Adventure Weekend: Bukhansan

We had an extra day off this weekend since Buddha's birthday was celebrated on Friday.  We decided late last week that we wanted to get away for the weekend and had originally planned to take the train down to Busan to go to the beach.  However, due to a mistake we made when booking the train tickets we had to cancel that plan and scramble to make a different one since we were just feeling so desperate for a change of scenery for a couple days!  We decided to just take a simple trip to another part of Seoul.  We booked a hotel a short distance from Bukhansan National Park in the northern part of Seoul and just spent a couple days away from our apartment and neighborhood.  The hotel was nothing fancy but it worked for a change of scenery.  After getting checked in we took the subway the rest of the way to on entrance and mountain of Bukhansan National Park.  It was Friday afternoon which meant the serious hikers were already on their way back down the mountain and there were definitely a ton of them!  Definitely not a vacation away from the crowdedness of the city but still nice to be surrounded by trees and plants!  We did a short hike up to one of the temples on Dobongsan.  Since it was Buddha's birthday the temple was quite busy with ceremonies, candle lightnings and people praying inside the temple, but the decorations around the temple were also quite nice.  We made the mistake of taking a taxi back to our hotel after our hiking.  Even the hotel was only a few miles away, it was a Friday, a holiday and during afternoon rush hour so it took almost an hour to go those few miles!  But we did find a very good Korean barbeque restaurant near our hotel for dinner.

Saturday was kind of our spontaneous day.  We started by going to a different entrance of Bukhansan where it was much less crowded, we only saw a few other hikers, but the hiking was much more intense, almost like rock climbing at times.  Again it was nice to just be out in nature and the quiet so we enjoyed it even if it was a tough hike.  We decided to turn back after a while and ended up heading into Itaewon, known as one of the big foreign hubs, where Eric ordered some custom shirts he's been wanting for summer and just walked around.  We headed back to our hotel for dinner where we had the best burgers we've had in Korea.  The look of the restaurant almost even reminded us of Burgerville as we think they were trying to go for a classic diner style.  It was quite delicious though and we enjoyed just walking around the area after dinner and relaxing in a bar and grill when it started raining.  It wasn't the most exciting weekend but we both really enjoyed just spending some time together in a different atmosphere for a couple of days.

We are hoping we will be able to get down to the beach one weekend here soon when it will be much easier and cheaper to get train tickets and a hotel.  Eric is starting to plan a trip for himself during his summer vacation and we are planning to travel to China together in September so we do definitely have some traveling plans to look forward to!

For some reason blogger still won't let me upload pictures to the blog... (it's really starting to get annoying!) but I promise to post them on Shutterfly this week!

Teacher's Day

Today was Teacher's Day in Korea.  Last year we both got some nice things from our kindergarten students.  This year, being at a public school meant I didn't get any gifts, but I did get to go home right after lunch in honor of Teacher's Day!  Eric got a few things from his students like some cactus plants, pens, wine and sunscreen.  One of the parents even told him they didn't know what to get for him so they gave him lipstick to give to me instead!  I guess I did get something for Teacher's Day after all!

Last weekend I decided to keep busy by spending Saturday at Seoul Zoo with a friend and on Sunday we had a nice rooftop BBQ with some of our former coworkers at our house.  It was a nice weekend and we definitely enjoyed the time outside.  It feels much more humid this week and I am realizing that long pants are almost not even an option anymore.  Just like I tried to keep my winter coat put away for as along as possible, I'm also trying to keep the shorts and skirts put away as long as possible but I think it's just about time to get them out.  We'll see how long I can last in capris...  Eric hasn't wanted to turn the air conditioner on yet because we both know once it goes on it probably won't be turned off until September.  Luckily open windows and a fan has been working well enough!

I'm having trouble uploading pictures from the zoo to the blog but will upload them to Shutterfly in the coming day or so!

The Challenges of Life

The reason I decided I definitely wanted us to keep a blog during our year (now 2 years) in Korea was not only so we could keep family and friends updated on our adventures, but also so we can go back and remember what our lives were like during this time.  While it's important for us to remember all of the wonderful and happy times and adventures we've had, I think it's also important for us to remember the challenges we faced and how we were able to overcome those times as well.  Today is one of those times as I received the news of my grandma passing away this morning.  It's a challenge we were both so hoping we would not have to face while being so far away from all of our family.  Yet for reasons beyond our understanding, it happened anyway and I am forced to overcome my grief and move on even from so far away.  I long for nothing more than to be at home with my family as we all get through the tough days ahead, but I am so thankful to be here with such a wonderful husband who has traveled this path of grief before, and is beyond supportive of everything I've needed and will need.  This is the second time we have had to walk this path in our year and a half of marriage and I have the utmost faith that it only makes us stronger as we lean on each other through the hardest hours.  My grandma was a wonderful person who loved her family with her whole heart.  I truly feel like she was one of my best and closest friends and I know a day won't go by that I don't miss her.  Yet I continue to do everything I can to focus on all the wonderful memories I have and feel so blessed to have had her in my life for as long as I did.  I'm just sorry I couldn't give her the great grandchild I think she so desperately wanted! :)  Life can be full of challenges at times, as we have seen over the recent months and years, but it is also filled with so many more wonderful memories and blessings beyond what I can count.  So as we continue through this challenge together, I will do what I can to focus on those blessings and memories because there are so very many.  :)