Chuseok Holiday 2014

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! 

Hiking in Changnyeong

Hiking is THE hobby of South Korea, you can hike anywhere because Korea is 70% mountains. This week I did two different hikes. On Tuesday my visiting teachers came down from Daegu to visit me. We drove right up to the temple and then we hiked the 20 minute stairs to reach the Buddha. 

 Pictures of the decorated Temple. The Buddha pictures are here, from a previous hike.

Saturday Nick and I climbed Hawangsan Mountain. This hike has been on our To-Do list for a while. We were happy to hear other foreigners in Changnyeong that wanted to do it as well, so we set a date. The hike usually takes 3 hours but it took us a little longer because a family from our church came and they had a small child. She made it up the mountain no problem, but getting down was a different story.

Lots of beautiful flowers on the way!

Our first glimpse of the view, little did we know that we were only a little over halfway up.

 The Top!!

 The Rock at the top! We climbed Hawangsan Mountain!!

The friends we climbed with.

I swore we took more pictures at the top but when we reached the bottom they had disappeared. Which means we will have to climb again.

Okcheon Hiking

Hiking and I usually get along pretty well, this hike kicked my butt!! We had an unusual week at CEV because Thursday was Memorial Day (No School)  the other teachers got to do what I think is the best thing in the world TEACH KINDERGARTEN for two days. I was so jealous that I was stuck in Cyber School while they were doing the thing I love.  I was thankful that we did a group picture and I was able to use my new Korean speaking skills with a few of the students.

                 

Friday Richard took us to Okcheon where we saw a nice temple and then proceeded to hike to the Buddha. I was warned that the hike was straight up, but it was short. I realize now that I should have taken pictures of the STAIRS (if you can call them that) so you would realize that only giants were capable of walking them. Lucky for me I work with some (you can read their blog here). When I finally reached the top it was so beautiful I didn't want to jump down. Here are some picture of the view!

At the temple. The mountains we were in were so gorgeous. 

 Looking out from the Buddha

 The Buddha

 US!!! Proof that I did make it to the top!

Richard our Superintendent.