Korean Folk Village

My most recent trip was up to a Korean Folk Village between Osan and Seoul. This time I just went with some friends from Church rather than with the CAC (Community Activities Center) which saved me about $25 or so.

Just passed the entrance was a shopping/ restaurant area, which we came back to for dinner. I got an onion pancake since I enjoyed the one I had on my first tour. This one ended up using way too much onion and not enough of the meat, but it wasn't too bad.

Some of the items in the were really cool, but most were a little too costly for me. If I was rich I would of probably walked out with a lot of trinkets like the pressure point sandals, or a pewter warrior, or maybe even the gold-leafed piggy bank, which was the size of my two fists put together, because it was really cute. But I'm not sure I'd want a piggy bank that is worth more than the money I could fit inside it. :) There was also a bazaar at the far end of the village, which is where I bought my little girls a parasol and a milkshake in a bag, which was Delicious!

The first building we stopped at was the equivalent to the court house. Here's where the leaders would try you and set your punishment...

... which was carried out in the court yard if it was serious enough, by beating you as you were tied down or breaking your legs. Ouch!

If the crime was less serious you simply were locked up and probably given poor food. Here's me locked up in a neck bar. "I'm Sorry" *sniff* *sniff* :)

They had some costumes that the little kids could dress up in. They were too adorable not to get a picture of them.

We saw a lot of different styles of housing, depending on where in Korea they were found and different time periods. Here's a black smith shop, where they made and sold kitchen knives, gardening tools, shears, and horse shoes.

The coolest houses were of course the richer and more official type buildings.

The two shots below were from where they filmed one of the videos "The Kind and I".

Just a nice gazebo with some beautiful surroundings.

There was even a haunted house with little goblins on the roof. It was only 3,000 Won so I decided to be festive and go in. We were told not to take pictures of the inside, so sorry you'll have to miss out in the paper-mache, black-light painted horror scenes and creatures that were a bit ridiculous. I did get startled twice though when Bro. Baumgarten poked me from behind at the same time one of the scenes lit up (they were motion sensor-ed) and when a loud jet of air was blasted in my face near the end.

One of the last cool buildings I saw was this water wheel mill.

There was also a large stream/ shallow river that ran through the middle of the village with several types of bridges, from this wood one to stepping stones, to a cut and laid stone bridge.

This is one of the two boats that the had set out on the water, the other one was more of a large raft with a small hut and a cooking area (an ancient boat-house)

There was also a bunch of photo spots that we stopped at and took a few fun photos.

One of the best part was the shows that they had.

Music and dancing,

Horse-back riding and feats,

And a tight-rope walker.

Another Tour

My second tour I got to go on was a lot different from my first one. And a bit further away too. It took a couple hours to get to our first destination, Kosu Caves. We had to park a little ways a way because there's a market just outside of the caves and it was packed. If you zoom in to the image you can see the mouth of the cave and people walking up to it just to the left of the center.

Along the path to the cave I saw this cool little foot bridge. Although it looked plenty sturdy, I was still a little glad we didn't have to cross it. :)

After paying a small fee I climbed up and into the cave. This is a better view of the entrance. There was a lot of people from our group as well as other people checking it out, which made it a bit crowded once I was inside. And it made it so you traveled through it at the same pace as everyone else, having to wait for those in front of you, but not wanting to hold up everyone else behind.

This vine-like tree made a neat, if not totally dry, covering at the entrance.

Some parts of the cave were a bit open and often either had a steep incline or decline coming in and out of those areas, while other parts you had to bend over and nearly crawl.

The black squares are pads just in case you didn't duck low enough or brought your head up too early on a far side. I was lucky enough not to have needed them.

This was one of the sites I liked a bit more, with the pools of water. It was quite wet and drops of water kept falling on our heads. Some areas had mist falling down more than large water droplets.

Ah, Light at the end of the tunnel.

Once I exited, there was a long line of markets, before we even got to the parking area. Since it was getting close to our anniversary I spent some time looking at what they had to offer and ended up buying a little gilded elephant and palm tree statue.

