Camping in Korea

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.