I totally agree especially these days. I hope to be very healthy and strong so that I never catch a cold and so I would say that I am never sick. I even want to have a body like Angelina Jolie :) In my eyes, she is not just a beautiful woman, but healthy! However, all of these are jsut a dream for me these days.

I take a pill almost everyday because of serious indigestion and drink a Chinese medicine for my immunity enforcement. I also get rehap therapy for my backache caused by a car accident that happened 2 years ago. I think I spend too much on that.

My health wasn't bad from my birth. When I was little, I was a very healthy child even selected for a relay race, 6 years in a row during my elementary years. The problem started from when I entered high school. Korean high schools give lots stress to students because of college enterance exam. My stomach began to cause me problems like indigestion, nausea and vomiting from my teen years. But still, I was OK until my 20's. But starting from my 30's, it happened more often and all of my stress showed up as body aches and stomach aches. Last September, I ate only porridge once a day, but I still suffered from a stomach ache.

I believe that all my problems are from stress caused by my too sensitive personality, but since we don't know what lies ahead in the future, we shouldn't be so caught up with trivial things. Then we don't need to be afraid of our ambiguous future.

Now, I try not to give myself a time limit, not always do things perfectly, not be disappointed of little things. Rather, I am trying to be general, insensitive, imperfect and broad-minded. I will try to enjoy each day: when I am confronted by stressful situation, I will try to change my attitude to look on the bright side, and give real freedom to my mind. This may be the best way for me to have a healthy life in the future. There will be unexpected serendipity for me including having a baby if I try these things first.