Destination #2 was a boat ride across Lake Chungju to one of the largest Asian dams. After buying tickets we had some time to wait, so we got lunch, it was a lot cheaper, but not nearly as good as the last time I ate out. The sweet potato fries were VERY stale and the other stuff (still not sure what it all was) was a bit too spicy.

When it was almost time for our boat to arrive we headed down to the dock, and down we went to since there were no steps and it was quite steep. I didn't quite fall, but I did use the hand rails to help keep me from tumbling.

Some photos of the beautiful surroundings on the boat ride.

I was kind of sad to see the dam, cause that meant the ride was over and it was perfect weather. There was little to no wind, but the speed of the boat created a perfect breeze to cool us down, since it was a bit warm out.

On the way back to the base we stopped for a bathroom break and a snack. I ended up buying an ice-cream and strawberry crepe for 3,000 Won (about $2.80 or so) Well worth the cost, it was delicious, but a little messy.

My 1st Trip/ Tour in Korea

My first tour that I got to take here in Korea took me to a couple of different places. We started at the Chikso Waterfall, or more specifically the trail head to the waterfall. There was a lot of beautiful mountains that surrounded us the whole way there as we hiked in, as well as a frozen over lake at about the half way point.

Some of the trail was more finished and had steps the other areas you had to watch your step a little bit to not trip over roots or broken rocks.

After about 20 minutes or so of hiking in we arrived at the view point of the waterfall. I took a few pictures then I saw a trail that led up to the top of the waterfall and got all the way to the head of it.

On the hike back to the bus I could hear some chanting echoing through the mountains. That really made me feel like I was in a oriental film. :)

Just outside of our next destination was a bunch of shops and some restaurants. This was my lunch (green onion pancake). It had squid, sliced carrots, green onions and scrambled eggs cooked on top of a pancake batter. It as Really Good!

The second place we got to see was the Neso-sa temple. Here are two of the guardians near the entrance.

Some of the temple housing. I wasn't allowed to take any good pictures of the actual Buddha temple, but the architecture of the buildings is beautiful. If you look really close the is another house up in the hills in the background too.

Some people were drinking the crystal clear and very cold water from this fountain, I'm not sure what it was for (good luck maybe).

Our final tour spot for the day was at Pyonsan Beach. There really wasn't much there to see or do, but I skipped a few rock, which is a lot easier to do on a lake or somewhere without the waves. :)

And since I was missing Britta and so I could have at least one cute picture I could show her, I wrote my love for her in the sand.

YAY for Matt!

In all his humble brilliance, Matt pulled off a 121/124- 98% on his test.

He told his supervisor, who is stoked because he gets a day off for Matt getting a high score.

He told some of his co-workers, one of whom said 'Yea, you probably chose to get those three wrong too!'

And he told me, who said 'told you!'

Congrats Matt! I knew you could do it! Thanks for trying so hard and opening so many doors for our future. You are amazing!

It was supposed to happen...

Matt was supposed to take his test three weeks ago but after a glitch in the system, a basewide lock down and then rescheduling, it was pushed up to tomorrow. This test is a pretty big deal- if he gets a 95% or better he'll get three days off as a reward! If he gets above a 90% he'll get one day off. Needless to say, we are both looking for him to get a 95%. He asked his supervisor if he could take those three days when the girls and I come visit and it looks like they'll let him. So fingers are crossed and prayers are being said!

All of July he was on swing shift, technically. Because they go by the start of each week, not by the actual date, he didn't start swing shift until July 7 (he also had two days off for 5th of July in there!). He worked for three days on Swing shift before being switched to night shift for the basewide lockdown! Then he had a few days that he was required to work day shift, because they needed something important done I guess. And then he was back to swing. So in all 4 weeks he was supposed to work swing shift he actually only worked 11 days!

