Juwangsan National Park

Helen, Rabey, Chris, Frank, Melissa, and Jessie

Last Sunday, our boss Chris and his wife Jessie rented a mini-van and took us, along with two of our coworkers, on a three hour trip north to Juwangsan National Park. We haven't had many opportunities to travel much within Korea, so we jumped at the chance to see a new place in this country we've called home for 11 months now. The drive there was gorgeous! We drove through mountains, fields of apple orchards, and various farm land. Plus, we got to see the beautiful fall leaves!

Here we are with Helen (the receptionist at Omni) in the van we rented.

apple orchard

After driving by so many apple orchards, we decided to pull over and try some. They're called Red Honey Apples and were delicious.

Apples were everywhere in this city! The bus stops and light posts were even made to look like apples.

After the three hour drive, we were all ready to get out of the car and start exploring the national park. Well, it turned out that we weren't the only ones who thought it would be a good idea to visit the park that day...we waited in traffic for an hour outside the entrance. We finally decided it would be quicker to walk, so we parked in a random parking lot and walked along the side of the road for 45 minutes till we finally reached the entrance! It really was unbelievable how many people there were.

During our 45 minute walk, we passed more apple orchards, plus cabbage and red pepper gardens.

red pepper garden

Rabey decided to take a closer look at some goats we passed on our walk to the park.

Just outside of the entrance to the park was a street filled with restaurants and souvenir shops. We ate lunch outside and got to try a lot of new Korean foods that the area is known for.

The woman at the restaurant preparing our lunch.

One food that we tried was green onion pancakes called "Pajeon." This type of dish is really popular and is sometimes referred to as Korean pizza. It's also made by putting kimchi or other veggies in it. It's definitely not the healthiest food, but it tastes really good. If you're interested in trying to make it, check out this link for a recipe: http://www.koreanfeast.com/Recipe.html

Makgeolli- This is a traditional Korean alcohol made from rice that was served in every restaurant there. The rice gives it a milky, sweet flavor. It's made by fermenting boiled rice and water and was originally made by poor farmers. This makgeolli had apples added to it because the area is so well-known for their apples.

Never in Korea have we seen a man dressed in drag! We convinced Rabey to go and pose with the man...woman?

We finally made it into the park!

A temple in the park

The lake and rock cliffs were beautiful!

A huge pile of rocks...not sure the meaning behind it, but everyone was taking pictures with it!

It was sooooooo crowded with people! Picture Disney during Spring Break.

Throughout the national park were many rock cliffs. We particularly liked this one because it looked like it had a face!

Waterfalls:

The trails led to 3 different waterfalls. The one above was the first one we came across. We expected to turn the corner and see the real one, but, no, this was it.

We walked another 30 minutes down the path to waterfall #2. This one was worse than the first!!! We weren't even sure these would qualify as "waterfalls," more like "waterleaks." haha We opted to skip waterfall #3 and go check out the cave!

Cave: We really enjoyed exploring the cave. To get there, we had to climb 200 meters almost straight up, but the good thing was we were the only ones there, which was a nice break from the crowds.

Melissa in the cave

Helen

Rabey and Frank at the back of the cave.

We really had a great day at Juwangsan National Park! Next time, we want to climb to the peak of the mountain there since we didn't have time to climb this time.

To the Top of Mt. Munsu

Last Tuesday, most of the English schools in Korea closed in order to support a strike that was going on in Seoul...we're not really sure what it was about, but we were just excited to have an unexpected day off! We decided to go hiking up Mt. Munsu, which is a mountain down the street from our apartment. We went with our friend Eliza, who is a new teacher here from Toronto, Canada.

Exploring the temple:

To get to the base of the mountain was actually about a 45 minute walk from our apartment and led us to a beautiful temple.

The outside of the temple

Inside the temple

Dragons under the roof

This is the cutest dog that was running around the temple! We thought about taking him home and just returning him when we leave Korea...do you think they'd notice? :)

Prayer papers are usually found outside of the temples

Hiking to the top: After exploring the temple for a while, we began the actual hike up the mountain. In order to reach Mt. Munsu, we had to first climb over another small mountain. The weather and views were gorgeous, so we were loving every minute of it!

Frank and Eliza making their way up the mountain.

Eliza and Melissa about half way up the mountain

After about 3 hours, we made it to the summit!!!

This is a view of our city from the top of the mountain with the ocean in the background.

Another view from the top.

Cell phone tower on top of the mountain...seriously?

