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Seoraksan - Hiking Biryeong Falls

1/18/2014

Our kids adore us, especially when we are on 'vacation' and we wake them up at 5AM to go hiking.
I'm talking A D O R E baby!
One has never heard such excitement.
They even adore us more when they get outside and realize it is MUCH COLDER than anticipated and their hoodies aren't cutting it...
Then we make them run to warm up.
I'm telling you, they adore us.
I can't wait to hear the stories they tell as adults.

The truth behind the wake up: Hubby woke up in a frenzy looking for his phone. HIS PHONE....do you know why? He needed to check the score of the Bronco game. During the search for HIS phone (he couldn't use mine...and it was sitting in plain site - right out in the open!) he turned on lights, tripped over kids (remember we are on a Korean holiday....floor sleeping is the norm!) and made LOTS of noise. All to check the scores at 5AM. AND then we had to hike early so we could make the 3.5 hour drive back home so he could watch a game.

Who does that?

In the end it turned out to be PERFECT.

We only passed one other person on the trail.

So quiet.

So peaceful.

Just us and nature.

I would totally do it again.

This is a super easy hike.
The only 'hard' part are some stairs, but there aren't that many.
Distance is 2.4 KM each way and it took maybe 2 hours with lots of stopping.

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Hiking Seoraksan - Ulsan Bawi Rock Course

1/17/2014

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One of our favorite things to do in Korea is to hike.
I was particularly excited to hike Seoraksan in the fall.
Ahhh, Beautiful Korea....

I'm not sure what these roof tiles were going to be used for but I thought they were super cool.

There are even crowds on the hiking trails in Korea....

Girl wasn't feeling well so Boy 1 stayed at the base of the mountain with her. I think it was a ploy because when we got back they had been having a great time hanging out together - they had played in water, skipped rocks and texted me a million times asking when we would be done.

On the mountain the boys were getting along great...I love it when that happens!

Not even close...

The views on this hike was A M A Z I N G ! !

I can't get over it.
Koreans can drink.
Even at the top of the mountain they stop for a little makkoli!
I'm afraid I would fall down and break my neck!

We made it!
4KM to the top!

This our stunning view!

Heading back down.

3.5 hours from home and we run into friends on the mountain.
I'm always amazed when something like this happens.

This took about 4 hours round trip.
It was tough in some areas.
Not for the faint of heart.

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Our Seoraksan National Park Weekend Getaway - Just Getting There Was an Adventure....

1/17/2014

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This past November we all hopped in the car and headed to Seoraksan National Park in our awesome $2,000 hooptie that I wasn't sure would make it. I mean she has been sputtering, dying and really just being down right feisty for the past couple of months - I've been praying that she will just make it till we move in June. I was prepared to have another Korean adventure of being stuck on some random street up in the mountains while she was being repaired. Good thing that didn't happen. Ends up I think she just needed to get out and feel the breeze on her bumper and get some fresh air in her engine. Anyway she's been running awesome since we took her over 20MPS. :o)

SO, I think it took us about 3.5 hours to get to Seorak (that's what happens when I don't post right away...I forget. I need to start taking notes) and we saw things we can't undo. I'm going to share them with you. If you have little people in the room, well, it is probably too late....I'm sure they already saw this picture. I'm sorry. If you want you can have them call me and I will explain it to them.

Yes.
That is what you think it is.
A GIANT PENIS STATUE.
In fact this was a penis statue buying area.
Buy them for your yard, buy them for your car, buy them for your house.
You can buy them to take SHOTS IN!!
You know because you can NEVER have too many penis - peni? I don't even know.

While on the way to our hotel we say signs for the DMZ, so we detoured.
We passed through too man rock drops....

And I ask hubby to drive extra soft though the mine fields.
Are you kidding me?!
I was afraid if we had a blow out or our hooptied died we would surely be goners.
Thank goodness that didn't happen.

This is North Korea.
We weren't allowed to take pictures but I'm a rebel.
I was that close.

