Samsung 5K

Since coming here to Korea, Ryan and I have started running more and we've been really enjoying it! Our friend told us that there was a 5K sponsored by the other shipyard on Geoje island (about 20 minutes away) and so we signed up. I originally signed up for the 10K and so did Ryan, but my calf had been bugging me so I changed it to the 5K the day before the race. Since I had changed the distance, I had to run with someone elses' bib (Rachel). We got to the race to check in and missed the memo that we were supposed to wear white long sleeve Samsung polos that had been provided (this is primarily because we don't work in their yard).

After a little while, there was a dance performance - it was literally a dance team that was performing on the track. There was also a guy yelling out a lot of things in Korean who looked almost identical to the newly internationally famous PSY. Finally, they signalled for all of us to spread out and do some stretches before the race. Once we had all spread out, they started blaring Gangnam Style and had a choreographed routine of stretches led by a woman on stage to the song and of course it involved the horse dance...it was hilarious!

Everyone all lining up for stretches on the field

They had everyone line up for the race on the track behind the starting line and then they started giving us directions in Korean...of which we didn't understand but we figured it out watching all the Koreans start to follow his instructions. They all lined up in single file lines and starting massaging each others' shoulders and then he yelled and everyone turned around and started massaging that persons shoulders...totally goofy. Then they started playing some music and everyone started jumping and clapping and then they started yelling for the 10 seconds before they fired the gun for us to go.

Ryan and I with our friend Kristie - all geared up and ready to run! 

The race was a neat course because it went through Samsung's shipyard which we hadn't seen before. I was feeling pretty good during the race (very surprising because my calf was killing me the weekend before) but I decided to sprint the last 300m to the finish line. It was funny because a few of the Korean men that were running next to me tried to keep up yelling, "Ohhhh, you so fast!" As I hit the finish line, a group of Koreans came up to me and put something around my neck...finally someone came over to explain to me that I had gotten second place for women. I couldn't believe it and I was pretty excited!

Ryan finished his 10K like a champ and they offered us some celebratory kimchi and tofu which I declined politely. Luckily, we found a tent that had some fruit and juice instead so we munched on that.

A bunch of the Samsung employees got together and performed a dance song to...I bet you can guess which song! Check out the video...it was pretty good (the little kid in the green trying to dance like them makes the video even more fun)!

We thought that we had some time before the award ceremony, so we went for a walk. As we were walking back to the track, we heard some award sounding music but I thought the 5K would be the last award because it was the last to start. As we rounded the corner, I heard "Rachel" and I realized that I was supposed to be on stage because I had run under that name in the race. I ran up there and joined the other 7 ladies that were standing there already and they gave me an award (certificate and trophy are both in Korean) and made us turn around and wave to the "crowd."Ryan took a picture of me at the finish line with my trophy - all in Korean - certainly an interesting souvenir for us!

Jingu Lantern Festival 2012

I'm a little behind on the blog and I need to catch up so I'm going to post about a few things that happened a few weeks ago...apologies about the late update, but I'm sure you'll enjoy reading about it a little bit just the same. :) 

We heard about a Lantern Festival from some people at work and decided to check it out. Our friend, Laura, was here on a business trip from Houston so we brought her with us so we could all have a Korean cultural experience together. The festival was in Jingu which is about an hour and a half away from our apartment in Geoje so we drove there in our little red car. We found a parking spot and followed the crowd to the festival. When we got there, we didn't see any lanterns and saw signs for the "Drama Festival" - we thought we must have followed the wrong Korean signs to the wrong Korean festival. Regardless, we kept walking and hoped that we would find the right place. Luckily for us, we found some other expats who clearly knew their way and they told us to keep walking and we would knew when we had hit the lantern festival. And just as they predicted...we knew exactly when we got to the festival...

Start of the Jingu Lantern Festival - notice the floating lanterns in the background

There was a place where you could make your own lanterns with wishes and put them out in the water. Laura and I made some and set them out into the water - let's hope they come true! :) 

There were tons of lanterns floating in the water - it appeared to have several different themes...one of them was countries - there was a lantern for each country (George Washington was representing the US  -good choice, Korea!) and then there were lanterns of characters on the other side of the water. 

The Korean one at the top left was really funny - the 1 flashed on and off; we thought it was a good use of a current event with the Korean Olympic fencer...can you guess the other 3 countries?? :)

These lanterns were such a flashback...I used to LOVE this show! :)

Afterwards, we walked up to the Jingu fortress and it was filled with lanterns depicting entire villages. It was really a site to be seen! 

Lanterns in the fortress depicting a typical Korean fortress - pretty crazy how many there were!

We weren't quite sure what to expect at the Korean lantern festival but it turned out to be a great evening and a good dose of Korean culture! :) 

Last look at all of the floating lanterns on the water before we headed home

Typhoon Bolaven

Over the weekend, we started hearing on the news that there was a typhoon that was heading our way. We knew that a typhoon was basically a hurricane in the eastern half of the world but it was our first one none the less so we were secretly a little excited about it. Just to be safe, we went and got some extra food from the grocery store and monitored the storm online....these are the kinds of pictures we were seeing...it looked giant! Satellite Picture of Typhoon Bolaven

On Monday afternoon, they told us that the offices would be closed on Tuesday because of the storm = Typhoon Tuesday!! We woke up the next day to a lot of howling wind and some rain but it was fairly anti-climactic - we kept expecting the power to go out, but luckily we were completely safe and sound from the storm. The storm was so anti-climactic in fact that they opened the offices after lunch and we headed back in to work. At least now we can check: "Experience a Typhoon" off our list of life experiences without too much trouble. :)

Gangnam Style

I'll make this post short and sweet because a video is worth more than a thousand words. If you want to get a little taste of Korea, check out the hottest song/video in Korea currently:

Gangnam Style Video

It's actually quite catchy...if you're wondering what Gangnam is - it's a district in Seoul - a city we are very fond of.