Frank on the highest point

We were dying for water by the time we made it down...resorted to drinking temple water

We made our way back to the city and enjoyed a big bowl of Pork Spine Soup (Hae-Jang-Gook) for lunch. The food was great, but why we chose to go to a restaurant where you take off your shoes after a 5 hour hike is something we're still pondering!

"George the Dinosaur" Video

This is a video of Melissa's second grade class. After reading a Tomie dePaola story called "Little Grunt and the Big Egg," the class wrote a song about it! Enjoy!

George the Dinosaur

George the dinosaur, George the dinosaur
He grew too big for the cave, so the family all waved

George was crying, Little Grunt was sobbing
Then the ground shook, then they all looked

Volcano... BOOM! George to the rescue! George to the rescue!

He saved the day, and carried them away.
George had babies. George is a lady.

Georgina the dinosaur, Georgina the dinosaur
Yay!

Reunions in Japan!

We recently flew to Japan to visit all of our wonderful friends that we made while living in Gifu for 15 months. We couldn't believe it's been 2 years since we've lived there. We stayed at Yuka and Taka's house, which was great! We both worked with Yuka at MES and became really good friends with her and her husband. It was so nice staying with them and having time to catch-up.

Yuka and Taka

Day 1: Nagoya
Straight from the airport, we met Yuka and went to visit our friend, Yurie, at her apartment in Nagoya. In the two years since we've been gone from Japan, Yurie's gotten married, moved to Nagoya, bought a dog, and had a baby. It was so fun getting to meet her husband, Daiske, and their 2 month old baby, Joe!

Yurie, Daiske, and Joe

Yurie and Yuka (they've been best friends since kindergarten) with the toy we gave baby Joe.

The girls oooing and ahhing over baby Joe!

Frank and Joe

Melissa and Joe

Yurie's apartment is really nice, modern, and in a great location of Nagoya. It's actually a studio, though, so it's much smaller than a family of three would have in America. To the left of the table where we were sitting is the kitchen, Frank's in the living room that has one couch and a flat screen TV, and behind the living room is the baby crib and their queen-sized bed (you can see the brown comforter in the pic). It also has 1 bathroom. We estimate it has about 450 square feet.

Okonomiyaki Restaurant

After visiting with Yurie for a while, we met Taka at their favorite okonomiyaki restaurant in Nagoya. Okonomiyaki is like a pancake-style pizza that has cabbage, pork, noodles, and other stuff. It tastes really good!

Yuka and Taka at the okonomiyaki restaurant.

Day 2: Reunion Day!

Visiting Emi:
Our second day during our visit was full of reunions. We started the morning by going to see Emi, Melissa's private student. While living in Japan, Melissa taught Emi English once a week at her house. It was great seeing her and her dog Pico again! Emi's daughter recently got married and moved out of her house, so Emi decided to add another Dachshund, Sara, to the family to fill her daughter's void.

Us with Emi

Next reunion at Ikkyuuen Restaurant:

About a month before our visit, we arranged to have a yaki-niku (grilled beef) lunch with some of the women who taught us so much about the Japanese culture and who became great friends of ours! This was such a special reunion for us. Some of the women didn't know each other because we knew them from different places, but lunch went great and they all got along really well.

They prepared this "Welcome Back" poster for us, which they all signed...so thoughtful!

Mami: To the left in the white shirt is Mami, who was our Japanese teacher. She not only came to our apartment once a week and taught us Japanese lessons, but she also taught us SO much about the culture and took us on many excursions to see castles, parks, and to meet many people.

Nobuko: Next to Mami is Nobuko, who is special to us as well. She is one of Mami's English students and has done so much for us. When our moms came to visit us in Japan, Nobuko came to our apartment early in the morning to dress us all in kimonos to attend a tea ceremony.

Misayo: Misayo is seen on the right. She was Melissa's Ikebana (traditional flower arranging) teacher. Melissa took lessons from her twice a month, which was interesting because Misayo doesn't speak a word of English! Misayo also held the tea ceremony for our mom's when they came to Japan. It's so amazing how you can have such a special bond with someone who doesn't speak your language at all!

The other table had Frank, Yuka, Kiyoko, and Machiko.

Kiyoko and Machiko: Frank taught Kiyoko, who is in the white shirt, and Machiko, purple shirt, private English lessons together twice a week. They, too, opened our eyes to the Japanese culture by taking us to numerous festivals and cities around Japan. They are such wonderful women!

Nobuko surprised everyone by giving out Chelsea candies...because our friends Matt and Chelsea couldn't come back for the reunion!

After lunch, we all met at our favorite coffee house in Gifu. This is where Melissa took Ikebana lessons from Misayo and is the same room we had the tea ceremony with our moms. We have so many memories here.

