This week is important for several reasons:

1. Tuesday is our 2 year anniversary!
2. Joe's birthday is Saturday, a very many 24 years. He has white hair to prove it.
3. Last full week of campaigns! We both have our absentee ballot for Obama sent to the states. BBC news had an interesting front page story - Indiana: History in the Making

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/7687940.stm

It's whether Indiana can overcome its racist history and vote for a black man. Of course, to highlight most countries' image of Americans as fat, ridiculous people, they selected small town grandmas who pray, play bingo in huge American flag hats, and still say the word 'negro.' Either way, Indiana is now a 'moderate blue state' in some polls, and we have our fingers crossed!

Obama for change

My desktop image.

We both have been feverishly following the campaign, watching the debates on TV or online and constantly refreshing the NY Times homepage at work. It's hard not to be excited about the campaign Obama has been running, the prospect of Indiana going Blue and our votes actually counting! We both have our absentee ballots and will scan and e-mail them asap.

We're going to Lotte World tomorrow - the largest indoor amusement park in the world. It's the Disney World of South Korea.

The dog that spoke English

Sawyer is here! After a long flight from Indy, he has safely and legally arrived in South Korea. He enjoys walking around in the city and taking in all of the sights and new smells. He has become an instant celebrity here as there are no other Boston Terriers in this area. Some great lines Christine has overheard while walking the dog:

• That dog speaks English!
• [Girl #1] I like dogs like this. [Girl#2] What? Ugly dogs?
• He looks foreign because he eats hamburgers. [After Christine explained to a man he was from America]

Island of Jeju

We went on a tropical excursion this past weekend to Jeju Island, the largest Island in Korea and also a really cool place. It isn't high tourist season, but we still rode a flight full of older tourist ready to get their gear on. Friday was Foundation Day in Korea, a national holiday, so more the reason for people escape the city.



I was really excited about seeing palm trees. Joe also had a crazy Saturday where he fell asleep at every opportunity possible.



Many of the beaches we visited had dark, black rocks that smeared the ocean dark as well.



A well visited, well known waterfall. What this picture doesn't tell you is that this waterfall is so easily accessible that I felt cheated out of the experience.

Saturday was pretty cool, but the climax of our trip was hiking Halla Mountain Sunday morning. I complained almost the entire way up while simultaneously enjoying it. In retrospect, it's one of the coolest things I've done in recent memory. This should probably be its own entry for the sheer amount of photos it entails.

Halla Mountain is the tallest mountain in Korea. Originally a volcano, it has a crater lake on the top called Baegnokdam, which I think in translations means 'white deer lake,' because legends have it that otherworldly men descended from heaven to play with deer.


View from around 1500m above sea level.







You can see people hiking in above photo. You can, if looked closely, also see a staircase leading to the top. Kind of defines hiking in Korea.



A nice view with cloudy weather.



You can see the peak of the mountain in the background - the gray silhouette. It was raining pretty hard at this point; this is around 1800m above sea level.



Joe claims vegetation here is similar to a desert climate; there's also an abundance of pine trees, vicious black crows the size of two hands combined, and deer.







We were soaking wet by the time we approached the base of the mountain again.



View of the mountain from the parking lot and rest area.

We found a cozy tea house on the drive out of the mountains that grew its own green leaf. It was quite beautiful and they offered us free samples of green tea.





Outside the tea house - left signifies god of heaven, right signifies goddess of earth.



And the last photo is the view we had of the beach before boarding the plane back to Seoul Monday morning.

Solo adventure to Bukhansan National Park

Sunday marked the first day I traveled outside of our district on my own for the full day since arriving to Korea. I wanted to go to Bukhansan National Park for a second time while Christine wanted to focus on her artwork while I was gone. Although we had visited the park only a few weeks prior, I still went over the subway and bus route with Christine as she (and I) were afraid I might get lost and have no way of getting back. Fortunately, this park is visited by so many people (especially on Sunday mornings) that I only had to follow the people in hiking attire to find my way.

I left my hiking boots at home as they were too heavy for my bag and took up too much space. After hiking a short distance on our last journey, I really wished I had brought them along. When we left the park, we stopped in one of the many outdoor shops to see what they were selling. As a size 9.5 US, I have "large" feet by Korean standards. I found a pair of hiking boots on clearance for 10,00o won ($8.75 USD). They turned out to be an excellent find for my this Sunday's little excursion.

Bukhansan has a lot of historical and cultural history looming in the mountains. They are several Budhist Temples, some of which are still very active. There is also a large wall that was erected in the Joseon dynasty, close to 2,000 years ago. This was constructed to protect the capital at the time. There are also a few small towns within the park that house a number of residents and businesses.