As we were trying to find our hotel all the young'ens were complaining that they were STARVING so we found a place and went in. Only to find out this is what they served:

OK...this is the part of my blog where you might decide we need to break up. If that is the case so be it. It was nice knowing you. But we had to. We were there and while in Korea you know...

If you don't want to know what we TRIED, skip this part. Don't read anymore. Go down to to the picture of the piles of poop pillow hammers. I'll leave some empty space. Close your eyes and scroll.

It was dog.
I know, I know.
I never planned to try it, but when you happen upon a restaurant that serves it and all the stars are lining up....well you do want the universe is asking you to do.....I know many of you would not listen to the universe and you would turn around and RUN, but not me....I embraced it. Sucked it up and continued on.
Plus, I am here to tell you that they don't kill your pets...they breed a certain type of dog for food.
Just like cattle, pigs and chickens.
And dog as food is REALLY, REALLY bad.
My stomach churned before I tried it.
The smell was enough to knock your socks off.
And when it hit my mouth I wanted to spit it out.
I'm talking NASTY.

Good thing they had other things to eat.
It was never on my bucket list, but I added it and checked it off.

YOU can start reading again!
Korea is not only obsessed with the penis, they also have an odd amount of poop things here too.
Poop hammers.
I don't even know.

Next up.
Hiking.
I think it should be a clean post.

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Taejongdae Park, Busan

9/14/2012

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While researching things to do I stumbled across information on Taejongdae Park. I was excited to go as I read things like "Taejongdae is a natural park, dense evergreen trees & a lighthouse". PLUS, it is #6 on trip advisor under things to do in Busan. The parts I missed were you can ride around the entire park by train and as the park has a manmade street/path all the way around the park. Although this hike was not what I was expecting we had a great time.

All the people riding this train looked at us like we were crazy to be walking since it is super cheap to ride the train. :)

We found this totally cool spider muching on a few things he found in his web.

Taejongdae is known for its rocky beaches and magnificent cliffs facing the open sea on the southernmost tip of island of Yeongdo-gu. We had a great time playing on the rocks and enjoying a little family time....

....while the teenager viewed us from a distance while texting his girlfriend.

We went on a perfect day! Not too hot, but still nice enough to enjoy!

Hubby has recently started a salt water fish tank. He has done tons of research and discovered it is best to add sea water, live rocks and anemones straight from the ocean to your tank. He we are searching for goodies to add to the tank.

Here are some of our goodies that are now living in our fish tank. :)
Just in case you were wondering - I have the best husband ever.

Finally Boy 1 happily joined us (after I threatened to take his phone away and to embarrass him beyond belief if he didn't join us).
He really dislikes his picture being taken, but I think he is just so stinkin' handsome I can't help snapping a few pics of him.

What is this strange looking thing in the middle of our 'nature' hike?

It was a pretty foggy day, but when we looked through the telescopes we could see Japan just beyond this little island.

Cargo ships....I'm pretty sure my friend Michelle's stuff is on one of those. :)

Boy 3 thought these little fire hydrants were pretty cool.

The Mother/Child statue & me with my children.

King TaeJong (whom this park is named after) traveled to many places but this was the place he enjoyed
shooting arrows and so they honor him here with this lovely arrow art thingie .

The lighthouse. (Obviously.)

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Ahhh...This is the Life!

9/11/2012

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Who would have thought Busan, South Korea would have such a fun little beach area right in the middle of a SUPER BUSY town?!

The view from our room on the 26th floor at 8AM on a Monday morning.

The three little kids and I head to the beach while the big boys slept. We were the only people on the beach for over an hour and we had an amazing time!

How fun is this picture? Our kids are awesome!

Love it! :)

Having WAY too much fun!

I can't help but smile when I look at these fun pictures!

After an hour or so Hubby and Boy 1 joined us.

Two of my favorite cuties!

Can you believe how big they are? I can't.

They have deliver services on the beach. I almost felt like I was at a baseball game. We bought fried chicken from the guy that was speaking Hangul (Korean) and then he looked at me and said 'chicken'. I said 'nay' - which means yes in Korean, which is TOTALLY confusing because most American think 'nay' would mean no, but they shake their head yes when they say 'nay' and 'nay' means yes ~ got it? Anyway, I bought the chicken and then I ask for the Cass guy (beer guy). He came right over. Chicken and beer...that is how they do it here in South Korea ~ Hubby makes fun of me and asks me "Why do you always say South Korea? ~ Like people would think we live in North Korea?" Whatever. That's the way I roll. South Korea.

