Again apologies on the lack of updating. Life's gotten busy and for the better. I've made a vow to try and get in some blogging thisweek - especially since the last few weeks have been so exciting.
For now, I'm gonna touch up on some summer activities that I, and my group of friends, have found ourselves doing recently. Things we weren't able to do before - which makes it all the more exciting and new.
There won't be many pictures in this one - but my next blogposts - about my Mother's visit and about my recent Templestay - will have enough to entertain the photographic observers amongst you.
So then - on with it.
Korea is immensely proud of its 4 distinct seasons and summer has already separated itself from Springtime. I think it got up to 92 today with that ever-so-lovely Asian humidity factoring in. Yikes. So, Seoul has become a hotzone more or less and on weeekends the group has taken to looking for other options - beaches, hillsides, etc - anything outdoors that may not include the 20 million people that Seoul does.
The first of our adventures was to Chuncheon/Nami Island. I had heard about the former from some friends and learned it wasn't too far away from town. The country recently built a trainline to go out there so the group stayed near my on Friday night and on Saturday we headed out.
Chuncheon is famous for dak-galbi, for one. A spicy chicken dish - they have a whole street dedicated to it - and since its the dak galbi capital of the only country that eats dak galbi I deemed it the "Dak Galbi Capital of The World" and insisted we eat it at least once (we did twice).
Chuncheon is also a smaller city, so we trekked out past the International Mime Festival (that got real weird, real fast) and went to an island near the city. It's a smaller island, just in themiddle of a large river but one can enjoy themselves.
We started that island adventure with a game of kick volleyball (the korean name is escaping me right now) against some city government workers who were spending their saturday having a picnic. getting drunk. getting very, very drunk. so drunk, inf act, that after the game (they beat us - it was our first time) they gave us all of their leftover booze. think they called it quits.
We got some sweet tandem bikes and rode those around for an hour or so. Had some drinks on the dock and watched some friends do some watersports. Relaxing.
The next day we went to alarger island - Nami - and enjoyed some Swan boats, more docks and watersports and just general walking around a beautiful landscape far removed from the insane sprawl of Seoul. Nami is famous for being a couple's retreat and had many romantic scenes and settings - one of which Schofield and I playfully posed for the pic below.
The first weekend in June was a long one - the first Monday being a holiday. Again we looked to get out of the city and made plans to visit Muuido - a smaller island near Incheon Airport where we rented out shacks that were just big enough for 4 peopleto sleep and no more. And there we spent our long weekend, eating some seafood, playing a lot of beach wiffleball, drinking and enjoying the company of ourselves and the blazing sun. It was also the first time any of us had gotten even remotely tan since our SouthEast Asian campaign.
I could write more about Muuido but it was more of blissful nothingness than anything else. Just a retreat of relaxation and a side of Korea not often seen by us cityfolk.
Okay, more to come!
Enjoy!
-e.g.
ahhh. ill leave a song for y'all. Madeleine Peyroux brings her jazz side to Dylan's "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go". I never take much away from Bobby - especially about a song on my favorite album of his - but a woman's voice does this song good...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRR5YrpbBe4
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