Road Trip Part 3 (last one)

Part 3 is going to be a long one, just to warn you. After Yeosu, we took the ferry to Jeju island and we stayed there the longest and I think it was the highlight of the trip. We got there New Years Eve and explore a folk village before we prepared for the new year. Those are kimchi pots in the first picture. In the other two I'm displaying how the bathrooms once were and how they use to cook. haha.

That night we went out for a dinner, wasted some time at a hotel bar and then dared the freezing cold to celebrate at the outdoor festival. They had fireworks , a big bon fire, and music. It was really fun. I use to hate new Years, but the last couple years have made me change my mind!

Over the course of the night, the weather turned frigid and it snowed. By the time we were on our way home, the roads were slippery and our car skidded off the road. Nothing was hurt and the other car of people came to our rescue pretty quickly. That doesn't happen in Florida!

After sleeping just a couple hours we all woke up for a sunrise hike (a popular thing to do in Korea to celebrate a new year.) We ate and then did yet another hike to the top of an old volcano island, Udo-myeon.

The cold only got worse the following day. We picked the coldest of cold days to do our ultimate 7.5 hour hike on Hala mountain. I can't even tell you how cold it was. If you look closely you can see ice in my hair and ice sickles hanging horizontally off the pole. 7 of us started the hike; 4 made it to the top. I want to do this hike again... in the summer!

Our last day, you wouldn't believe how beautiful the weather was. It was sunny, all the snow had melted and it was like 20 degrees warmer. So, we of course set off on another hike. We opted for a much easier one that was more like a walk since we were all a bit sore and tired. We walked along the southern coast line and WOW, was it amazing. I've already decided I will be back when the weather warms up.

Before leaving Jeju, we stopped by one more temple that I honestly can't remember the name of and then jumped on the ferry. On our trip over we had nice reclining seats, but the ferry back was jammed packed and all we got was a mat on the floor for the 4 hour ride. It went by pretty quickly as we played match after match of a Korean card game called Hwa-too.

After making it back to the main land, we had one more day before having to head back to Seoul. We stayed at Naganeupseong Folk Village. They let people rent out huts for the night, and then you can explore the traditional village during the day. The first picture is the hut we stayed in. That old women was in charge of our hut and was super nice. She kept trying to talk to us and she washed all our dishes. Then during the day we basically played. We had a 6 hour long drive home later in the day so we went wild before the coup up.

We made it home Sunday night and then I started English camp Monday morning. You think I'd be exhausted, but this trip actually really energized me. I'd been feeling a little down, just tired of work and not understanding things around me and feeling a little lonly. This trip really just let me have fun, laugh, meet new people, and be myself. I think it just woke me up and reminded me to enjoy the things around me again and stop taking things so seriously. Fun times!

Road Trip Part 2

After Busan we left some of our new friends and went Yeosu city. We were there for just a day, but got to enjoy some of the city's highlights. We did a sunrise hike to Hyangilam Temple.

After a nap, we did another hike that took us around the coast line. It was sooo beautiful!

This next picture is Yeosu's big attraction (the bridge). It's not a very big city, but cute. Less modern then up north where I live. The southern part of Korea actually has some less developed areas that were actually nice to see after living in the big city.

Before heading to the place where we needed to go to get the ferry to Jeju-do, we visited a wetlands. I didn't imagine to see wetlands?! See if you can find me!!

Road Trip part 1

From December 26th-January 4th, I went on a road trip all around Korea. I went with 3 others, none of which I knew before going, but I was in need of adventure, so I went and it turned out to be an amazing trip. Though there were 4 of us for the long haul, we met many people in the different places that joined us for parts of the trip. I think in all, we traveled with about 15 different people at one point or another. It was really interesting to see how it all worked out and fun to meet so many different people and see so much of Korea. I have a TON of pictures from the trip, so I decided I'd write a 3 part blog about the trip. This is part 1!! And this picture first picture is the car we lived out of for the trip.