Chicken and Beer in SOUTH KOREA.

Boy 2 with his hole.

Our FREE babysitting service.
No joke, these guys played with our kids for at least 2 hours!!! It was AWESOME. They took pictures, buried them in the sand, and played in the water with them and all the time I lounged. Ahhh...life is good. :)

Good times, great fun Busan (or Pusan - P's and B's are interchangeable here) SOUTH KOREA.

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Birthday, Busan & Beach! (Day 1)

9/8/2012

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Hubby has the best birthday EVER! Labor Day weekend always falls right around his birthday meaning he always get a long weekend attached to his birthday! This year his birthday fell on Saturday - we woke up, had ice cream cake for breakfast and then hit the road to Busan for a relaxing weekend in the sun!

We couldn't decide to take the KTX or drive to Busan - in the end we drove THINKING it would be cheaper, but since we had to rent a car (we didn't trust our hooptie to make it to Busan - a 5 hour drive) and pay our more money in tolls than we expected (over 50,000 won!) AND having to buy gas off post (CRAZY expensive!) ...well, we spent about the same amount of money as we would have it we had taken the train. Next time, KTX here we come. 2.5 hours each way vs. 5 hours each way....learn from our mistakes and fork out the $$ and take the train - this way you can drink on the way and the fighting in the backseat won't seem as painful! :)

At a rest stop having a little snack.

This trip I took advice from my Korean friend. "Never rent a pension on the beach. They are too expensive, dirty and a party place."

This time we stayed in a hotel. When we walked into the room Hubby exclaimed, "WE HAVE BEDS!" He was SO happy as he had been sleeping on the floor for the past two weeks during the military exercise he was on.

Don't worry, they brought in extra bedding for the kids.

We even had a cute little kitchen with a fridge. Ahhh, life is good in a hotel. See the glass wall to the left of the picture (and to the right in the picture above)? That is our bathroom. Very cool.

And even though we had a western style hotel, the towels were still scarce.....this is what we got - 2 hand towels and 1 bath towel. I ask for more I got the big "NO - no more, only exchangie".

We had an amazing view:

It actually took us 7 hours to get to Busan with stops and our GPS kept taking us the LONG way. Finally we gave up on the GPS and used a good old fashion map. So when we finally got to Busan and got checked into our hotel it was pretty late, but we had to go out and hit the beach for a little moonlight stroll.....

This was the night of the Blue Moon back in the states...

Boy 3 being a trouble maker....

He had just splashed his brother, who didn't want to get wet...

After hanging with the kids on the beach for a while we tucked them in bed with Boy 1 babysitting and headed out for a birthday date night with my man.

A cute little shopping area near Haeundae Beach where we were staying.

We found this cute little restaurant with tables outside - perfect for eating and people watching.

That girl is cutting Kimchi....I've never had a Kimchi girl before - how fun is this?!?

One would think you would get pork at a place called "Pig Dream"....

After dinner...Hubby wanted soju for his birthday celebration. God help me! :)

I SO want this planter for my front yard! :)

Happy Birthday to my Hunk of Burning Love! Here's to many more together.

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Eurwangni Beach

8/4/2012

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Since being in Korea we haven't had time to do lots of fun family things....we had planned to go to the Mud Festival, but that weekend we had the "Koeran Krud" - the sickness each family gets within a month upon arriving to the peninsula. The Korean Krud hit my boys pretty hard and we had to cancel our trip to the Mud Festival. THEN I tried to plan a trip for us to Yeosu, you know, the place where the World Expo (World Fair) is going on. Wouldn't you know it, I started looking too late and almost EVERY train is booked to Yeosu from now until the end of the festival.

