Road Excursions
It apparently seems that my mental capacity to think after 9pm is decreasing ever so quickly as the time passes on and my energy and interest in sitting at the computer are very low. So I apologize to those of you who actually want to read about my "same-same" life.
Well, to sum up... has it really been two months since I last wrote???? ... The end of June came and went in a flurry and July wasn't much different! As always, there are the tensions of miscommunication and lack of respect at work, but Andrea and I were able to make some good time for play!
We headed to the west coast of Korea in the middle of
July for this AWESOME festival - it was a kind of advertising campaign for a cosmetic MUD - so basically we went and played in the mud! So fun! (The unfortunate part was that we bought a disposable camera to take photos down at the beach and at the end of the weekend, some one decided they would steal our camera, with a full roll of film! Seriously, I don't understand people sometimes!!) The weather wasn't the greatest, but the water was warm and the waves were HUGE, so we had a lot of fun swimming! It was almost like this huge outdoor spa :) 
with a mud bath followed by a seasalt scrub! We ended up meeting some of Andrea's friends from Pohang and played soccer in our bathing suits in the pouring rain until 5am!!!!!!!!!!! Never thought I could do something like that... we were on the beach with some random Korean men and a couple other foreigners and played and played! I even scored 2 goals! Talk about lucky :) Needless to say, I impressed those Korean men quite a bit! All that work ended and we felt the chills set in and decided to eat some soup to warm up... only to have our very early breakfast interrupted by a nasty, HUGE fight between some Koreans! It was NUTS! They broke two windows (pushed eachother through them) and then started breaking chairs over the heads of anyone who became involved in the fight! The cops came, but they didn't arrest anyone... I always thought that Korean cops would be tough because most of them are trained to the highest level in martial arts, but when these crazy people started hitting the cops, they just tried to "talk things over"... it's shocking! Drama, drama, drama.
In other news, we just got back from a 5 day "drive-around" vacation! Andrea, our friend Robyn, and I all got our Korean driver's licenses so we rented a car and the three of us, and Andrea's friend Natalie visiting from Canada, drove through almost all of the provinces in Korea!Our first stop was a Green Tea plantation in the area of Boseong (in case you want to look at a map of South Korea you'll be able to see where we went!), then we headed to an area called Haenam - just for the nite. We found a pretty nice hotel that was decently cheap... none of this "roughing" it stuff!
The next day we drove to an area called Mokpo, hoping to find some good beaches, but no luck. So we sat near the sea in this concrete walk-around (kind of like the sea wall in Vancouver I guess) to plan out what to do. We headed up a mountain by the sea and took some great photos and had pat-bingsu (an ice and red bean dessert) in this amazing, swanky coffee shop! It was a nice treat after a day in the car!
We continued to the beach area/National Park called Byeongsan (or something like that... Andrea's not around at the moment so I can't ask for names!!! hee hee!), found a hotel, and woke up the next morning for a day at the beach! It was a great beach... clean, sandy, and cool lava rocks/cliffs! It wasn't crowded like many of the beaches here in Busan; we were able to set up an area that was relatively private for just the four of us!
Later that day we drove towards the interior of Korea and ate bibimbap at a famous restaurant in the best area for bibimbap called Jeonju. Stayed the nite there and then headed out the next morning for Suwon (near Seoul), making a stop at Gapsa, one of the oldest standing temples in Korea. Apparently the site was supposed to have survived all the Japanese invasions and bombings and what not, but the buildings we saw looked fairly new... I was a bit confused :) We had tea at a traditional tea hut there and it was so peaceful being away from city noises and hearing the sound of gushing water and feeling the wind through the windows.
We made it to Suwon, ate some tofu, said goodbye to Natalie (she was off to Canada early the next morning), and drove for a couple hours east to a newer city called Wonju. We stayed the nite there, and continued our last part of the trip...We went to some caves - Kosu caves in an area called Danyang - and explored the "bowels" of the earth :) It was really breathtaking! There were times when you could look up or down and stare into these crevices that seem to go on forever!
On our last leg of the journey, we stopped in Pohang to see some of Andrea's old friends and finally arrived in Busan at 2am! YIKES! It was a long trip, but totally worth it... and sooooooooooooo cheap... VERY GOOD!
Now it's back to busy, busy, busy, BUSY schedules and having very little time to email/blog/etc. etc.
Andrea and I have found some great entertainment though... our friend Jacquelyn has got us hooked on the series "Six Feet Under" and we are addicted! It's this great show and I totally recommend it if you're looking for a totaly different kind of TV show to watch... it deals with so many "controversial" issues in very different, and fresh ways, and is a good "escape." We're also being introduced to lots of really great music, so downloading music keeps us entertained for hours... totally not something I'd ever be into... I feel like such a nerd... but if you're interested in learning about some interesting artists, look for the link to Jacquelyn's blog on my side bar... COMING SOON!
Well, hope that's a good enough summary... will try to write more in the weeks to come!
A link to lots of good photos on Andrea's photo site:
http://community.webshots.com/user/luvliestladee
posted by Esul... morning dew @ 8:08 p.m.
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