Our Trip to the East Sea in GangNeung

Since Thursday we have been on a one week vacation from our school. We decided to take a little vacation to refresh ourselves for our last month of work and so Friday morning we took a bus for four hours to the next province and to a place called GangNeung. GangNeung is geographically bigger than Seoul, but Seoul has about 13 million people and GangNeung has about 220000. Quite a difference. GangNeung is on the coast of the Pacific Ocean and is surrounded by mountains covered in dense forest, it is clean, the air is fresh and it is beautiful! On Friday, when we arrived it was raining, so we didn't get much done. We went to the tourist information office and got a brochure and a map, then checked in to the first hotel we saw, which turned out to be really nice and really cheap (I think it was cheap because it was quite far away from the beach and there were many many hotels in the same area). We then took our umbrellas and headed out for a walk around the are which we hoped would end up at the closest beach (gang-po), the beach turned out to be farther away than expected, so after a couple of hours walking, we hailed a cab. The beach was pretty empty as it was raining, so it was a good day to walk along and enjoy the scenery and the breeze. We ate dinner at a korean restaurant near the beach and then headed back to the hotel.

The next morning we got up pretty early and got a bus to Odaessan National Park, it's a really big park with tons of mountains, rivers, temples, mineral springs etc.. It was about an hour bus ride away (by coach bus to the smallest town I've ever seen, you could walk through the whole thing in about ten minutes), then took a regular bus to the park entrance. We first explored the first temple near the entrance, then the pine forest, then we hiked in the mountains. The mountain is almost untouched... the paths are barely paths at all, so it was extremely beautiful, though because it was wet from the previous days rain, I did what I'm best at. Again, I ended up taking quite a tumble. Near the end of our hike, on the way down, we were rushing to get out of the woods before the sun went down and I slipped on a wet piece of ground, hit a big rock and then fell about three feet into a shallow, rocky part of the river, landing face down in the river. Suffice it to say, it hurt a lot and it was probably the first time I've cried in pain since I was a kid. Scott didn't want to move me at first, so I laid face down in the river until I was able to assess the damage. As it turns out I was pretty lucky, just ending up with a lot of bumps on my legs and arms, some bloody spots and a lot of bruises all over my legs, arms, wrists and shoulders. I was super lucky that I didn't hit my head on a rock though. I had a bit of trouble walking after that but since we were near the end and with Scott's help, I made it. We actually missed the last bus out of the park though, but were luckily able to wave down the one cab in the area that had just happened to drive someone up the mountain. When we arrived back at the hotel, I took a hot bath and felt much better in the morning, though to be expected I'm still quite sore.

Sunday morning we got ready and took a bus to a really big church near Gang-po beach. It was Kang - nung (another way to spell GangNeung) Presbyterian church and there was no english translation, it was all in Korean, so it was kind of hard to sit through the sermon, but their choir was beautiful and we knew the tunes of the hymns and some of the words so we hummed and sang along in English (Scott actually sang along in Korean because he can read the symbols, though he doesn't know what they mean). After church we walked to the beach, this time it was really sunny and hot. After changing our clothes we found a spot and went swimming for the first time in the Pacific Ocean. It was extremely salty which really stung my cuts, but it actually made me feel a lot better. It was really refreshing and relaxing for both of us, so nice to be in the ocean and lay on the sand feeling the hot sun (although Scott got a really bad sunburn on his back)... yes we were wearing sunscreen 45 spf. After our time at the beach, we headed back to the bus terminal area and had a late lunch at a nearby korean restaurant after buying our tickets, then we went on the four hour trip back to Gwangmyeong.

It was such a relaxing and refreshing trip, we both felt refreshed for our last month here, knowing that we can make it through with our new found energy. Some of Scott's energy may drain though, as he has a really bad cold now! I have never heard someone sneeze so much or go through so much Kleenex! I thought that maybe he had an allergy, but to what? Anyway, hopefully that will clear up soon and he'll be on the mend.

Sorry, this post was so long... to those of you who made it through the whole thing, there are lots of new pictures of our trip, if you'd like to see them.