A Birthday Party & Winter Light Festival
To start off a very busy weekend, I took a bus to Itaewon to pick up a cake for Lily’s birthday at Knotted Donuts. The shop was very busy, considering it was early afternoon on a Thursday. The shop was only allowing a certain amount of people in the shop at a time, so I stood outside in a line for a while. When it was my turn, I was hurriedly ushered in and then one of the worker hovered over me while I hastily chose a cake. Not really knowing what flavors the cakes were, I just picked out the one that I thought was the prettiest; a yellow cake with a smiley face.
I forgot to mention that before I went to buy the cake I got my booster shot. I have had terrible luck with symptoms the preceding two shots, so I wasn’t that optimistic that I would be fine this time. This was proved correct when I woke up during the night feeling terrible. However, I still had the birthday party to go to, so I rested as much as possible and then took the train to Lily’s apartment.
Lily had decided on doing a Chinese food party so she went to go get the groceries for the dishes. On the way to her house, I stopped at Daiso and found some confetti balloons and balloon letters. While she was away, I quickly blew up the balloons and arranged them in her apartment.
Lily and I spent time preparing all the ingredients and then mixing some of them and letting them set. Meanwhile, our other friends started to arrive and that is when the party started. We made lots of dumplings and competed while making them. Lily spent so much time cooking all the food for us; was it actually her birthday or was she our cook? The dishes that we had selected to make (shredded potatoes, tomatoes and eggs, and dumplings) turned out fantastic.
After digesting a bit, Lily opened our birthday cards and birthday gift. We also celebrated with two cakes (the one that I had bought and a Harry Potter cake that Monica had brought). With the cake, we even made a boomerang; we struggled majorly with the balloons falling into the screen (success: Chris laid on the floor and tossed them up and Monica held one and let it float down). Both of the cakes looked delicious; I don’t know how they tasted since I was still feeling sick.
The next day, we (Chris, Lily, Monica and I) met at Seoul Station to pick up our rented car. The drive to our pension in Gapyeong was approximately two hours. On the way, we stopped in Namyangju to eat some fast food at Mom’s Touch. We checked into our pension, which was located right outside of the Garden of Morning Calm. For a while, we rested in our place and watched all the airing Chinese dramas on the channels.
We met up with Chris and entered the Garden of Morning Calm at around 6 PM. During the winter, the garden has a winter light festival that goes from December until March. All the plants are dead, but the garden has lights set up all over that makes it a stunning place to be at after the sun has gone down. There was soft music playing in the background while people happily meandered through the garden. It was quite a fun way to spend the evening.
We spent an hour walking around the garden and then decided to get food. Most of the places were closing down at this time since curfew was still in place. Thankfully we found a place that served charcoal-cooked dakkalbi (차돌닭갈비). It was a dog-friendly place so there were quite a few dogs hanging out there with their owners. The food was delicious since we were cold and hungry.
The next morning, we checked out of our pension and then continued on our way. We stopped at Daenery’s Cafe in Namyangju. It was a huge cafe sits on the bank of the river. The river was all frozen and the cafe has a perfect view of it. The drinks were so expensive; probably paying for the view.
We were reluctant to return to Seoul, since we didn’t have to return the car until 4 PM. We saw a park (물의정원) on the map that we decided to drive to. It was a nice little stroll along the frozen river. We took photos and tested out the ice.
After we returned the car, we went to Mallijae Bistro. The food there was delicious and a nice end to our weekend. We parted ways and went home to rest.
