My Dong (Neighbourhood)

Here's some pictures I took a while back around my neighbourhood. I keep forgetting not everyone has facebook so I picked out a few of my favorites to share with you on here. Most were taken from a mountain 15 minutes from my house. It takes a lot longer to hike up it of course but there was a while when I did it almost every day. It was a nice place to get centered again. I haven't been up there in a while though. It only took one person to tell me giant spiders live there during the summer for me to decide to take the summer off from my new found passion for mountaineering... even if the person that told me was an ankle biter themselves :) Most of the other ones were taken at the UN cemetery that's about a 10 minute walk in the opposite direction of the mountain.

Cups hanging along one of the trails incase hikers want some fresh water out of the spring

Dinosaur Island

Back in June I went on another trip that was organized by the same man I went on the spa/balloon trip with. This time it was with a larger group and instead of it being a day trip it was for the weekend. We went on a sailboat through some of the islands on the South West tip of Korea. Some of the islands are joined certain times of the year and are very famous here for that reason. We were also told they housed some of the most intact fossilized dinosaur footprints in the world.

The bus left at 130am on Friday and we didn’t get back until around midnight Sunday. Needless to say Jellycopter teacher was a little cranky come Monday when I had to go back to school. The trip itself was amazing. The weather held up and it wasn’t too hot or cold. It took about 12hours on the road, which included 2 hours getting lost. We made a few pit stops too, of course – one at a beautiful temple for about an hour to stretch our legs out. After looking at a map I still have no idea why or how it took us that long to get there. Anywho, when we finally got to the dock we were all pretty much zombies from traveling so long and not getting the best sleep from all the karaoke that was going on. I think I forgot to mention most of the private tour buss' here come with a full fledged karaoke machine and disco light show which we took full advantage of. Our zombie like state didn't matter much because the sailboat we were about to board on was incredible. We unloaded our bags into the various cabins below sea level then congregated top side to soak in the sun and go for a swim to refresh ourselves before we started sailing. We sailed for about almost 2 hours. The air was thick with fog. It seemed to almost hug the top of mountains of the deserted islands that passed by. It literally looked and felt like we were in the mist of travelling through time – to the land before time. We joked about taking bets on when the first Pterodactyl would swoop down and pick one of us off. I’d be lying if I said part of me didn’t believe it could happen. In the distance through the haze we saw what looked to be an occupied dock with other sailboats docked. Then we saw it... a giant 20 foot Tyrannosaurus Rex. Granit it was a statue, but still, it was pretty freaky considering the murky atmosphere we were surrounded in.

The island stay was such a nice escape. We got to explore different islands, take some time to relax and unwind, and share some stories and laughs with new found friends. Hope you enjoy the pics!  

  

April Showers bring May Flowers

I found this on my computer today. It was a trip I went on back in May but I forgot to post it. Oooooppsy:)

This past weekend was rainy and I thought I was just going to stay in and catch up on some self indulging TV series but instead I was invited to go on a day trip with one of my friends. We ended up going to a spa about an hour outside of Busan that was mostly indoors. I didn’t know much about it so I couldn’t do the normal research I would have done on the internet. I just went with it. The man that was in charge of planning it is an older Korean man that is an event organizer by trait. He organizes trips for foreigners on the side as a hobbie – its great for him because he gets to show his Country and practice his English at the same time. 

We arrived at a carnival type entrance and took our bags out of the van. One thing i’ve learned about Korea since being here is that no matter what you do, there’s sure to be random stuff involved. As soon as we walked in there was a side alley way full of giant balloon characters. It was some sort of balloon festival. It was amazing how many balloons were put into each design.

Next to all the balloons were other giant balloons, but a different kind – the floating, big enough to fit yourself into kind. How could I pass up on that? My girlfriend and I decided to take a spin in one of them that was built for two. It was wayyyyy harder than I thought it was going to be. We basically just bounced around in it for 5 minutes and floated with the ripples from the wind.  It was ridiculously fun though and we both couldn’t stop giggling from our lack of balance and fitness.

We then head up to one of the main buildings were the pool and restaurants were located. We changed into our bathing suits and swam around for a bit. There was also a giant stage in between the kids and adult pool. We were just in time for an act so we got out of the pool to watch the show. There was singing, dancing, and even a man that blew up a balloon and contorted his body to fit inside of it. Oh, Korea – you never cease to surprise me. After we had our entertainment fill we went upstairs to the outdoors spa. It was perfect too because it was off season so there wasn’t many people. The water came directly from deep within the earth and in some spots it was almost too hot to bare.  Believe it or not one of the restaurant actually sells soft boiled eggs that they cook in there. The rock cliff that surrounded it was beautiful. On top of the rock formation it was surrounded by a lush bamboo forest. It was incredibly relaxing and I soaked in every second of it.

There were a couple more relaxation pools inside that we hung out in. The other girls on the trip and I were debating if we should go inside to the women’s only spa. We said to hell with it and just went with it. It was a giant room surrounded by even more cliffs and caverns.  It was amazingly odd, and comfortable all at the same time. It was definitely another successful Korean experience for the books. 

Famous in Korea

I've been meaning to post this video for a while. I was asked via my school to go have tea with a group of older Korean women in one of the neighboring cities here. They said the women spoke very good English and it would be video taped as part of a piece they were doing for a show. I figured whats the worst that could happen, especially since they said we would be getting paid to do it. One of the other girls I work with said she would do it too. We had no idea what we were in for.....

We woke up fairly early because a woman was going to pick us up and drive us to where they were shooting. It took about an hour or so to get there. During the car ride we got more information on what exactly was in store for us. We were meeting up with an older lady (79 years old) in a coffee shop for a TV comedy type skit. The woman studied English on her own for the past 10 years from books in her apartment. She never had any formal lessons and she was quite famous from what our driver knew. I'll let you watch the video and decide for yourself. It is quite admirable that she would take it upon herself to study English at such an old age... but taking into consideration the piece was put in between a pet badger that does situps and an underwater break dancer I don't think it was a very serious video. It was quite the experience though. I'm a little embarrassed to show it on here since I have such crazy eyes in it. They gave me a script what to say but I don't think I was very convincing... there goes my acting career.

Anyways, hope you enjoy the video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XlLHYrq4go