just dance.

Saturday night I went dancing with some friends. We met some very fun Koreans on the dance floor, I love the way Koreans dance, whatever goes. While dancing one of the boys pulled me aside and said one of the greatest things I have heard in a long while, and this is what he said:

"I love dancing. I speak little English, you speak no Korean, but we all dance in the same language. That is why I love dancing."

Beautiful words my Korean dance friend. I couldn't agree with you more.

what's my age again?

24...25...26......, I'm not really sure anymore.

In the states I'm 24. Born in '86, 24 makes perfect sense, but in Korea its a whole different story, and a little more complicated. The moment I stepped onto Korean soil I gained another year, so much for 24. In Korea, your age begins before you are born. So when you are born, you are already one year old. Wait! Thats not all! With each coming new year you add on another year. This past week was Seonal, the Korean Lunar New Year. So yes, if you are doing the math I am now 26.

So how did I celebrate my 26th birthday, with an epic 5 day vacation of course! Lunar New Year is one of two vacations that I get from work, so I couldn't pass up an invitation to get out of Seoul for bit.

Immediately after work on Wednesday I headed straight for the bus station. Oh sweet freedom! Luckily my first bus trip out of seoul was a success, and about 3 hours later I arrived in the coastal city of Sokcho. I met up with a friend, who is also teacher in Korea, and a group of his friends and friends of friends. In total there were 12 of us english teachers ready to fully live up our vacation.

The first night in Sokcho I arrived a few hours after everyone. When I got to the "pension" everyone was bbq-ing dinner outside. We drank and cooked dinner in the cold, and it was great. We soon moved inside but continued our New Year's celebrating. A few hours later we rang in the New Year. And being a little caught up in the excitement of the holiday, and/or being under the influence of a little too much wine, we all decided to run the block or so to the beach and jump in the sea. Let me just remind you that its FEBRUARY and on a good day its about 4o outside, during the day. And, its well after midnight when we decided to take a dip and there is still snow on the rocks near the water. I know in my last post I said that I have never been so cold in my life, well I think this definitely tops that! But at a least now I have an interesting story and can say the I rang in the Korean New Year by skinny dipping in the Sea of Japan.

Thursday in Sokcho we went to Seoraksan National Park. It was beautiful. It was so refreshing to be out of the hustle and bustle of the city and to be surrounded by so much natural beauty. We bought some ice cream and played in the dry/frozen river bed. After our little frozen break we took the gondola up to the top of the mountain. The view up was amazing, and like any other form of transportation in korea very close and cozy. Once at the top we hiked up some a little more to the top. It was so gorgeous, so many peaks, and you could see forever.

After exploring around the top of the mountain we gondola-ed back down and wandered around some temples and saw a giant Buddha. I don't think I will ever get tired of ancient Korean architecture and design. Its so intricate and colorful and gorgeous.

Friday was a day of tickets and bus rides and more tickets and bus rides and yet more tickets and bus rides, but in the end it was totally worth it. Apparently Koreans love selling tickets as much as they love LED. Bus ride numero uno took as from Sokcho to random town, then onto our next bus to Samchuk. A quick dash to find lunch before our next bus, which was an adventure itself, apparently the korean pronunciation of ham is hem, who knew? Then yet another bus to the 2nd largest limestone cave in Asia.

The cave was so cool. I must admit before this trip my only other cave experiences all revolved around the same cave, a cave that creeped the hell out of me. Boulder cave was very creepy to 9 and 12 year old me, the dark, the bats the trying not to fall in the water. Side note: I have always and will probably always be scared of the dark. Thankfully this cave was completely different, but I did miss the adventure-y feel of Boulder cave. This cave was open, lit, and equiped with metal walkways and stairs. Oh, and of course LED. Take for example this lovely rainbow that was placed in a cave the was already naturally, amazingly beautiful:

The cave was amazing and hilarious at the same time. Every part of the cave, every formation, every staircase/bridge had a random name such as "bridge of confessions," "stairway of eternal love," and so on. Koreans have a lovely way of cheesin up natural wonders. Oh, speaking of cheese, one thing I did find especially entertaining was the rock formation shaped like the virgin mary. It reminded me of Cheesus, you should all take a look at "Look! It's Jesus", a wonderful little book of Jesus sightings in things like burnt toast and Cheetos, freakin great!

For lack of words here a few cave pictures:

Friday night we went spent the night out exploring downtown Sokcho. We found the only "happenin" type bar, played apples to apples and danced and danced. We decided that our next stop would be a Norebong. Norebongs maybe one of my favorite late night, early morning activities. It works like this: you and your friends rent a room with couches, you choose you song you choose your light settings and you sing your heart out. Yep, just a little karaoke room for you and your friends, its awesome. Well on this particular night we didn't find a Norebong, but we found a Nore-bar. We were the only foreigners in the bar so we were invited to jump in on many songs, and sang a few of our own. Each song was a wonderful disaster, as always.

Saturday, surprisingly, we got up early and set our on another day trip. We went south about 30 mins to a very, very small coastal town. We went to an old abandoned light house. Mostly we just looked at the ocean. There is something so refreshing and energizing about being near the ocean. The love I have for the ocean is hard to put in to words, I feel like it is so rooted in my soul and my history, I feel so connected to it. I feel so at peace whenever I am near the sea. After the lighthouse, we waited around for a bus to our next small town adventure. In the next town we saw the most beautiful temples built on the sea cliffs. The scenery and the temples were so gorgeous. There was one temple that had a glass square in the middle of the floor where you could look down and see the waves breaking on the cliffs below.

Our last night in Sokcho was mellow and wonderful. About half our group had already went home. The rest of us went out to get shabu shabu for dinner, so far my favorite korean dish. Luckily for us our friend Chris had met a Korean guy on one of our many buses and he took us out to dinner. So nice to have someone to translate and explain what was happening haha. He was very nice. After dinner we bought wine and drank it on on the beach. Overall it was a wonderful vacation. I met interesting, fun people, saw an old friend, took a much needed break from city life, and finally got to explore more of Korea. Hopefully I will have another adventure to update you on soon.

Much Love!!