Extreme Weekend!!!
Inje May 12th-13th

Hi guys, here is the next installment of my attempt to catch everyone up on my wacky adventures in Korea, this might be the wackiest. A friend of ours who is now living in Jeonju set up a rafting trip so Julie and I thought it would be a fun time so we tagged along. We were 2 of the 3 people from Iksan who went, the other 40 were from Jeonju. Thankfully everyone was really nice so we didn't feel like small town outcasts.

We left Iksan at 6:30am, yes I can get up that early, and headed to Inje, which is an area in Gangwon-do the most northernly province of Korea. I believe we were actually only about 25km from the border with the North. It was a 7-8 hour bus ride, after lunch we started bus boozin, so that led to more frequent stops. I'd like to thank Marsh at this time for having the 90's pop culture edition in University, I kicked ass on the bus ride there at it.

The paintball gear

Our first stop was paintball, initially we were told that we would have cover-alls on but that was not the case. This was especially problematic because as we were waiting and being told how to work the equipment it started to rain. Overall paintball was pretty fun, we only got to play two games which kida sucked but I had never done it outside before. I got shot both games, once in the back and once in the face, thankfully we had facesheilds, but I got 3 people so it I did ok. Julie got hurt when she got hit on the hand in between the knuckles. She didn't really want to do it, and that's why.

Paintball orientation

The Pension. I don't know why it's called that, but that's what everyone was sayin!?!A shot of the patio

The place we stayed at was ok, there were 43 people on the trip and only 5 small rooms, I think there were 10 in our room maybe? Anywho we had a nice meal of Samgyeopsal (Big bacon chunks) and then played guitar and drank as the night went on. We were one of the elderly couples we hit the sack at 12:00am, while other people barely slept. When we got up at 7:30 we had a nice breakfast of ham and eggs and toast. Afterwards we headed down the road to the rafting place.

Raft 4

Here's a nice shot while crusin down the riverRaft 4 in action

The rafting was pretty fun, it was around 23 degrees, but the water was around 5-6 degrees. The guys had to actually walk the boat in getting waist deep in the freezing cold water. Our instructor was really nice and even though he spoke little english he taught us enough to not kill ourselves or tip the raft. Luckily we already understood a lot of his commands from Tae Kwon Do, stuff that gets screamed at us all the time, forward, back, hurry, etc. There weren't any real big rapids, but it was still pretty fun gettin tossed around goin over the little dips. I think we were out rafting for 2 hours or so, most of it was spent cruising on the parts in between rapids and rocks, or having paddle fights with other rafts. Afterwards we headed back to the pension for our lunch...bacon again, this time in a spicy sauce with vegetables and rice.

The Bungee Tower

Our next stop before heading home was the x-game center where they had bungee jumping and the skyflyer type bungee swing. When first asked early in the day I wasn't sure if I was going to jump, but after the rafting I figure why not. I think about 16 of us went and we were all put into weight groups being numbered ranging 4 (heaviest) to 1 (lightest)...we all know where I ended up. Now you could either bungee going head first with the cord strapped around your ankles, or you could go Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible stlyes and jump with a body harness. Since it was fairly windy the Instructor recommended the harness style.

Julie's Jump

Julie didn't want to go when we first got there, but after seeing everyone do and still be in one piece she'd give it a go. I felt really bad because she left me incharge of taking the video of her jump, but as she was going...(and also because she took so long to jump off the platform) her memory card filled up. THe picture you see her is pretty much where the video cuts out :(

The big jump

It was reallly weird doin the jump because I wasn't really scared or anything, largely I think it has to do with the fact that I followed the advice posted on a little sheet before going up. Specifically 'Don't look down.' The only time I looked down was to put my feet on the little orange footprint outlines they had on the platform, and to look at everyone, who had already gone...btw...I was the last one to go and I really had to pee and I had to wait over an hour to jump, so I'm really thankful I didn't piss myself. Yeah, so when I jumped it was pretty scary I couldn't really yell or scream or anything, but it was all over in under two minutes. Definately worth it though, I think I might even go again when we get to Thailand.

Save me JesusA beautiful shot of the photographer responsible for the great Bungee pictures.