In the spirit of NOT GIVING UP, we started looking into other options and when a coworker of Hubby's told him that he and his family went to the beach the previous weekend we decided to look into it. This sounded perfect! It is only about an hour outside the city by Incheon Airport and is a pretty popular area. I can't believe this is the first time we are hearing about it! We booked a pension, packed a bag and headed West to Eurwangni Beach Saturday morning.

After getting out of the car this is the first thing we saw! This MUST be a good sign!

I couldn't believe how meticulous this guy was in making our Mojito. In the end he wasn't happy with the placement of the mint so he took the lid off, used some sort of cocktail tweasers and moved the mint leaves back into place put the lid back on and smiled and handed it to me.

5,000 won and delicious to boot!

This is what we saw after mojito man:
Tent city...I guess you can camp on the beach here...

After tent city we came upon these little platforms with umbrellas. We knew about these from the year we went to the Mud Festival. They are super cool, but kind of expensive to rent. (35,000 won)

However we are not quite as savvy as the Koreans, they bring their grills and really have a feast on the beach...we only had fruit and sandwiches...I was really hoping someone would invite us over for Korean BBQ! :o)

After setting up camp we headed down to the beach and this is what we saw, and it only got busier. There were bodies EVERYWHERE. The good news is it was REALLY easy to spot our kids!

Tents and umbrellas lined the beach.

After applying the proper amount of sunscreen, we all headed down to the beach.

My handsome little bug. Check out the people in the background. The kids were like superstars.

She really is a good big sister.

I love this man.

Just hangingout in the Yellow Sea having a ball.

My favorite sound on earth...I can hear her giggling just from looking at this picture.

Do you see what I see? Boy 3 getting thrown from his tube!

KOREAN BEACH ATTIRE: I felt totally out of place. I only saw one other lady in a bikini and she was also a foreigner.

If I were a betting woman, I would bet that Koreans don't have as many skin cancer issues as us Americans do. I've never seen so many long sleeves, floppy hats, sweaters, socks, shoes and umbrellas on a beach in my entire life. This helps me understand why Koreans have such beautiful skin.

This guy is wearing army sleeves. You can buy them everywhere, even while riding the subway.

Long sleeves and 2 hats.

This is just sweet. Look at how delicate her umbrella is.

Look at the couple above Boy 3's head. That girl is wearing a SWEATER. Did I mention it was in the high 90's?

If you notice, this couple is wearing shoes. The lady had on leather sandals and the guy had on socks and sneakers.

This lady looked at me like I had three heads. I'm assuming it is because I was wearing a bikini. I think she was worried about my skin - yeah, we will go with that. :)

Pension House: A penson house is a hotel of types - is a traditional room that is mostly preferred by Koreans. It has floor heating to keep the floor warm during the winter season and rooms with no bed -blankets are placed on the floor for sleeping. The pillows tend to be hard and made of sand - pebbles - I'm really not sure what their pillows are made of. With all this being said, we THOUGHT we knew what we were in for. I mean we have stayed in a pension in Korea before.

We rented a 2 bedroom pension with 2 bathrooms. We were all hot and nasty from being in the water so we were going to take showers and head out to dinner. We have 2 bathrooms so 2 people can take showers at the same time - right? WRONG....in the 2nd bathroom something was missing - the shower head!!! The plumbing for a shower was there, but the shower head and faucet to turn the shower on were NO WHERE TO BE SEEN. I can't even imagine what could have happened to them. Down to one shower - 6 people taking turns. We stuck Boy 3 in the sink and showered him here:

I wish I had taken more pictures but I was a little freaked out by my surroundings and it was DANG hot inside the pension. There was ONE air conditioner in the main room of the pension and one fan - we moved the fan into the main room and shut the doors to the bedrooms in HOPES that the main room would cool down while we went out to eat.

Check out this bedroom: The wallpaper was attached with tape - well, kind of. True story. It was lovely. Oh, check out those floors. They felt like plastic and you could lift it up.

At this point the children are freaked out. Especially Boy 1. I continued to be positive and kept telling them it was not so bad. I said "We are going to come back and play games - it will be an adventure! Something we will look back on and laugh. WE ARE GOING TO HAVE FUN DANG IT!"

