LBkorea

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

More Andong - Boat Ride

Where we rode around in the boat.

Pirate ships. They live there.

This guy was everywhere in HomePlus.

Andong Photos Continued

Since blogger is a -you know what- with the amount of photos I can post. Here are the rest.

Wheee

Brendan and I tried to do this. I fell off and hit my knee.

We wanted to go in this boat but it had a huge whole in the middle. Never mind.

Brendan commented on the perfection of the grooming of these trees.

Girls use these on their face because they actually believe it will flatten their cheeks. Yep.

Andong Folk Village and Yeongdeok Snow Crab Festival

The weather is getting more mild and you know what that means...playing outside!! This past weekend we were outside and exploring all day both days - Saturday 62, and Sunday 64 degrees. Saturday we went to Andong to visit a folk village over 500 years old. People still live there! It was cool and like nothing we've seen before. We also took an unplanned trip up a mountain and on a speedboat ride. We thought we were being sneaky- the man at the booth in the front told us is would be $30 for the two of us for a boat ride. We did not want to pay it. But I told Brendan we should sneak down to the dock anyway and see if we could sweet talk the boat driver- in English?? Seemed like a good idea at the time. As soon as we walked down, the driver greeted us with open arms, asked no questions and threw us into life jackets. Hell yes!! Home free on the money front, or so we thought. We were the only ones on the little boat and the driver teased me by doing millions of donuts. I laughed and screamed so hard the whole time. It was so fun. When we were done with our ride, he invited us inside for coffee. We sat with him and spoke as much as we could, he escorted us out, and proceeded to ask us for the $30. Shucks! I think it was worth it, the cove was beautiful and the ride was so fun. Sunday was the Yeongdeok Snow Crab Festival - Brendan works in Yeongdeok on Tuesdays and Thursdays, It is a really pretty small town all along the water. After the festival, we went to our boss's house for a crab feast. It was a great weekend.
I am SUPER excited for this weekend. Saturday we are going on our first all day hiking trip. I read online where we are going takes around 7 hours roundtrip to to the top of the mountain and back. We need to start doing some mountain training because we want to climb advanced courses all summer and fall. The temple and mountain we are going to this weekend has 12 waterfalls!!!! It looks sooo awesome in the photos I've found online! We'll be sure to take plenty of our own. Then, the first weekend of April we are running in the Gyeongju Cherry Blossom Marathon. We are doing the 10k, the cherry trees will be blossoming and we'll run through roads lined with them.
We love you and miss you. Hope you enjoy the photos.

Fun.

Nice-uh.

On our way to the village.

Giant swings.

Yes, those are boobies.

Yes, that is a giant....

And so is that.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Much Love

Last night I dreampt I was cuddling with a bunch of dogs. Weird, huh? ...Let me explain.
I miss my dog. I miss my mom and dad and sister. I miss my grandparents. I miss my family and Brendan's family. Until now, my "homesickness" has been coming and going in manageable waves. Then I got sick, while passing the 2 month marker and was pulled into the undertow. This ain't no few weeks of vacation...

I don't want to whine. I made the decision to experience a year without familiarity, but sometimes it's just hard being away from your hugs. I am always reminded of why I chose this and I never regret doing so. I knew it would hurt sometimes, and here it is. Over the past couple years, I've really grown to understand the importance of family. I now understand more than ever before. To all of my family and friends who have been there for me throughout the years, especially my elders- mom and dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles, thank you for everything. All the Birthday calls, presents, family dinners and parties, I love you's, advice and endless other things. I probably never said thanks enough so here I am.

I wish you could all come here at the same time for a vacation :) This year will go by super fast, already 2 months have passed!!! Please do not worry (Mom :) I am totally fine just missing all my peeps in the big M.