Spicy Quinnchi!: Nothing 'week' about these 'ends'...

The last few months or so there has been a serious sense of urgency to knock off some items on the Korean bucket list. Places such as the DMZ, the Boseong Tea Fields, Seoraksan, Mud Fest, and, yes, bungee jumping. Since I'm playing catch-up with my blog posts in order to get ready for my 2 week vacation to INDONESIA coming up, I'm going to bunch all of these weekend trips into one post starting with the most recent...

Bungee Jumping (23 April 2011)
Back when the two and only, Greg and Tay, were still ROKing it, the 4 of us went bungee jumping in Yuldong Park on a Saturday morning back in April. We had previously struck out back in the Fall, when we arrived an hour after they opened only to find out they were booked for the whole day, and didn't want to make the same mistake twice. We got there right when they opened and were the first ones to jump. Lucky for us, these guys don't operate like me. My first few lessons of the week are always the worst for the kids, as I'm not completely comfortable with teaching a lesson until about the third or fourth one. Bungee jump guys aren't allowed the same grace period. Phew! Anyways, Greg, Jules, and I jumped (Tay had previously jumped and once was enough) and had a fun-gee time. Greg pulled a move from Fresh Prince and pretended to propose to Tay just like Hilary's boyfriend does in the show. A Korean guy ended up hearing it and, believing it to be real, offered to buy us all pizza to celebrate the "big moment"! So kind Koreans are. Here's a little video I made of the day...

For more photos click here.

Seoraksan (28-29 May 2011)
Back in May, Julie was lucky enough to have her father and brother come out to visit her. One of the many activities Jules had planned for them was a weekend trip to hike the famous Seorak-san (san means mountain). Seoraksan is the largest mountain in the Taebaek range in the Gangwon province in eastern Korea. We decided to go through Adventure Korea because they took care of transportation and lodging and made everything easier overall. We left Seoul early Saturday morning to get our hiking on. We did the famous, rigorous, picturesque hike on Saturday afternoon and saw some amazing views. The next day we woke up early and did a less intense hike along a river bed. It was a great way to spend some quality time with some quality guys, Ian and Izaak. Here are some photos...

Bronze Buddha of Sinheungsa

Ian and some ajummas

Izaak and Jules

Jules, Izaak, and Ian

Made it to the top! Not before getting really sweaty though...

Beautiful....the mountains aren't too shabby either

Pajeon!

Quail eggs

Boseong Tea Fields (18 June 2011)
Another major item on the bucket list was hitting up the green tea fields of Boseong, located in the Jeollanam province in southwestern Korea. My bros in Korea had already gone so it was a rather estrogen-heavy weekend with 6 other girls and I. Jokes aside, it was a fantastic weekend with some fantastic ladies. Highlights include:
-consumed green tea ice cream, green tea lattes, green tea makgeolli (Korea famous rice wine), green tea pajeon (squid and green onion pancake), green tea samgyeopsal (Korea famous pork belly), and, you guessed it, green tea!
-played "Ninja"on the streets of Gwangju to the delight of many onlookers
-started The Hunger Games which, if you're looking for a suspenseful, mindless read, I'd recommend you check the series out
-made friends with some Korean bros who bought us soju, makgeolli, and snacks...man, Koreans are the best
Here are some photos from the tea party...

Par-tea time

Couple shirts

New friends

Bundaegi: roasted silkworm pupae....nothing quite sucks the moisture out of your mouth like these lil guys

Green Tea Samgyeopsal

DMZ (25 June 2011)
How can you live in Korea for a year and not go to the DMZ?! That was the debacle facing us as we neared completion of our stint here. The DMZ isn't something we looked forward to doing because, well, it (a) is only a Saturday morning/afternoon excursion yet seems to take the entire weekend, (b) we didn't have THAT many weekends in Korea left and (c) isn't exactly "fun". With all that being said, we had to go. Chris's friends from Hong Kong were in town that weekend and wanted to join us as well. We took it "easy" the night before (cough Mo Jo Zo cough) to get up early enough to make the early departure out of Seoul from the Yongsan Garrison U.S. Army base. The day started with a presentation from a soldier previewing what we're going to see, what we can and can't do, and what's what. He also gave a brief history of the DMZ starting with the Korean War. Turns out, the North had the South pushed back all the way to Busan (southern Korea) until US forces showed up. We then pushed North Korean troops back until the threat of a Chinese intervention emerged. The sides settled at the 38th parallel, or what is known today as the DeMilitarized Zone. Here are the photos...

Brief history

North Koreans checking us out

ROK Soldiers always keep a battle-ready tae kwon do stance

dadsonvacation.tumblr.com worthy?

Olivia, Nate, and Chris

Wooo North Korea! (spring break style)

DMZizzle

North Korean beers after a long, stuffy hike into old tunnels used by the North

Bulgogi and Cass for lunch

Dorasan Station....a train to North Korea...reopened for the 2002 World Cup...closed in 2008 amidst conflict...South Korea acts like they're "doing everything they can to reopen it." Not buying it though.

Boryeong Mud Fest (16-17 July 2011)

A couple weekends ago, all 15 (or so) of us went down to the much-anticipated Boryeong Mud Fest, located ~100 miles southwest of Seoul in the Daecheon beach area. We first heard of this debaucherous event when we arrived back in September 2010. We had looked forward to this weekend for months! From what we had heard, it's a weekend full of sun and fun, mud pits, mud contests, foreigners, and drinking. In a nutshell, that's basically it. The 2-week long festival, which started in 1998, brings in more than 2 million visitors per year! I didn't bring my camera out to the action, but here are some photos I stole from other people (mainly Olivia) of the event...