We left Seoul on the morning of the 26th and the first stop was Gyeongju to see Daereung-won Tumuli Park that is full of ancient burial mounds. There were tons of the mounds that were especially big. There are smaller mounds all over the country side. Every time we went hiking we would see more.

Next stop was Golgul Temple where we did a temple stay. We stayed the night at the Buddhist temple and did what they did for a day. We learned how to meditate, do some of the Sunmudo moves (the martial arts that this temple is known for), and even had to wake up at 4am to do there ceremony which included bowing, chanting, and more meditation. It was a really interesting experience. My favorite part was that they food. Buddhists are vegetarians, so I could eat everything they served!! The video is from a little demonstration they put on about the Sunmudo.




After a night at the Temple, we stopped by the Bulguksa Temple before heading to Busan, the second largest city in Korea. Me and Se-Jeong are rubbing the boar because it's suppose to bring us wealth.

In Busan we met up with more people, while also bringing 2 along from Gyeongju. We walked around the city a bit, took a ferry tour ride to see the coast better, and enjoyed the ocean.

Because Busan is on the coast, they are known for seafood. They eat some really crazy stuff! The seafood market was really entertaining! The other picture is from a restaurant we ate at for lunch. I thought while I was on the topic of food I should add this one. There are so many side dishes that I usually just don't order anything and I eat the side dishes, since the main dish is usually meat, and the side dishes are mostly vegetables. It's incredible how much food they give you.

Just on the outskirts of Busan is Haedong Yonggungsa. It's a Buddhist temple on the cliffy shore. It was a really beautiful place, a bit touristy, but still cool. They had statues of all the different Chinese animals that represent the year you're born in. I'm the year of the rat.

Korean Wedding and Christmas

I've been busy again... I'm sorry I've gotten so inconsistent. Nothing between my last post and Christmas was too exciting. I mostly did A LOT of planning for work and rested up for my after Christmas adventures. I did go to my co-teacher, Se-Jeong's, wedding on the 20th of December though. MUCH different than any wedding I've ever been to. I went with some of the other teachers from the school and they basically took my hand and guided me around the chaos. The wedding took place in a huge wedding hall in Seoul; a 6 story tall building where 10 wedding can all happen at once. We made our way through the ridiculous crowds to find Se-Jeong. She was sitting in this small room perched on a bench wearing her amazing wedding gown and all made up. She looked really beautiful. We took a picture with her and then went upstairs to the buffet floor. We got a ticket and then all the food we wanted. Everyone from all the weddings eats in this huge restaurant, so it was really busy in there. Because the room where the ceremony happens is rather small and there was a lot of family there, we watched the wedding on a TV screen while we ate. It was like watching a movie while eating lunch. I think that part was the strangest to me, haha. So, we watched the wedding while we ate and then went down stairs to take some pictures with her after the ceremony. The ceremony itself lasted all of 20 minutes and I was in and out of the wedding hall in about an hour. Sorry I don't have pictures :(
I had work up through xmas eve, so there was no good in planning to go anywhere for Christmas itself, but I had the next best thing. Rebekah's aunt and uncle are in the military and live in Seoul on the base. They invited Mallory and I (or rather we asked if Rebekah would ask them if we could come, hehe!) for Christmas. So, after work on the 24th we went to their house in Seoul and stayed until the 26th. (I left on a road trip the 26th, which will be the next post with lots of pics!) We went caroling and looked at xmas lights and even got to open presents in the morning because her aunt bought us all scarves (notice the pictures below). They cooked us a big breakfast and it was the closest thing to a homey Christmas I could have asked for. One, because it is like a little American oasis on the base with Taco Bells, English signs and even American plug outlets in the house, but also because we were with a family.

On Christmas day me, Rebekah, and Mallory went to Building 63 in Seoul. It has a great view of Seoul from the top floor. We took some goofy pictures while waiting for our turn.

