I usually don't like packaged trips, but it ended up being a lot of fun. I went with my co-worker and a few other friends. The first leg of the trip was getting into Seoul for the pick up point scheduled for too early in the morning after a little night of soju cocktails at a friend's house in Seoul.
The first stop we made was to the 4th infiltration tunnel near Eulji. No pictures were allowed to be taken there.. so I don't have anything to show. It was really interesting though. The beginning of the tunnel was dug by South Koreans with a state of the art tunnel machine from Germany. This tunnel was huge and white, perfectly symmetrical in every way. The North Korean tunnel starts at the end of this. This tunnel was much different, it was smaller and imperfect, dank and had many holes for dynamite. It was still a really impressive hole that was dug by a country with no friends nor money. We took a little train ride for a couple meters through and then turned around about 100 meters from the border.
After the tunnel we went to observe the DMZ(demilitarized zone) at Eulji. It looked a lot like South Korea, except with miles and miles of barbed wire and probably millions of landmines.
Hi North Korea! (what a horrible trip to have lost my sunglasses right before)
After the observation of the North, we went to a small town called Yanggu for their summer "belly button" festival. But first we had a stop at a grocery store to stock up on soju, beer, and mix. The guides on the trip were quite serious about keeping us toasted and with taking many pictures.
First stop at the festival was next to one of the pools, where we got painted and painted our selves with white mud. Many of us got soju on our backs, the theme of the weekend.
Then we were going to go boating, but my group wasn't patient/didn't have enough people.. so we skipped out.
Made it back for getting out tents though.
Then there was a treasure hunt in a giant sand box. I found an awesome visor with built in shades, so much for missing my sunglasses! I also found some new friends :)
They had 2 pools and a giant thing that squirted up streams of water at the camp site. There was a wading pool for the kids and a 5ft deep pool. We spent most of our freetime before dinner doing dives and cannon balls into the pool.
Dinner was samgipsal(pork). By the time dinner came about, I was one of the few that could manage the grill. Barely. I burnt myself pretty badly and still have a nasty scar from it.
After dinner we went swimming in the wade pool. We did a bunch of "wacky races" where you could only go on your knees, wheel barrow style, or backwards. Then some Korean kids kept coming over, so we had a pushing over battle. I got 10 of them in 1 push, it was great. They were having such a good time.At night, after much trial and error, a campfire was built. We sat around drinking and playing "I never" until everyone found their tents.
In the morning we went hiking through a valley. It was thankfully an easy hike. The scenery was beautiful and the water was crystal clear. They brought us to some rocks that we could jump off of. The water was icy cold but soothing to our hungover stomachs.
My friend said I take boring pictures, so I started posing like him.
It was such a super fun weekend, I met of ton of people and have continued having a friendship with most of them. Oh August... how I miss you. Summer is over in Korea. Its fall now. The leaves are just starting to change. Every now and then I see one fall and I want to yell at it to pull itself together and to not be a quitter. I'm not ready for fall! or winter for that matter!
This weekend is a 3day weekend here in Korea. Its for the holiday Chuseok, kind of like thanksgiving. I'm going on another adventure korea trip to the island Ulleungdo. I'm so excited!!!!
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