Our first attempt at camping in Korea was a good experience. We will defiantly do it again before we leave. The rules about camping here are easy to remember. You can camp anywhere where there is a river or beach. If they don't want you there they will tell you to leave.
Nick and I bought some used camping gear from a couple who left almost one year ago. That is how long it took us to finally use it. We are so glad we did though. We went to Okcheon where we like to hike and found a nice flat and popular camp ground. I packed up our stuff while Nick went to find our location. When we got back we had to get to work for the day but as soon as work was over we hit the road. I set up the tent by myself as Nick had to go back for the second load of things (ie FOOD). Our tin foil dinners were delicious and we had such a great time.
I think I did a great job with the tent!!
Our camp ground was really nice. We tied our cooler up because we weren't sure what kind of wild animals would come around. Better safe than sorry.
Turns out that the only animals that come around were goats wearing collars. There was about 30+ of them. So cool to watch and listen to them communicating with one another, Baaaaaaaa.
10 steps away from our tent! So beautiful!
We also had a bathroom nearby. I have gotten so use to the squatters here, they are just second nature.
We did a lot of exploring on the walking and on the scooter and found some really cool things. We ran across some turkeys and geese.
And we also found where the bees are. It was really noisy as we walked by.
We also found this beautiful lake and wanted to jump in, but swimming wasn't allowed so we sat on the shore and watched the fish jump.
Later we decided to take the scooter on a road we didn't walk that goes past the lake. At first we thought is was a "Grave Road" or an access road to family grave sites that litter the countryside. This turned out to be something more, one, because it went on forever and two, because it was semi-paved. When I say semi paved, you might wonder what that means. You might be thinking to your self of a road that was once paved and through the years has fallen into disrepair making it almost like gravel but you would be wrong. This road was literally semi-paved, i.e. 100 meters of it would be a well worn gravel road and then you would come upon a 100 meter long paved section that was otherwise unexplainable only to have that section end into what it was previously for another 100 meter and then, surprise, surprise pavement again for another 100 meters. This pattern repeated our entire ride. I was a little nervous because of the well-worn nature of the gravel sections but Nick is a great driver and we didn't die, or this would be a very awkward blog post indeed. We finally reached a point past which we dared go no further because of a mud puddle in which Rosie (our scooter) would have most certainly gotten stuck. What we found was a nice little area. Funny thing, just past where we stopped and turned around was another paved section of the road. My brain hurts trying to think of why these obviously purposeful paved sections were installed.
This was the first time that Nick and I went camping by ourselves. Usually we only go with friends or family. It was a great time that neither of us will forget.
Right after vacation this year we had a super long weekend for Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving. This year we decided to hang out with the Wood Family and do some hiking.
From left to right you have Lauren, Grant, Macho Samgap-sa Dude (he's not apart of the family), Connie and Tim
We (the people finished with our teenage years) hiked Apsan Mountain (cause the other two are pansies) well we cheated and took a gondola ride to a point near this overlook.
Then we walked the mountain and found a helicopter pad.
We finally made it to the stairs down.. it took a while to find them.
We made a detour to a temple.
They had a hidden Buddha in the rocks.
After this hike we rested for a couple of days and then we went with them to explore Duryu Park. Another beautiful place in Daegu.
We definitely got our workout in! Nick and the Giant hula hoop.
The Beautiful pond.
The Wood's were so awesome to let us stay with them on such a long holiday break. We really love them and are grateful that they are one of our homes away from home. We had a lot of fun just relaxing on the couch and watching some Zombie TV show.
Christina Mendenhall picked us up from the Wood's house and brought us back to Changnyeong. We went hiking with her and some of her family members that were visiting from the States. We have been on this hike many times but I was more daring this time around and got a cool picture.
And another!
And Another
We are really living up our Korean adventure to the fullest! We are really going to miss this place when we are gone but we are trying hard not to think about that just yet!
This blog is dedicated to things that Valerie and Don could NOT get over while they were here for two weeks. These things aren't in any particular order.
#1 How small the cars were:
#2 Delivery EVERYTHING:
Not pictured: McDelivery, Delivery King (Burger King), Grocery Delivery, and Laundry Pickup and Delivery Services
#3 What's in the grocery stores:
Magnetic shopping cart escalators
Spam and oil in a gift set
NOODLES!!!
HOT Pepper paste
Soy Sauce
#4 The cool statues that are EVERYWHERE
Pinky Promise
Statues with peculiar anatomy
This guy made out of tires.
#5 The children!
Valerie kept trying to secretly take her picture (that's why it's blurry).
She wasn't camera shy.