Shortly into my hike, an older Korean man approached me while we were waiting for van to drive by one of the small roads. He started talking to me, in English, and asking me how I enjoyed the park and the mountains. I hiked with him for quite some time enjoying the company and having the opportunity to talk with an older generation from the Korean standpoint. I changed my initial plans of reaching Mt. Baekundae in the morning to continue hiking with him. I found out he was 73 years old and made the same 10+ kilometer (6+ mile) hike every Sunday with his wife (whom I was later introduced to). He was in excellent shape and didn't stop until he reached the public bathrooms halfway into the hike. He had lived and worked in America for 10 years moving to some major cities while he was there. When we reached the East Gate, we parted ways as I wanted to look around and turn back to reach the summit of Mt. Baekundae.















When I reached the approached, I realized why the man said he didn't hike to the summit. The trail had become a mass of boulders which I had to scramble up and around for some distance. After some time, you could tell when the trail became a trail again, but by no means was it an easy feat. The park service had put giant iron rods in the mountain with cables passing through each. This was to offer assistance while climbing or descending and provide protection for a fall. I'm sure the only reason they did this was because of the vast amount of people this park sees annually. With or without these devices, these hikers would be determined to make it to the top.
















When I was able to see the top, I was surprised by the enormous amount of people at the peak, not that I should have been as I had a large number of people both in front of and behind me. This peak was easily 3-4 kilometers (2-2.5 miles) from the nearest entrance and proved to be a very strenuous workout to reach this area. The views from the top, however, proved to be worth the amount of people I had to squeeze through to move around. I was able to see the the mountainous side of Korea as well as an aerial view over a small section of the city (outskirts of Seoul) below. The South Korean flag at the top was pretty impressive and a lot of hikers were getting their pictures taken with it in the background.



























The hike down was just as intense as the hike up, though it was much faster. My legs had become so fatigued that I was experiencing "Elvis Leg" or "Sewing Machine Legs" each time I stopped on the edge of a rock that formed the trail. I have experienced this sensation only while rock climbing, never while hiking. My legs had been burning through most of the hike as they had not worked like this in some time. When I reached the bottom, however, I regained enough energy to explore the creek bed in search of some boulders to climb on my next visit. Feeling satisfied with my day, I sat at one of the many restaurants to fill my belly with treats before heading home. Unfortunately the restaurant I chose did not have pictures in their menu, so I just picked a line and pointed. The meal turned out to be tofu and kimchi - not my idea of an excellent meal. I ate as much as I could and drank from my bottle of "Cass Fresh" to put an end on my day (at least the beer was good!).

Joe and I went to the hospital Thursday morning to get our physical, where they hilariously (not really) thought I was the hagwon manager who was transporting Joe around. We went to a Chinese restaurant in Lafesta afterwards, and this is what it looked like after I robbed the soup of noodles. Joe calls it '(Christine and Joe in the) 20,000 leagues under the (hot red chili peppered) sea.'

Seriously, baby octopus floating around.





Showing how much water two people can possibly drink within a half hour. This was not a good day for us.



This is aptly titled Riley, because the little white dog in rabbit skin looks like him. Joe disagrees, but I sometimes think Joe is wrong. There's tons of cute shops around Korea - this one was called Morning Glory, which is a huge stationary chain store in Korea that sells...everything.





Korea is actually quite infamous for Konglish, or sometimes just out right inappropriate shirts (we saw a guy tonight with a shirt that said Grand Clit's Delight). English is not their native tongue and many of them just suck at it. So it doesn't really matter what's written on it. We have noticed a lot of Michigan football t-shirts around here and agreed that Koreans, for some reason, like UCLA and Berkeley, quite enjoy Michigan.

But this was something special. We were walking down from the Chinese restaurant and in the display case of one of the clothing stores downstairs, was an Indiana shirt. "Indiana Delta-Zeta, Delta-Upsilon, Homecoming 89." Most random, but awesome shirt.


Also, because I think this is important:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76v7ogxeNvo

It's a youtube video of the boy band group 'Big Bang,' whose song 'Haru Haru (Day by Day)' has somewhat ruined my life. Big Bang is so, well, big in Korea that the children we work with commonly say "I would die without Big Bang in my life" or "Big Bang is my life." It's a decent dance song. If you don't have the patience, you should listen past the 2minute mark.

This has nothing to do with Korea except that I miss my dog

This picture just had to be posted. Baby Aiden meets baby Sawyer!