Category — Travel

One evening in Seoul. . .

Behold Doota. This is the one tiny shopping maze we entered in the huge shopping district, Dung Dae Mun, in Seoul.

Chad loves shopping.

In hunter/gatherer fashion, he went in search of water and returned with news of nourishment never before seen by our Western eyes.

Which did we choose?

This – - a hot dog covered in batter and french fries.

One bite.

Bigger than my head.

Our friend Eve partaking in this artery hardening endeavor.

Dave took a bite, don’t worry.

Phew, okay, after that dramatic presentation of a taste of the tastes we got in Seoul, hello! We had a marvelous weekend full of things we would like to share with you soon. Most of the pictures we took were of events such as these. So, you get to see the quirks of Seoul. I hope everyone is well!Sleep time!

K

Ddeok – Korean rice cake

This particular ddeok (celebrating Chuseok) is filled with a sweet sesame concoction. The outside is compressed rice, very gelatinous. They are traditionally made with lots of spit.

As we were climbing Taebek-san we met a family of Koreans at one of the peaks. The daughter spoke English very well. She has studied in Boston AND her English nickname is Kate! We had a nice little chat and her mother gave us their bag of Chuseok Ddeok! They were the least thought ddeok I had tasted . . . so probably more pit in this one than the ones we had at school!

Bellow is a little video on the top of Taebek-san, Chad is describing the ddeok.

Two weekends ago Kate and I had a long weekend (5 days) for the Korean holiday of Chuseok. We decided to do some traveling over the break so we went to Taebaek City to go hiking with two of our friends Melanie and Michael. Taebaek is about an Hour from Samcheok by bus and it’s up in the mountains so there is a lot of great hiking.

Michael and Melanie – from Colorado – so they also like hiking… Michael has done about half of the 14ers! – (I’ve done… 5…. We got to Taebaek on Saturday night and found a place to eat that could accomidate the herbivores then went bowling! (Wandering around a new unknown city that is all in Korean is kind of hard, but we entertained ourselves pretty well). We stayed in a “Love Motel” which is.. well exactly what it sounds like, but they are the “normal” hotels in Korea – with the cost being about half that of a “Marriot” or some other chain hotel, everyone uses them when they travel. It was pretty nice actually – only odd thing was the foggy glassed bathroom and red light over the bed… but eh.. for only $45 a night we couldn’t complain.

We went hiking the next day in the Taebaeksan (Taebaek Mountains)

The terrain was surprisingly difficult! Which was good, and because of the humidity and heat we were all sweaty and tired by the top. (A good hike On our way up we stopped at a Temple a few hundred meters from the trail –

It was very cool – but it had be renovated for the mountain winters with nice windows and other amenities. The monks were chanting in the distance celebrating their ancestors – after all this was Chuseok – the Korean Thanksgiving day. We kept hiking and got to the top in about 3 hours.

This is a monument/temple at the top where people go to pray. It was quite busy because of Chuseok – and because this is one of the holiest mountains in Korea.

On our way down we found this amazing tree.. so we went in

Hey look – a Cliff! I will go peer over it Sorry mom… IT wasn’t that bad.. I promise.
We found the Sword in the stone!!

It was a great hike and a great trip. We even bought CHEESE at the E-Mart in Taebaek. (Very exciting!) We came back on Monday and still had Tuesday and Wednesday off to clean and relax before school started again. Hooray vacations in your 3rd week of work