Thank you comb-over, thank you.

Busan/Beomosa/Haeundae Beach

May 18th-20th

The hike to Beomosa (L to R Sara, Nick, Julie)

On the 15th of May Korean's celebrate Teacher's Day and, in an attempt to make up for months of terrible behaviour, offer tokens of gratitude to the people they torment. Obviously I'm generalizing the kids are good for the most part. I kinda got short-changed on the day I only received 4 gifts to Julie's 11, that's the way it goes I guess when you've got boobs. Anywho, because all the schools get the day off. In Iksan to even things up we were givin the friday off, so you know what that means....long weekend.

Crazy trees on the way to the temple

In the spirit of this rare occasion I though it would be fitting to take a long weekend adventure, even though after our extreme weekend we'd told ourselves we would starting saving more money. So we decided to go to Changwon to visit Nick and his g/f Sara, sorry if that's the incorrect spelling, who we hadn't seen since the Bullfighting festival in March. We took the cheap train to Changwon for & 25,000 won and it took a total of 6 hours. More lanterns inside Beomosa

Changwon was a really nice city, there were trees and bushes everywhere and the city was surrounded by mountains, which was a nice change of scenery from Iksan. Since we ended up spending the night there and had a nice dinner of Burger's and homemade fresh cut fries, it was amazing, with a beer it came to 8,000 won, a price that can't be beat. After that we stopped at

a 7/11 for some more drinks and took a breif walk around the area before deciding to head to a DVD bang. For those who don't know it's basically a place where you pay 5 bucks or so to watch a movie in a home theatre room with a nice couch/attomen's and all that. We watched 'Whalerider' in an attempt to get to learn more about NZ/Maori culture, also because our new NZ teacher's recommended it to us. It was pretty good. A pimped out stone pagoda

The next day we left for Busan, Korea's second largest city, and head to Beomosa Temple in the North of the city. It was a really nice complex that had over ten different Buddhist temples within it, and since it was surrounded by mountains the scenery was really nice. So here are some pics of that. It was a healthy 4km uphill hike, that seemed to go on forever, but once we got there it was well worth it. All the way to the temple the sides of the streets were lined with paper lanterns, this is in preparation of Buddha's Birthday which happens to be today, May 24th.

Some sorta ceremony taking place. The wires are for more paper lanterns

That night we headed out for some Kalbi, mikchu and soju and then to a local ex-pat bar called Crossroads that had some decent live music, and fairly priced beer. After that we head to another small bar for mokali, a type of rice wine made that is served ice cold. I wasn't a fan...stuff messed me up...Julie, Nick and Sara seemed to really enjoy it. The stuff was dirt cheap and we were only able to finish one of the two large brass tea pots( I shouldn't really count myself in the we, I did very little of the work). After that it was straight to McD's for a drunk meal before headin back to our swanky Arabian looking love motel. Mokali

The next day we went to Haeundae Beach in Busan, at first it was lookin like it was going to be a shiat day, real over cast, not a good beach day. By the time we hit the subway and then went for lunch at an extemely small (7x12 feet) Mexican restaurant, the weather had turned reall nice. The Mexican food was alright but I still think the place in Itaewon was better. The Beach was nice not too crowded yet, lots of people out sunning themselves, I forgot to put sunscreen on my legs a chess so ended up looking pretty ridiculous later that evening, my skin was purple I was so burnt.

Am I flexing or is the water cold? You decide.
Haeundae Beach

We took a walk up the boardwalk just off the beach and got a bunch of nice pictures, and we got some nice snacks, these old Korean women snatched Julie's camera and took our picture in a nice ploy to get us to bu some duk and some roasted chestnuts. By this time it was startin to get late (well not really, we just wanted to be home before 8pm) so we headed for the train station.
We figured that since there were tons of trains heading to Dajeon that it wouldn't be a problem. Unfortuneatly that day it there was an Exodus from Busan, as all trains were full, with the exception of a 7:00 train. So we ended up having to pay the extra $$$ for 1st class seats, and waiting around the train station for three hours but we made it home safe and sound.

The end of the boardwalk at Haeundae Beach