This weeks adventure in Korea was really a worthwhile use of a weekend. After last weedend's trip to Busan, which absolutely bombed to the point that I dont want to talk about it, today's trip was a much needed remedy.

I suppose it started with Saturday morning and the student speech competition which i helped judge for. (Yay for overtime pay.) Afterwards, one of my male co-teachers offered to take me along for a fun trip hiking just out of town. I figured it'd be a more entertaining time than sitting in a stuffy church for 4- fours sunday morning, so I gladly accepted.

And after just coming back, mostly I am thankful that I packed my big old boots when I first came over. He mentioned hiking and visiting a temple. He didn't mention the three mountains we had to climb to get there!

Summit of the first mountain, just two bigger ones to go!

If you add a rock to the piles along the summit, your wish comes true apparently.
(Isn't it that way for everything...?)

It was grand exercise and I was more than happy to explore the natural parts of Korea. Between the two of us, we moved a lot faster than other hiking groups. So much so, we passed them on our way back down. I suppose it helps that we wanted to be there, whereas the thing to do to create relationship bonding between employees of your company is to drag them on 40 mile hikes over the weekend.

The scenery was wonderful and Mr. Bae always had interesting things to say about the local fauna and region. As he's told it, he was very poor growing up, so his family had to scrounge the mountains and rivers for plants to eat, so he knows a lot of good medicines and edibles that grow around here. Also poisons. He always points out the poisons. I suppose I should be thankful, but honestly I'm not going to be grabbing fistfulls of leaves and sticking them in my stew all willy-nilly. Especially now that I know most of them would kill me anyways.

The iconic locations of ByongJeong-Sa and GyungNak-Jeong are really picturesque presentations of classic asian architecture. The kind of things you'd only see in movies, which they indeed use a lot of these locations just to film.

These old and complex trees take decades to grow, marking just
how old many of these structures are.

I felt even luckier that I was able to interact with the natives in a special way. Some Grandma's were bringing fruit up the hills to offer at  the temples. Since it was no small load, we offered to help out a bit.

Do you know what 40lbs of Watermelons will do to your back when climbing up a mountain?
WELL I DO!

That may have been the least entertaining part of the trip, but afterwards we got to sit in for tea with the monks as they talked about the origins of the Korean language system and other historic inventions of eras gone by. I understood next to nothing of it, but they translated well enough and the tea was pretty good.

A lot of these locations are unknown to the average Korean.
I was lucky to have a good guide!

Now i'm just happy to be back on solid un-slanted ground. I'm gonna sleep really well tonight, that's for sure. These are the kind of foreign adventures that I really enjoy the most. Seeing the sites of old, meeting locals, trying the odd cuisine (did i mention i had sauteed chicken's feet the other day? Delicious! No really!) and just like Louis Carroll said, "To travel is to live." I really understand that now.

This is the oldest wooden structure in Korea. Its sacred,
so you're not to take pictures...........