Then they showed me the towel I had to dry off with after my shower. Again, I laughed and said. "This is awesome! A totally Korean experience. This is a great!" (They still were not convienced.)

Our beds. Totally what I expected. All a part of the fun! :o)

Me - "The beds are all made! We aren't even going to use the bedrooms. We are going to have a big sleepover! This is going to be so much fun! We are going to play games and hang out together all night!"

Boy 1 growls.

Hubby turns the TV on to watch the Olympics while we are getting ready to go out to dinner when I hear: "There is no sound. This remote is not turning the sound up even though it shows it is. What the blank, blank, blank is wrong with this blanking thing." A few minutes later I hear "the blanking button is broken on this blanking TV. Are you kidding me? How much did we blanking pay for this blaking place?"

I couldn't help but laugh and say "We are going to have fun!" with the sweetest southern voice I can muster as I'm drying off with my little hand towel.

Did you notice the wall paper? One wall is orange the other is pink with something on it? The pink patterned wall paper only goes 1/2 way up the wall, and then it is a different wall paper. It was awesome.

Finally we headed out to dinner. Korean Chicken and Beer. At least we know everyone likes Korean chicken.

Boy 3 learning a life lesson - how to open a bottle.

Can't you tell by the look on my face..."We are having a great time!"

After Hubby licks my face everything turns to pot. The kids start drinking from watering cans,

crabs and shovels. Chicken is thrown.

Boy 1 just wants to go home and disown us all.

After dinner we have another fun bathroom experience. The Korean coed bathroom.

Finally we get back ot the pension where we play Charades. It was totally fun - there was lots of laughing and cutting up. Until one word was "MOM" and it was acted out by by one of my children. (I won't mention which child but it is possible he is pictured below.) There was lots of silent yelling and finger pointing. It took all of a millisecond for the rest of the audience to guess "MOM"! Humm, I think I need to do some soul searching. (And I didn't think I was a yeller...) It was still fun even after I realized my kids think I'm the evil yelling woman. :)

As we were settling down for the night, the noise level in the pension was on the rise. Hubby suggested that we just pack up and head home. I was insistent that we stay - reminding him that we were having fun and that I was looking forward to hitting the beach again tomorrow. I told him it wasn't that bad...we were fine. Plus, when I am at home I always feel like I need to be working, when I am in a hotel I can at relax - even if the hotel is falling apart around us. He agreed and we lay on the floor to go to sleep. As I drifted off to go to sleep Boy 1 started freaking out doing a crazy ass man dance and said a big spider was crawling on him, he said it crawled on his arms and his face and there was NO WAY he could sleep with that thing on the loose. I growled at him and told him to suck it up - we are having fun (dang it!)! He tried, but kept freaking out. Hubby and I were facing each other when Hubby quietly said to me "I think we should pack up and go home. Call it for what it is and go home and sleep in our own bed." I didn't say anything for a little while...then I checked the time. Yes, we can make it back to Yongsan before curfew.

The Pension at Eurwangni Beach beat us down. We packed up and headed home, only to get home and find out our air conditioner was broken.

We are still having fun. Just ask our kids. :o)

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“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you
did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

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Hi, I'm Trish, the writer, creator and photographer of this blog. I started this blog for 2 reasons, 1 - When I found out we were moving to Korea back in 2008 I was a little freaked out and started scouring the internet for information on Korea. At that time there wasn't much out there so I am doing my part in helping families across the world not be so freaked out when it comes time to move to Korea. The 2nd reason I started this blog was to help stay connected to family members back in the states. Today it is so much more that.
I hope you enjoy our journey.

Are you moving to Korea? Do you have questions, concerns? Are you freaking out? Freak out no further - click the button to ask a question. I'll do my best to answer open and honestly.

Moving to Korea?

Seoraksan - Hiking Biryeong Falls

Hiking Seoraksan - Ulsan Bawi Rock Course

Our Seoraksan National Park Weekend Getaway - Just Getting There Was an Adventure....

Taejongdae Park, Busan

Ahhh...This is the Life!

Birthday, Busan & Beach! (Day 1)

Eurwangni Beach

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