These last two pictures were from a flea market type thing my friend Lucy invited me to the week weekend before Christmas. That's her in the first picture; Lucy is her English name, I'm not sure what her Korean name is??? Rebekah G. came too and that second picture is us posing with Korean Santa.

10 K

Yesterday I ran a 10K in Seoul with 4 other of my friends. It was so COLD!! It was well below freezing and super windy. I couldn't believe that our race was the day a big cold front came through. I was really nervous it would make it hard to breathe, but I managed and did pretty well for me. My goal was not to walk any and try for under and hour. I achieved both with 4 minutes to spare so I was pretty proud. I wore my metal all last night while I was out with friends. Another cool thing was that not only did we get medals, but they also gave us running suits (the one I'm wearing) and a head band to keep your ears warm. I've run in quite a few different races and usually get just a t-shirt or if I'm lucky a dri-fit running shirt and sometimes a medal. The race was only about $35 and I got all that stuff. We talked about that we might make a little running club and sign up for these runs more often.

Random Pictures

This is just a series of random pictures that I thought were worth putting up.
This picture is from that hiking trip to the South I blogged about before. Some of my friends ate some of the raw sea creatures they have in that region. It was some of the weirdest things. Anyways, I watched as they ate the crazy things, and one of my friends caught me grimacing as I looked on. I thought it was kinda funny.


This is a cake Rebekah J and I got for my friend Mallory's birthday. We called him bear face. It was delicious. I would have baked one, but I don't have an oven :(


This is a picture of my friends Mallory, Leah, and I out to dinner.


A group shot of about 3/4ths of the Ultimate Frisbee league.


Last weekend I went and saw Jens Lekman play in Seoul. I didn't know much about him before going, but I was really impressed and have been listening to his music for the past week.
I went to a couple other shows just last night. One of them was a group called the EV Boyz. They are these 3 guys who are American but live and work here in Korea. They make songs about living here and it's really funny. I put the link to their original and most popular song. I first saw this video during orientation and I didn't understand a lot of it, but after being here for 3.5 months now, it all makes so much more sense. It is really funny and it's all so true. Check it out, hopefully you can understand some of the jokes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjBfy_HVoSM

Island hopping

A couple of weekends ago, my friends Rebekah and Candice and I decided to go to an island off Incheon called Jawol-do. We didn't have many expectations, but just thought it would be fun to see something different. We got there to find that it seemed more or less deserted. We started walking down the road when an old man in a truck stopped to try to talk to us. He couldn't understand us and we couldn't understand him, but he motioned for us to get into the back of his truck and he would take us to the "town". So we jumped in and went for a fun ride to the other side of the island (it's not a big island!). When we stopped we realized he worked for a motel and he thought we wanted somewhere to stay. We managed to tell him we weren't interested and walked back up a hill to the main part of the island. We wandered about most of the day and really wanted to ride bikes. We found another motel run by some young people and even though we told them we weren't interested in staying the night, they let us use their bikes. We rode around the island until it started raining on us and we got wet and cold. We went back to the motel with a couple of hours to spare before the ferry left to go back to Incheon, and the people let us use one of the rooms. We had a little picnic with all the snacks we had brought and took a little nap on the floor. The people drove us back to the ferry terminal and we headed home. The day was full of randomness, but really fun beacuse we had no plan and just got into a lot of funny situations. I enjoyed the little adventure.

The first picture is me in the back on the truck. Then riding bikes and playing on the exercise machines with Rebekah. One interesting thing about Korea is that in every park or public area they have these exercise machines. I use them as a playground; They're all over the place. Then there's a picture of Candice and I and Rebekah and I while wondering around he island.

This is a picture of me during that English festival I told you about where I was the host of the Quiz Show. This week we have the school English festivals. One for 3rd grade, one for 4th grade, one for 5th grade, and one fro 6th grade. I will be doing this 4 more times this week! Though on a smaller scale since it is just for my school, there will still be a tons of people and I will be doing not on the Quiz show, but also hosting and doing a speech contest for all 4 of them! yikes!