Classic

This past weekend was a Korea classic. New places, fun times, and a few bizarre stories.

Saturday began with a five hour Skype with Mom, the breakfast of champions.

Then Rebecca and I went to Daejeon to volunteer at Jahyewon Orphanage. We had been looking for a place to volunteer for a while and I am super happy that we finally did. We had fun teaching kids some English but mainly had fun and goofed around. They are super sweet kids and I plan to go back. If anyone stumbles onto this blog looking to volunteer at a Daejeon orphanage, the link to the FaceBook group is here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7104975834

After that, I took off to Seoul and stayed the night at Dragonhill Spa at Yongsan. It's the nicest spa I've ever stayed. For 12,000won a night (pretty steep for a jimjilbang, I admit) I spent about two hours soaking in the baths and slept on the mats. For those of you back home who may not know the wonders of the jimjilbang, here's a nifty article: http://wiki.galbijim.com/Jjimjilbang The spa is 5 floors (larger than most spas) and has a variety of services available like massages, facial treatments, as well as games for kids, a garden, a restaurant,a PC room, and a heat bath. I've tried the heat bath sauna-like room before, but I hate it. It makes me feel like I am trying to bake myself alive like the witches in Hocus Pocus.

Question to readers: If you see someone you vaguely know, while you're both stark naked in a Korean jjimjilbang, do you walk up to them and say hello?


Sunday morning, I went with Seoul Hiking Group on a tour of the Chungju-ho lake and surrounding areas. Ben was supposed to come, but missed the bus and had an adventure of his own trying to meet up with the tour group from there on out. The first stop was a giant stone archway overlooking a lake. The second stop was Gosu Cave. It's a nice cave. Very cave-like. But I was, alas, not made for spelunking and was pretty happy to get out of there.


However! Chungju-ho lake was beeeeeeautiful. The mountains surrounding the lake look boldly picturesque. Our group took a ferry around the lake, a ferry which carried mainly very very drunk senior citizens wearing bright colors. They started dancing when cheesy tunes were blasted from the dance floor. It was a sight to behold. In America, senior citizens play bingo. In Korea, they get crunk.



Somehow, Ben made it to the second half of the trip and our normal ridiculous nerdy adventures continued throughout Chungju. I'm gonna miss that kid like crazy when he leaves Korea and goes back to that igloo of his in Nova Scotia.

And a grand weekend was had by all. It led into a beautiful Monday. I'm so lucky to be here in Korea. Cheers.