It's Nice To Have Some Familiar Shoes At Our Door

Well, our friends left Korea last Thursday morning after an almost 2 week stay here. We had an awesome time hanging out with some familiar faces and seeing parts of Korea that we had never seen before. Below is a photographic journal of our vacation.

Day 1: Bukbu Beach in Pohang. Since most people swim fully clothed, we enjoyed taking our shirts off and sprinting into the water just to turn some heads...


This picture is from just 40 minutes of the cumulative 5 1/2 hours we spent in noraebangs (karaoke rooms) across Korea...


Day 2: An early rise in the Motel Hole In One...


Mingling with the locals, waiting for the bus to Sokcho outside the terminal...


On the bus to Sokcho with some tasty dried squid...


Rest stop...


Finally, after 4 1/2 hours on the bus, we are in Sokcho eating "dog mandu" and kalguksu...


Noraebang!!!


Day 3: Seoraksan National Park, with its Buddha statues, temples, and waterfalls...


Shhh... Don't tell anyone we swam here...


The raw fish market in Sokcho. Point to the fish you want, negotiate the price, then watch it get scooped out of the water and bashed on the head with a baseball bat...


Our choice: shellfish smorgasbord...

Day 4: On the streets of Seoul...


Day 5: Walking around Gwanghwamun square...


Changdeokgung, an ancient palace in Seoul. A nice escape from the city in the middle of town...


Day 6: The train ride to Dacheon Beach on the west coast...


We are inspecting a dead starfish we found in the surf...


Waiting on the train to head home, and, once again, mingling with the locals...


In order to save floorspace, Hadden and Will created bunk beds with our air mattresses.


Day 7 or 8: We hiked to the top of Hamji Mountain (the neighborhood mountain). Once at the top, the sun decided to go down, and we had to hike down in the dark, losing Will in the process. We found him a few minutes after getting to the bottom, once again, mingling with the locals...


Having these two here along with our break from work and the chance to see a lot of Korea was completely refreshing. We really loved having them here, and look forward to going home in January. Korea is great! But it's not home.

Peace!
Or, in Korean, "Soju!"

Rafting Trip

We went with Nick and Mike on a rafting trip this weekend. In Korea if you want to go on a trip--whether it be sightseeing, hiking, or rafting --you go on an organized tour. It's not necessary for all things, but most people do it. We do most things independently, but this weekend we signed up to go on a rafting tour. They picked us up in this fancy bus, gave us rice cake for breakfast, took us to do some sightseeing, fed us lunch, and took us down the river for less than 50 bucks. Pretty good deal, we thought! We were the only foreigners on the tour, so we were watched after all day and asked by numerous people to have their picture taken with us. It's weird how you just get used to all the unwanted attention you receive here for being a foreigner. This is the last weekend of summer vacation for the schools and companies, so the river was packed! It was a lot of fun though. The river wasn't too big, but it was so beautiful. I wish I would have been able to bring my camera on the boat (we had a few close calls though, so it's good I didn't have it). One thing we thought was interesting (and a little funny) was that not only was nobody wearing their swimming suit, but about half the people there were wearing jeans. Our favorite though was the girl wearing a skirt and high heels. Korean women do love their heels, but wearing them on a raft might be a little overboard.



Here we are sightseeing and following around our tour guide. We had no idea what she was talking about, so we mostly just goofed off in the back of the crowd.



Here's a glimpse of how much commotion was going on on the river. The river was crowded, and they squeezed 12 people in each raft.

Will and Hadden will be here Friday! We're so excited, we could wet ourselves!

Beaches

Sorry we've been lazy with our posts. It's not because we've been idle...quite the opposite. The past 2 weekends we have visited a beach on the east coast--Bukbu Beach-- and a beach on the west coast--Daechon Beach. Both were really nice and pretty.

It was a little chilly at Bukbu, so Mike and Mitch were the only two who braved the water in our party. Nick and Cordia Stayed ashore. We like this video because of the epic music in the background. There was a sound system set up all along the beach playing this sort of music all afternoon and evening.




After hanging out on the beach for a few hours, we enjoyed some fresh seafood. Yum!

To end this excellent day at the beach, we were treated with a fireworks display.


The next day we went hiking along a river with lots of waterfalls. It was a gorgeous hike.


At Daechon we took it easy. The weather was so perfect that we just laid on the beach, read, and napped all afternoon. It was exactly how a beach should be. Except that they had a loud speaker with some woman calling names and phone numbers the entire time (we thought it was for people who were lost, but maybe it was lotto winners).