Cute designs on our coffee!

Kaki no Tane: This was our favorite Japanese snack, especially Melissa who ate a pack every single day we lived there! We stopped by the supermarket to stock-up on them to bring back to Korea!

Kaki no Tane- It comes with peanuts and the orange things are like spicy crackers.

While shopping for the Kaki no Tane, we found a display full of different flavored Kit Kats. We've tried cherry flavored, peach, green tea, and a few more flavors before, but we were kind of grossed out by what we saw this time...vegetable flavored Kit Kat!

Next Reunion: Dinner with the MES teachers!
For dinner that night, we met almost all of our friends that we worked with at MES! It was so much fun to see the people we spent so much time working with. Once again, Frank was the only guy...he definitely wasn't complaining about it though! Most of the Japanese teachers we worked with no longer work at MES, so it was actually a reunion for them to see each other as well.

Top left: Yurie (new teacher), Erika, Naoko, Kaori, Yuka, Miyuki, Megumi

Bottom left: Yurie, Chisato, Frank, Melissa, Mami, Ayumi

Of these teachers only Erika, Miyuki, Mami, Ayumi, and the new Yurie still work at MES.

Us with Chisato- She works in Nagoya now at Kumon headquarters.

After we finished eating, all the teachers lined-up to take a picture with us! So we have 11 of the same picture, just a different JT...so funny!

Naoko's face was priceless!

Day 3: A Day with Yuka and Taka

The next day of our trip was much more relaxing. We started the day by going on a walk with Yuka and Taka around their neighborhood.

Temple: We found a temple that we explored for a little bit. This temple was actually really interesting because the ceiling was taken from the floor of a castle from thousands of years ago. A battle had occurred in that castle and many men died, leaving blood everywhere. The ceiling at this temple supposedly has the blood from the men who died still on it. It was a little creepy.

Yuka, Melissa, and Frank in front of the temple.

Part of a garden at the temple

Rock garden at the temple

Playground:

After the temple, we "played" on a playground at an elementary school. Taka had the most fun of all!

Taka and Frank on the playground

Yuka and Frank showing off their arm-strength...or Yuka's lack of! ^_^

MES and Gifu Festival:
We made a short visit to MES where we were able to see Mr. Kimoto and Chris. It looked exactly the same and they're still using all the same games and toys that seemed old when we worked there! Kimoto San was doing great and seems to still be enjoying his skills of communicating with aliens! It was great to run in to Chris as well, especially since he's rarely at MES now. He only works at Wakaba kindergarten where he has developed his own school there. Mami and the new Yurie run MES now.

The Gifu Festival was going on in the Yanagase area, so we walked down there. We walked by a store selling an Obama mask...they really love Obama there!

We came across this truck with 3 wheels. Taka said these trucks were common when he was growing-up.

We happened to run into Hina chan and her mom on the street. Hina chan's family owns Salty's, the convenience store next door to MES. When we moved, Hina chan was 1, now she's 3 and goes to Gifu Kindergarten!

The Gifu Festival had a stage set-up with traditional dancing near Mt. Kinka. (You can see the castle on top of the mountain).

Traditional dancers

Biggest Moon of the Year

We happened to be in Japan for Tsukimi, which means moon viewing in Japanese. The moon on October 3 of this year was said to be the brightest and the most beautiful in the year. This tradition atually came from China. Taka's parents told us the traditon is to put silver glasses and dumplings in a place from where you can see the moon at home. The reason why they put silver glasses is because they have the power to ward off evil spirits. And the reason for putting those food in the moonlight is said to be in appreciation of the harvest and is in respect to nature. We were lucky to be near Mt. Kinka to watch the moon come up!

Here's a picture from the next day's Gifu newspaper of the moon behind Kinka castle.
Dinner at Taka's Parents House:

After the festival, we headed to Taka's parents house for dinner. His parents live across the street from Yuka and Taka's house and Taka's sister and her family live next door. It was so much fun to see all of the family again!

Taka's mom and dad

Yuka's sister Maki and her kids came also. Melissa used to teach Yuka's niece Mana chan and nephew Tomoki...they are so adorable!

This is Taka's sister Keiko and her sons Yuma and Soya.

This is Chico, Taka's parents cat, who made Frank's eyes water all night. :(

Frank and Yuma

Day 4: Goodbye Japan

Taka and Yuka drove us to the airport in Nagoya and had one last lunch with us before saying goodbye. We were sad to leave, but thankful we had the chance to visit again. Japan and the wonderful friends we have there will always have a special place in our hearts!