He is excited about a new prospect: he's been signed up for a class to learn how to shoot handguns. He is hoping he'll get marksman on this as well because then he'll be able to wear a star on his ribbon. And I guess thats pretty cool. After taking this class he'll be qualified to act as gate guard for the bomb dump. Its a shake up in the normal routine and he's looking forward to the possibility of doing that.

We are getting closer to when the girls and I will go visit. At this point Matt is busy getting information gathered to make sure everything connected to us visiting is approved and goes smoothly. Its only 9 weeks now! (You know, last year at this time I was freaking out at how long 9 weeks was...now 9 weeks seems so short in comparison to the year!)

We've both started getting ready for the move to Guam. He is in the process of putting in the all-important paperwork and setting dates for coming home. I am in the process of making lists. Lots of lists. After coming back from S Korea I'll have about 8 weeks to be completely ready to move. And as I just said, 8 weeks seems like nothing in comparison to the year we've already been through!

It will be exciting to update everyone on Matt's test scores in a few days...so check back!

New Work Schedule

So this month Matt's schedule is changing up. Rather than working days (typically 7-3, sometimes later) he'll be working swing shift. That'll be from 3-11pm. It might make communication a little more difficult because the he'll be able to talk in the middle of my morning and the middle of the evening- right in the middle of commonly planned activities. But we'll sacrifice because its always SO good to talk to him!

This is only for one month though so whether its good or bad it'll be short.

Matt is nearly done with his first set of CDCs. Have I explained them before? In order to go from level 3 to level 5 certification he has to complete this extra training. I don't actually know what the acronym stands for though. He is taking the first big test this week and will then start on the second and last set of books. I'm not too worried about how he'll do though, in order to even schedule the tests they had him talking to all his upline supervisors, so about 4 or 5 different people, who all quized him on the information. That was after taking 6 pretests as well. So I'm positive he knows the material.

The military also just reinstated the Patriot Express. This is a flight that flies free (except some port fees) from Seattle, through Japan, and onto Korea. Its a Space-A flight. This means that Matt might get three visitors later this year. :) He's allowed to have people stay for up to 30 days during his tour so we are going to attempt to take advantage of that. We'll stay in his dorm room- which is really actually small for 4 people. But he also has a common room and a kitchen that we can use during the day so it won't be too bad. He still has to do some paperwork to get that to happen but we are all stoked to be able to see him sooner than expected. It makes the next 7 months seem a lot shorter!

Matt is also thinking about career changes. Not out of the military but within. We keep batting around the idea of him becoming an officer and a few different jobs that he might change to later. But its all just ideas and talk so I won't mention specifically what jobs we are talking about. When it stops being just talk I'll mention it again.

This 4th weekend he is running a 5k (actually, he's getting ready to run it as I write this blog!) and there'll be fireworks and a bit of a festival going on. Its nice that they try to make things as much like home as possible. Although nothing will ever be as much like home as the Strawberry shortcake we got while watching the Strawberry Festival parade at home... :)

Lately

Matt arrived back in Korea 2.5 weeks ago. He had the pleasure of working for 3 days before he had a weekend- but it was Memorial day, so he got it off, and then the base was given an extra day off that was considered a 'family day' for other bases but just a day off for this base because no one has family with them.

But! Matt ended up getting pretty sick on Monday and by Tuesday night was throwing up. He went to sick call and was quartered to his rooms for 48 hours. By the time he went back to work on friday he had had 29 days off, 3 days on, 6 days off and 1 day on. Then it was the weekend again with another 2 days off. Pretty nice work schedule, huh?

So far he has been plugging away at his CDCs (the program that he has to finish before he'll get a higher experience level) and working on inventorying the fire extinguishers. He has also been concentrating on exercizing because his physical tests are coming up in a few weeks and he's not doing as well as they want him to be doing on his push-ups and sit-ups.

He is looking forward to going on another tour around Korea in the next few weeks as well as the weather getting nicer and being able to spend more time outside on a regular basis.

He is excited about the fact that he's more than halfway done with the nightmare of being away from home. He's been gone (with basic, tech school and Korea) for 9 and a half months and only has about 7 left!