Neither was she, Love Sohee!
Of course the babies on the boat.
Valerie and Don loved Korea and loved how cute everything was here, including the water bottles. It was fun watching them and remembering what it was like our first few months here.
Leaving Jeju was rather uneventful. Our Ferry made it to Mokpo late and we had to get up really early to catch the first bus out of there. Because we wanted to make the most of our time but also didn't want to drag a butt load of luggage around the country, we had to go back to our apartment and pick up bags before we went to Busan. It ended up being a day spent inside a bus. We were so tired.
When we made it to Busan we were staying in a completly different area than we usually do. Seomyeon was a great area because it was between everything we wanted to do. We only had one full day to explore so we did as much as we could. We chose to go to Haedong Yonggungsa Temple (해동 용궁사) the temple on the sea just because its been one of our favorite places to visit on the Korean peninsula.
On our walk to the entrance we ran into the Zodiac statues. Mom is a Ram and Don's a Monkey.
There are some cute wishing wells a way off from a bridge. If your coin made it in it brings you good luck... Nick made it in and everyone that saw cheered for him.
We made it to the beach and collected some sea shells. If you look at the left side of the picture you can see us. Nick's in a yellow shirt, I'm is coral Shirt and Valerie is in gray.
We tried out some new ice cream. Here in Korea we hove found out there are many ways to ice cream. One way we have tried here is the type that is made with liquid nitrogen, which is quite fun to watch, like watching a science experiment in action. That style is actually pretty popular, you've probably heard about it back there in the States. That picture up there is of ice cream made in a very different way. You've probably been to Coldstone or something similar where they take the ice cream and place it on a cold marble slab and mix ingredients into it, well these guys took it a step further. They mix flavoring into a cream and then pour that onto a cold metal plate and then work it over until it's all frozen. We liked this way better than the liquid nitrogen, which has a tendency to be buttery in texture.
Early the next morning Mom and Don left :( Vacation was over, it had happened so fast and it was so amazing. We loved having them here and showing them some of our favorite places and going to some places we had never been to before. They gave us the excuse we needed to travel Korea.
Upon our arrival to Jeju-do we took two different buses and then a taxi to our hotel in Seogwipo. We were all starving so we went out for some korean style pizza and to explore the town a little. The next morning we got up and went to the famous waterfalls in our area. Cheonjiyeon Falls (천지연 폭포) was the first waterfall we visited and it was really beautiful.
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Once a boy scout always a boy scout... Nick getting trash out of the water.
The Second waterfall we went to was the Jeongbang Falls (정방폭포)
We went down a lot of stairs knowing that we had to come back up them but it was worth it.
Nick and I climbed on the rocks to get an awesome picture and these two Koreans were clueless. However, we are in every one of their pictures making funny faces. Just so everyone knows the selfie phone holder has gone viral here in Korea...... Crazy!
After photo bombing the guys this happened.......
Our next stop was the beach. We took a taxi to the nearest beach.. name was Jungmun beach. Not even five minutes after we had gotten out of the taxi Mom fell and we went straight to the ER. Turns out she fractured her radial head. They put her in a splint and sling and sent us on our way. We relaxed for the remainder of the day. We attempted the beach again the following day.
We went back to the beach the following day to photograph the culprit, these rocks! her flip flop clipped a rock that was sticking up more and SPLAT!
As we were walking down to the beach everyone was walking up. Turns out that you can't swim in the ocean past a certain time, who knew?
The next day Nick and I went on a submarine ride!! It was very exciting although the waves were ginormous and people got sea sick. We started out on a boat that took us out to the submarine.
We were the first ones on and we got the to sit right next to the captain.
We had a small monitor in front of us so we could see what was happening topside.
Such a cool experience!
Our last stop on Jeju was the Manjanggul lava cave. The cave is claimed to be the longest lava tube in the world, but that isn't the case, and it isn't even close! This cave is different from the ones we have back in Alabama because the stone making up the interior is much harder than the limestone that make up the caves there. The stalactite and stalagmite formations in the cave were created by the intense heat and natural cooling processes of the lava that flowed through it thousands of years ago. All in all my general impression of the cave is that it was wet. The cave has a constant rain due to the many tiny stalactite formations on the ceiling, the coolness of the cave and the humidity in the air. All in all it was a very cool experience.
We had a great time on Jeju island even though Mom really hurt herself. A quick update on her. She is recovering from surgery well. Turns out she had a piece of bone that chipped off, they had to remove it and take out some dead bone. Then they covered her radial head with a titanium cap. So now she has a little more in common with Wolverine. Hope she will recover fully!
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