Summer!

I need to catch up on activities from the past couple of weekends - the rainy season in Korea is over so our sunny weekends are back and we've been taking advantage of it!

The past two weekends, we have taken some time to see the "sights" on the island. The first weekend, we went to the Mungdong Waterfall. I am a huge fan of waterfalls, so every time I see that word, I'm immediately interested to go check it out. We drove to the area and there was a huge line of cars to get to the parking lot, so we decided to park in an empty spot at the bottom of the hill and walk up to the entrance (I'm not sure why more people didn't have this idea as well, because there were a lot of angry Koreans in cars and we were the only people walking).

We got to the entrance, and Ryan showed me that the path of rocks was designed for you to walk barefoot across and it targeted different parts of your feet to cleanse other parts of your organs. Sounded good enough, so I took off my shoes and started walking across the rocks. It was incredibly painful - you can tell my feet have been in shoes my whole life, haha. Many of the Koreans giggled at me as they walked by because I was making my usual squeaks as I walked across the torture rocks. Ryan kept encouraging me that it feels really great when you're done, so I kept going. When we got to the end, and stepped on the normal path, it did feel really good. My feet felt rejuvenated - it was crazy!

Start of the Trail

These rocks were much tougher to walk on than some of the smoother ones, but they probably did the most rejuvenation :) 

Ryan walking over the rocks 

As we were walking, we noticed that there were people camping (or what appeared to be camping) all along the river coming off of the waterfall. The place was packed! They had their grills out and many of them were napping on the rocks or along this path while their kids played in the small pools in the little river. It was interesting because the idea would never have crossed my mind to set up camp on a rock by a river and take a nap there. In the States, people would have their nice camping chairs and other comfortable "necessities"...it's nice seeing people who take advantage of the small things and enjoy the day wherever they are.

We got up to the top and saw the Waterfall...it was a nice little waterfall and we hiked up to the top to look down. There were a bunch of kids taking turns jumping into the pool at the bottom so this is clearly a hot spot with the kids!

It's hard to tell from the picture but there IS water flowing down :) 

The next Saturday, we headed to the Sculpture Park and walked one of the trails there with Cory & Rachel. It was really hot so we didn't want to do a hardcore hike, so we thought this would be a good alternative.

This is the Sculpture Park - there are several sculptures and the park is right next to the water! 

More sculptures...

As with all of the hiking trails we've been on, there is outdoor exercising equipment! I doubt there are very many fitness facilities in such a beautiful spot (the view of the water and islands behind is so nice!)

Cory going to do dips

This was next to us for a ways during our hike - I love the waves crashing on the rocks! 

At the end of the trail were these red stairs to this lighthouse so we climbed up and checked out the view 

The view from the lighthouse - we live in such a beautiful place! 

We wanted to hike down to the rocks to get a better view, so we found a trail that took us down there and it was well worth the trek down!

Ryan has been going mountain biking every Sunday mornings which he absolutely LOVES! This video shows the mountain behind our house that they ride sometimes: Guksabong Mountain Bike Video, (it's some other guy riding, but the same trail). While they are out mountain biking, I usually hike up Guksabong or go for a nice run. We really want to make sure that we stay fit and healthy and Korea makes that pretty easy for us with access to the mountains and lovely weather!

He bikes in the mountains but he caught me coming up from the local grocery store to get some ingredients to make him a delicious brunch on his way home & I got a shot of him heading up the hill to our apartment! Such a stud! :) 

Another tradition that has been started amongst some of our expat friends is to head to the beach on Sundays in the afternoon and then BBQ in the evenings. It's been really fun and we've enjoyed all being together and enjoying the summer!

Happy Summer to everyone!! :)