WWW (29)- Pyeongtaek

Brandon and I live in a smaller city surrounded by rice fields.  Although Korea is known to be 70% mountainous, these two hikers are placed right in the middle of Pyeongtaek (평택), a city known for its rice.  Now why’s that such a bad thing?  Well, to grow rice you need a bunch of flat fields, which is exactly what 평택 means.

Korean: 평

Korean Pronuncitation: P-yeong

English Meaning: Plain

Korean: 택

Korean Pronuncitation: taek

English Meaning: Field

Needless to say, there’s not a mountain in sight.

Brandon and me with the rice fields right outside our apartment (September 2010).

FFF (32)- 오월 Holidays

Koreans pack holidays into the month of May.  Perhaps they are trying to make-up for the lack of days off in the fall?  Whatever their reasoning, I’m digging it.  Although I don’t have any MAJOR plans for these days, I will certainly be relaxing in my PJs for at least a few of them.  So here are the vacation days for 오월:

Children’s Day- May 5^th

Parent’s Day- May 8^th

Buddha’s Birthday- May 10^th

Teacher’s Day- May 15^th

School’s Birthday- May 27^th

Unfortunately the whole common sense thing didn’t quite work its way into holidays.  Whereas most American holidays fall on a Monday (President’s Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, etc), ultimately making it a long weekend, Koreans fall on certain days, making them in the middle of the week sometimes.  And this year is one of those sometimes.  While Children’s Day is on 목요일 Buddha’s Birthday is on the following 화요일, meaning I work that Friday and Monday.  Cool Korea… A 4 day weekend would have been GREAT.  And a 6 day would have been even better!

Eh.  Oh well.  At least my school’s birthday falls on a 금요일 this year.  Lucky me.  I’m thinking about heading down to Busan that weekend!  And just to clarify, every school gets off on their “School Birthday” which is pretty self-explanatory.

WWW (28)- Months

Although I tend to think that a lot of Koreans lack common sense (if you lived here for a year you would probably agree), they also do some things that just make complete sense.  In Hangeul, the months are one of those things that just makes sense.  Since you learned the days of the week last week, we’re moving on to something that was much easier for me to learn (as it just makes sense).

Korean	Korean Pronunciation	English
일월	i-rwol	January
이월	i-wol	February
삼월	sam-wol	March
사월	sa-wol	April
오월	o-wol	May
유월	yoo-wol	June
칠월	chil-wol	July
팔월	p’al-wol	August
구월	goo-wol	September
시월	shi-wol	October
십일월	ship-i-rwol	November
십이월	ship-il-wol	December

If you haven’t caught on yet, 월 (wol) means month.  And if you remember from one of the first lessons, each month is a number +월.  For instance, January is 일 (il) + 월 (wol), directly translating to “one month”  and February is 이 (i) + 월(wol), translating as “two month”. The only “major” difference is that theㅂ is dropped in 10 (October). No biggie!  That was much easier than the days!