I know it's taken me a little while to get around to this but I had to wait until I was in a really good writing mood. I'm sorry to admit I'm not really in the zone but I am running out of time before I start to forget the little quirks that made vacation so special.
I should start off by differentiating between vacation and adventure. I was on vacation but was in no way having a vacation while touring Korea. Holli and I had an 8 day long bus and love motel filled adventure. I took some notes on my iPod touch along the way so I could easily break it down when it came to writing it all down. Unfortunately even with my notes a know a lot of what I did won't be as detailed as I'd previously hoped but here it goes anyway.
We left Gwangju around 10am on Saturday destined for Nonsan. In Nonsan we visited a really old Buddha statue and Temple. The kick off to our vacation was really amazing but it lacked a lot of English explanation. I was a little nervous that this would end up being typical of all the sites we visited but as we continued onward my reservations subsided and I was happy to discover there would be enough English to get by. I tried to buy a really cute bracelet from a vendor there and broke it into a million pieces, super awkward and I felt obligated to spend a lot of money on subsequent bracelet because he didn't charge me for the first!
From Nonsan we travelled to Daejeon and spent the night there. We hopped on a night city tour bus and we were taken to a Foot Spa, Dam and a light/ beer festival at Expo Park. The tour was meh but we checked it off our list. Now to the Love Motel explanation.
Koreans don't leave their parents houses until they're married. Korean parents also don't really keep tabs on their children once they hit adulthood so0o0o0o a love motel is a convenient and cheap way to spend a night(s) with your partner with out the hassle of parents. The one we stayed out came equipped with his and hers robes, toothbrushes, toothpaste, hairspray q-tips, soap etc. The room also had a nice flat screen and computer! Koreans know how to do it up! We slept and the next morning we left for Gongju.
Me and my Nazi ways had Holli up and on the 7:47 bus! lol... 7:47- also typical of Koreans. Holli is among the normal population who like to sleep in but had the misfortune of being stuck with me for vacation. Minus Kamille, and the occasional bad hangover Colucci's really don't know how to sleep in properly. As some some close friends already know!
Once we arrived in Gongju I lied to get us onto a free all day city tour. We showed up to the city centre at 10am and didn't make it onto the list of families who would be given the 'name tag of acceptance' to wear around our necks so I lied and said we had in fact made reservations but there must've been a mistake. A little humming and hahing later we got our name tags and started the tour. I won't get into detail, you can go through the photos on FB but we did 3 museums, a tomb site and learned how to play and sing traditional Korean music.
After spending the whole day in searing heat and unforgiving humidity Holli and I were bagged so naturally we hopped onto another bus to Seoul (2hours) and then transfered to Gangneung (another 2 1/2). It was about 1am when we arrived at our next stop and we needed to find a place to crash for 6 or 7 hours haha. Out of the 5 places we stopped in at only one had vacancy and he wanted to charge us 110,000 won. Which is like 100 dollars! At home that is a noraml- well actually really good price, but here the motels run around 40 dollars a night. I was able to talk him down to 60 and Holli and I crashed hard. Waking up again early we were off to settle down in Yang Yang for a couple of nights.
Staying in Yang Yang we did a ton of stuff. Again I won't get into details, my photos explain a lot. We drank mineral water from a river well, we hiked and saw waterfalls, we spent the day at the beach we saw temples we bathed naked together with korean women- ok, that I'll elaborate on.
Koreans have a way different take on nudity than we do. Even at the gym it is no big deal just to be naked and walk around sans towel. At Naskan beach we discovered a hot sea water spa. Holli and I went down thinking we could just throw on our swimsuits and hop in. We got to the change room and everyone was naked. There would be no bikinis, there wouldn't be anything but a dish cloth to wrap your hair. So the Koreans stared at us, we stared at the Korean girls and we both tried desperately not to lower our gazes when we talked to each other. We even met a mom daughter trio who were hanging out together- try to wrap your head around that!
Another huge adventure was getting to the DMZ. Holli and I had to hitch hike the last 30km to get there and totally lucked out because the family that picked us up not only took us to and from the observation tower but took us to a traditional Korean village and a really cool temple we otherwise would have never been able to get to without a vehicle. Having again pretty well exhausted ourselves we head into back into Seoul. My friend Rhys was generous enough to put us up for 3 nights in his extra room while we experienced the capital of Korea. We did a day long City bus tour and then spent a day shopping!
Which then brings us to rafting and bungee jumping on Saturday. Rafting was really fun, although not as epic as the swells on the Ottawa river but thankfully bungee jumping off a near by bridge gave me the kick I was looking for. Bungee jumping is wicked!! There were 21 of us who paid and no one chickened out. Quite the success. Another exhausting busy day brought us to Saturday night where my 'vacation' ends. Holli stayed and partied in Seoul and I went home. It felt so good to recognize Gwangju and know that my bed would be waiting for me!
So that's it. Brief but take some time to look through my pictures. We had quite the ride. I don't think I will be taking a bus for quite some time though. lol.
I have the Korean thanksgiving coming up Cheosuk and mom comes in 5 weeks. Everything thing else is the same as usual. I have a map and my jumping vid for your viewing pleasure.
Click on the link to see the map of where we journied.
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