Thursday, September 18, 2008

Happy Chuseok and lots more!

Well Hello Everyone!

Sending big smiles and hugs to everyone back home!!! I've been busy over the past month with lots of great adventures!

Three weeks ago I went to this wicked mountain in the interior of Korea, Songnisan. I went with a group of my friends along with 2 English bloaks who were hear visiting my friend Chris (the guy I went to Japan with). We had a great time! The park was surrounded by 600 year-old pine trees and had many Temples. The most extravagant of the Temples was Beopjusa Temple on Mt. Songnisan. It was built in the 14th year of Silla King Jo-Heung's reign. Here I saw the biggest standing Buddha ever! It was wild, I found it a bit much as it seemed a bit goddy...

After we visited the extravagant statue and Temple grounds we headed up the mountain to find our lodge. We stayed an hour in from the main entrance. It was great we were hiking along a fairly rugged path and then boom there was our little lodge. It was a really beautiful setting with a stream running through the area. That night the owners served us up an all veggie dinner which was delicious. The next day we hiked up through temples, streams, beautiful trees to the top of of Songnisan Mountain. The view was amazing and the rock formations were really wild! On the way down we were so hot and sweaty that we found a great stream to swim in and a natural waterslide!!!

The weekend after that was my really good friend Maria's birthday. So we had a birthday bash for her on the rooftop of her and her hubbies apartment. The next day I got up fairly early and headed out for a beach that's only about an hour away from my city. I went with 2 wicked friends and all we did was sit around, sing, drink wine and swim. What I call a perfect Sunday!!

Last weekend was one of the 2 biggest celebrations in Korea. It's called Chuseok and is basically their Thanksgiving. Unfortunately for everyone the holiday fell on a Sunday so everyone in the entire country only got one day vacation! (They work way to much in this country)For the vacation I went up to Seoul to meet all my friends from there and head to a beautiful island of the island of Incheon (that's where the International airport is). We took a fast ferry and where there within an hour. We weren't the only ones with the idea of going to an island though. When we got there we soon found out that almost every English teacher from Seoul was there! Well, maybe I'm exagerating a bit, but still there were more foreigners there then I've seen since I got to Korea. At first it was almost an annoyance that all these foreigners were at the same place, but we found a perfect little camping area and had an amazing time all together.

The highlight of the weekend was meeting a family of Koreans who sat down with us late on Saturday night. We all just sat around drinking soju and talking Konglish, so good!

Most recently it was my friend Sarah's birthday so in her honour we headed back to the beach. I've been to more beaches this past summer then I've ever been to! I love it! It was a great low key weekend :)

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Mount Mudang Defeated!

Mount Mudang Defeated!