Enjoy your little dose of Korean culture for the day! :)

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!! :)

Weekend in Seoul

We spent the past weekend in Seoul and had such a great time!

We took Friday off work and headed to the bus station in the morning for our four hour bus ride. We got to the station 10 minutes before the bus left, grabbed tickets, and jumped on the bus. The seats were big and reclined a fair ways so it was much more  comfortable than I had always imagined bus rides in Asia. We certainly enjoyed taking a nice long nap. When we woke up, we were driving through the middle of Korea and it was really beautiful! It was very green and there were mountains and fields of rice on both sides.

Ryan & I on the bus to Seoul

Scenery during the bus ride

We got to Seoul in the early afternoon and ventured into the subway to find our way to our hotel. Both Ryan and I have always loved taking public transportation - we'd love to live in a city where we could take the metro to work everyday. We finally made it and we dropped our stuff out and headed out into town - our first stop was to grab some lunch. We found a little dumpling stand and had some of those - they were excellent. A little known fact about me is that dumplings are one of my culinary weaknesses so our trip was already off to a good start after we got some of those! :)

Dumplings - our options were kimchi or pork...we went with pork ;) 

The weather was a little rainy but we didn't want to let that stop us, so we caught a cab and headed to one of the 5 palaces that are within Seoul. Our guidebook had said if you only have time to see one, make sure it is this one: Changdeokgung. We walked around the palace - we really like the architecture and how colorful everything is!

There is a "secret garden" within this palace and we wanted to check that out as well - you had to be on a tour to be able to go into this area and the English tour had already finished, so we signed up for the Korean tour anyway - we hung out with the group and looked around. It was great! So much of the buildings were for reading and relaxation and it was surprisingly peaceful for being in the middle of one of the world's largest cities.

This building is a two story building for reading - the first story is a library and the second story is reserved for quiet reading...I think my Aunt Elly & Aunt Cathy would love this place so this picture is dedicated to them. :) 

Stone inscription from one of the Kings about the importance of authority

750 Year Old Juniper Tree - they believe it is the oldest in the palace

After this tour, we walked around the Namdaemun market that was near our hotel - it was huge - it spanned for blocks with people out selling everything you can imagine from socks to purses to pineapple on a stick. There were even stores underground!

Our friends had told us to check out the International area of Seoul which is called Itaewon (eee-tay-wahn). They recommended a Mexican restaurant which was good - margaritas and fajitas were just what we needed. It's amazing how much you miss the small things from back home...like sour cream and restaurants who serve margaritas! They also recommended that we check out the area behind the Hamilton hotel because there are lots of fun little restaurants and bars. We did just that and it was such a lively place - so many people out and about and lots of different places to go. We grabbed a few beers in several of the bars and then headed back home because it started pouring down with rain!

Ryan and I enjoying margaritas! 

I couldn't help taking a picture of this - on the end of this guy's truck was a rotisserie with chickens roasting and people would stop by and pick one up for dinner...

Look how excited he is for a big Paulener beer! :)

The next day, we woke up early and headed to the USO for our DMZ/JSA tour (see the post here: DMZ/JSA Blog Post). Once we were back from the tour, we headed to the Seoul tower. To get to the top, you take an outdoor elevator up to the cable car, the cable car up to the base of the tower, and then an indoor elevator to get to the top of the tower. Once at the top, it was very obvious just how large Seoul is - it stretches for miles and miles. They had markers all over for how far different cities are from where we were standing. One thing that I thought was crazy was that we are twice as far from home in the US as we are from the North Pole. I never thought I would say that!

This is the cable car up to the base of the tower

Picture at the base of the Seoul Tower

View of the city - it really is a huge city! 

We are more than 10,000 miles from the US...

...but only 5,000 miles from the North Pole! 

Afterwards, we walked around one of the other areas of Seoul called "Myeongdong" which was bustling - there were tons of people walking around the shops. We really enjoyed all of the energy and it was fun to look around the shops.

We started to get hungry and being typical Americans, we started to crave pizza. We looked around for a bit and couldn't find any Western restaurants and then we turned a corner and there was an Italian restaurant! We were happy to have the opportunity to satisfy our craving (that does not happen nearly as often in our current hometown of Okpo) and we ordered some pizza & lasagna - it was surprisingly delicious! 

Afterwards, we grabbed a cab back over to the Itaewon area of town to enjoy a beer and people watch a bit. This was great because there is such a wide range of people walking around - there were many expats from all of the world and also quite a few Koreans - there were all different ages, too - it was really fun to see such a vibrant group of people enjoying themselves!

Our last day, we slept in a little bit and then headed out for some Dunkin Donuts (we like getting reminders of home sometimes) and as we were getting our coffee, we realized we were standing next to the side entrance to one of the other palaces. There was a guard standing outside and I remebered that they have a Changing of the Guard ceremony several times a day. We decided to hang out and watch it. It turned out to be a good find...certainly unique.

Notice the Dunkin Donuts in the background, haha

We walked around the city a little more and then decided to grab some more dumplings (they really are my weakness) and then find our way to the bus station to head home.

Right before we went in the train station, I decided to try on a pair of shoes at one of the stands - they were everywhere and I wanted to see if I could get some. I tried on the biggest size and it was not nearly big enough...so, moral of the story is that American feet may or may not be too big for Korean shoes that are sold in the markets. Oh well...it was worth a shot!

We really can't wait to check out Seoul again - we had such a great time and it was a wonderful city!