Chuseok and myserious Ulleungdo

So I'm now writing about something that happened in the beginning of October and it is now almost November, time flies so fast when you work so much and rest so little. Anyway, this is all about what I did for Chuseok, it is a major Korean holiday.. kind of like Thanksgiving. We did many traditional things. I even got to wear hanbuk, the traditional Korean clothes.
First we had a traditional tea ceremony.



Me with my adorable babies.








Then we made seong cheong (or something like that), which are little dumpling balls filled with sugar, cinnamon and sesame seeds.

Then we did some traditional wrestling.








And a traditional stick throwing game, which teacher won (hohoho!).

My kindergarten! ALL MINE! I love being a kindergarten teacher more than I ever thought I would. They are the highlight of my day.

The best part of this holiday was getting Friday off!!!!! 3 day weekend! For this rare and special occasional I decided to go to the mysterious island of Ulleungdo. Ulleungdo is about a 3 hour ferry ride from Donghae(about 40minutes south of where I live). Everything I read about the island said it was was known for its rocks, pumpkins, squid, no snakes, and beautiful women. I can personally attest to the first four. Ulleugdo was absolutely amazing, the most beautiful place I've seen in Korea so far if not the world. It almost didn't feel like Korea aside from the Korean and drying squid all over the place.

Mukho <->Ulleungdo!

And the boat that brought me there!

First view of the island.. looks like Jurassic Park!

























After checking into the hotel we went on a bus tour around most of the island. Every rock here has its own name. We stopped at turtle rock, pictured below but too big to be actually pictured. There was also lion rock, llama rock, "I'm coming" rock, elephant rock, 3 angel/fairy rock, and nose, hand, and triangle rock (named by me).





















We saw a peaceful temple. At the temple my friend and I got invited inside to eat some potato pancake and sugar dumplings, the best I've ever had.














Views~!











We stopped at the only flat land on the island, inside an extinct volcano. Population of this town was 120 or something, population of all of Ulleungdo is only about 10,000.
At the village we had some pumpkin makkoli(the milky rice wine). I know that in a previous entry I said that this stuff tastes like "fermented cow jizz," but I'm glad I give it another go. It really does grow on you and makes you very silly indeed.










We woke up early the next morning to rain, but then the rain stopped and we went on an "easy" hike. PAH! yeah right! Just the road up to the trail winded me. Cement going straight up is killer for me. I much prefer walking through wooded trails.

"death"

But the way up got easier and the views were amazing.












Until the stairs came. And didn't end. At least my short legs had the advantage on the way down.

I am Mountain Conqueror!

At the very top of the mountain, you could see the Dokdo rocks.... the long contested territory between Korea and Japan.



On the way off the mountain.. we must have taken a wrong path somewhere. We came out on the highway with the city a million miles away. All the roads in Ulleungdo are in curvy cues, it would have taken forever to had gotten back. Yup. I hitchhiked! First time in my life, a nice family picked us up and dropped us at the hotel. 2 hours trekk back turned into a 5 minute drive. Thanks Korean family!



After lunch, we headed to the sea for a swim. The water was actually still warm. And so clear that you could see giant jellyfish, the biggest I've ever seen, floating far far in the distance.












My favorite meal in Ulleungdo was the mussel rice, it was so delicious! Second favorite was pumpkin pizza.



The streets were very tiny, and all one way. Also, just about everyone has a jeep here.. very different from mainland Korea where tiny cars rule.











Goodbye beautiful Ulleungdo. I will miss you!!!
The boat ride back was rough for most people, I took some motion sickness pills and zonked out. But a lot of people got really sick :( If you're going to Ulleungdo, I'd suggest you take a pill!










PS. I hitchhiked again on the way back to the bus terminal! hoho

adventure korea : camping and wilderness august 15th

In August I went on a packaged trip with adventurekorea.com.
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!!!!