bukansan hike

fortunately our apartment is surrounded by huge towering mountains, all with amazing hiking trails, so we decided to start hiking them.  

bukansan was one of the most amazing hikes i have done.  there are extravagant views of the city, mountains, ocean and even north korea.  the last 20% of the hike consists of rope rails posted into a flat rock face that forces you to finish the hike by placing one foot on the rock face, (reaching past your waist),  and grabbing the rope rail to pull yourself up.  we loved it.

at the top of the mountain there was a fortress that was originally built in 132 a.d. during the korean baekje dynasty.  the fortress was ruined due to the mongol invasion and later reconstructed and expanded by the chosun dynasty king sukjong.

it's always so amazing to me how far back korean history goes.    

stuffed peppers

over the past 6 months ryan has been having some digestion issues and abdominal pain, so we went to the doctor and all he did was give him some pills to take before meals, (which is a typical doctor's proceedure.)  not good enough for me.  so i came home and did some research and found a diet that is suppose to support the digestive track and heal the gut.  it is called the specific carbohydrate diet.  there is a huge list of foods i found from a-z that we should and shouldn't eat.  these foods are said to be harmful to the gut.   i thought this diet would be dreadful since one of the foods we can't eat is grains, but there are so many resources online full of recipes that makes it easier to bear.

since we live in south korea and we only have a two burner stove, i usually have to adapt my own recipe or make something up in the kitchen due to lack of resources.  so far all our meals have been a success.  every night it seems i cook something up from my head, walk it over to ryan and say, "i don't know if this will be good."  it turns out that we have had some of the best meals since living here.

ryan's stomach pain is gone and we both feel a lot healthier.

* if you don't have an oven, like us, then what you can do is take a metal noodle strainer and place it in a pan on the stove.  put your peppers on top of the strainer and cover it all with an additional pan to trap heat.

serves two:

ingredients
2 peppers
4 eggs
3 chicken breasts
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 large carrot
1 T olive oil, (optional)
1 tsp parsley
1/2 tsp salt or garlic salt

2 avocados
1 hand-full of cilantro
1/2 tsp garlic salt
2 T lime juice

directions
preheat the oven to 350 F

cut chicken breast into chunks and cook in boiling water until it is almost cooked all the way.  Pull the chicken and chop into small pieces.

clean and peel the first layer off of the carrot.  then chop it into small pieces.  (put into blender to make pieces even smaller.)

chop garlic into small pieces.

combine the chicken, carrot, garlic, salt and egg in a pan and cook on low until the egg starts to solidify.  when the egg is becoming solid, pull the pan off the burner.

while the mix is cooking, wash the peppers and cut the top off.  clean out the inside and drizzle with olive oil.  place the peppers in a small oven dish, (small enough that the peppers won't roll around.)

place the peppers in the oven for 7 minutes.

scoop the mix into the peppers and pack in tight.  place in oven for about 7 more minutes or until you finish making the guacamole.

to make guacamole:
cut two avocados in half length wise, scoop out avocado and 1 seed, (to keep guacamole from turning brown in case you have left overs.)  discard the shell and other seed.  mash up avocado with lime, cilantro and garlic salt.

pull the peppers from the oven and place a dollop of guacamole on top.  sprinkle with parsley.

our team is in the play-offs

we went to our second baseball game here.  one of our friends invited us to join her and her boyfriend.  we had great seats this time.

my favorite part of the night was when a korean couple sitting in front of us went to take a picture of themselves, ryan photo-bombed them.  later in the game, i saw them flipping through their pictures and they noticed ryan in the background of one of the photos making a funny face.  they immediately deleted it and turned slightly to the left in order to make sure he wouldn't be in any of them anymore.

at the game we found out that the lotte giants, (who is the team that we chose to root for), is in 2 place and headed to the play-offs.  this comes as a total shocker, seeing as how when we chose them as our team, they were in last place.  we thought we chose the wrong team, but we stuck with them, and are so proud.

by the end of the night, ryan and i both agreed that baseball games in korea are way more fun and interactive than in the states, mainly because the crowd has a different cheer for each player.  

korea day

right before the korean thanksgiving, (chusok), the school has a big traditional korean celebration where everyone dressed up in traditional clothes and plays games.  i love this day, because i get to hang out with all my students and let them teach me new games, and because they all look so adorable.

goodbye summer

as the summer comes to an end in seoul, so does the banpo park bridge light and water show.  lucky for us, we were able to see the last one of the summer.  

a group of us got dinner to go from a local taco shop and picnicked by the water until the big event.  right as the show was starting, a man came on the speakers in a monotone voice and started speaking.  one of the girls in our group is korean, so she was able to translate that he was proposing marriage on the loud speakers.  i would have thought this was cute, but the guy sounded miserable as he was speaking.  try to imagine in the most monotone voice, "i love you.  i want to spend my life with you.  you're great.  will you marry me."

the light and water show was great.  it reminded me a little of the belagio in vegas, because the water moved with the music and the lights flashed and changed color on beat.  

afterwards, we all went to go norebong, (karaoke.)

this is our best korean-style pose.

korean traditional harvest celebration

one of our korean friends that we met at a coffee shop, (that she owns), invited us to the university she graduated from for a harvest celebration with a bunch of her friends and her boyfriend.  this celebration is traditionally performed by the "humble", or not so wealthy, koreans that live outside of the city.  it is a performance to bring good fortune to the fall harvest.

there were about 70 performers, each with a different traditional korean percussion instrument.  they formed a line and walked, danced and marched around a fire harmonizing their instruments for about 3 hours.  in their performance they had battles where four people would go head-to-head and try to out-do each other with their playing and dancing.  at one point in the night everyone formed a circle and the best player from each instrument did a solo performance in the center of the circle.

 later in the evening they taught ryan and i how to play some of the instruments.  it's not as simple as it looks because there are certain ways and specific spots where you have to hit it.

this is me trying to learn.

this is me once i figured it out and could play on-beat.

some of the performers wore these hats with long ribbon attached to them and they would play their instrument and twirl the ribbon all over the place.

this is ryan doing his best.

when the fire died down every formed a circle and had a dance party.  ryan and i were challenged to a dance-off.  i must say, we held our own.

after the music, everyone went inside and feasted on some meat and rice and we played games.  all the games that we learned that night involved the loser being slapped on the arm.

this video is of one of the games they taught us.  everyone stands in a circle and chants in a certain order.  if you mess up the chant then everyone gets to slap you on the arm.

28

now that i am finally finished blogging about our vacation, i can get back to telling you more about what we have been up to since we have been back.

ryan's birthday was a few days after we returned from our vacation.  after many (four) failed attempts to try to surprise him for his birthday, i just went ahead and told him that i had planned a birthday celebration with our friends up in the mountains.  one of our good friends works at an english camp that is equipped with a basketball court, badminton courts, a full kitchen with 4 sinks and 7 stoves, a karaoke room and much more.  no students were at camp that week so we had the whole place to ourselves.

we spent our time there doing sports activities, playing games and making food.  i was even able to make ryan a birthday cake.

day 16: our last day- bangkok

day 16: 

we only spent one day in bangkok before we had to get on a plane and head home.  we used our last day  to go on a canal tour to some palaces and burial grounds.  we also used to it get our last thai massage making our massage count come to a total of 4 for our trip.