passion

i love traveling and experiencing other cultures, meeting new people from around the world, and seeing God's love outside of my homeland.

i remember the first time i left the united states and went to europe by myself.  it was a scary and exciting feeling sitting on the airplane realizing that this was it, there is no turning back because i'm stuck on the plane in midair.  as soon as i landed in austria it finally sunk in; what i always knew but didn't fully believe was now apparent that there is life outside of the united states.  it sounds ridiculous, but the feeling was overwhelming.

as i traveled in europe my passion sprouted and has been rooted in my heart ever since.  i made relationships with people from many countries, saw sights that caused me to pause and take in God's beauty and even attended a service in which i heard worship songs sung in 16 different languages at the same time and realized that this is where i belong.  traveling.  changing.  growing.  trying.

when i graduated college people asked me what i was going to do with my life.  my response was always, "i don't know, i want to travel."  everyone said, "do it now before you're stuck like me."  these were people who were married, or had children or were progressing in a job that they found and couldn't leave.  i was scared and wanted to fit everything in that i could before all that happened.  but as i got older i realized that i don't have to squeeze everything in.  i met people abroad who were traveling with children, married and involved in a job that they were progressing in.  

recently one of those people told me, "when you have children you don't have to stop traveling.  my wife and i would make our children carry around their diapers and wipes in tiny back packs when we traveled." this family has moved all over the world together.

the purpose of my blog is to inspire others to do the same.  whether it is traveling abroad or traveling in your hometown, to get out and experience life, meet new people and see what the Lord has done across the world.  my hope is that my blog would encourage readers not to try to squeeze everything in, or feel like they have to stop traveling or doing something they're passionate about just because they are married, stuck in a job or have children.

find your passion and continue to grow in it, whatever it may be.

7 things to do on jeju island

jeju island is a semi-tropical oasis off of the coast of the southern tip of south korea. it is now known as one of the 7 new natural wonders of the world.

i made a small list of things to do in jeju. of the 7 things on the list, we did 5 but were told by many korean friends that the other two were a must, we just didn't have time to do them.

1. lava caves

it is a very exciting and eerie feeling all at once.  to know that these caves were formed by rushing lava that flowed through the earth burning a cave underground is enough for me to get past my

claustrophobia and lace up my shoes.

2. hike sunrise peak

it is a short and easy hike to summit the top of this interesting cliff.  along the way to the top are many picturesque view points to capture the city, water and wonderful shades of green all at once.

at the top of the cliff is a natural green "bowl" in the land.  it is beautiful to see the bright colors of green and blue alike.

3.  waterfall swimming

at most of the waterfalls it is "looked-down-upon" to swim, but our group took the plunge and it was one of the highlights of our trip.  all we had to do was play the "i'm a foreigner and i didn't know" card.

4. jungmun beach

this beach is beautiful.  it is draped in white, black and orange sand, the softest sand i have ever walked on.  it is made up of sand, salt and lava.  the waves are fairly large, and if you're lucky like we were, you will be able to catch a surfing competition.  we were able to watch kelly slater surf nearly 30 feet from us while we were playing in the waves.

5. eat hallabong and black pork

unfortunately we didn't get a chance to try the black pork that everyone is talking about, but we did eat plenty of hallabong, (or jeju oranges.)  it is said that these oranges are unable to grow anywhere else.  koreans even tried to harvest them on korea's mainland but they were unable to survive.  they are as unique and delicious as everyone says they are.

6. hike halla mountain.

we weren't able to hike this mountain because it is a four hour hike up and 3-4 hour hike down and we were only able to visit jeju for 36 hours.  it is still on my to-do list because at the top there is a beautiful lake resting in the center of the peak.

7. bike around the island

there is a trail that traces the outside of the island along the coast where you are able to rent bikes for the day and explore.  jeju has several beaches and cliffs to view along this trail.

and so the journey continues....

this part of the trail headed back towards the tall buildings and bustling people out on the town on a saturday evening.  we stopped twice on this leg of the journey, once to use the restroom at a nice galbi restaurant and another time to fuel up on more gatorade and trail mix.  

the trail crawled itself up another small mountain, down the mountain and through dongdaemun shopping district.  soon after we left dongdaemun we lost track of the trail.  we weren't following the signs as closely as we needed, but we knew we had to end up at a hotel, so we walked until we found that hotel.  

since we were lost, we weren't quite sure what part of the hotel grounds to walk to and we accidently ended up in the middle of a wedding that was happening in the garden of the hotel.  we saw the trail in distance, but the only way to access it was to walk closer to the wedding and through the actual back drop of where the bride and groom stood to say their vows.  

we were tired and hurting, so we didn't care and we did it.  we basically crashed a wedding.  imagine sitting in your sunday-best watching people you care about confess their love for each other, meanwhile three sweaty girls wearing brightly colored clothes and big back packs tip-toe right behind the bride and groom.  that's what happened.  but we didn't care, because it was about 7pm by this time and we were dreading our last mountain that we had to climb.

it was a glorious feeling, despite our aching joints and throbbing feet.  the feeling of accomplishment was surreal.  we slowly slipped into delirium and started laughing at everything that was funny and not funny alike.  we celebrated like tired school girls and finished off the night with some intense dancing at the noreabong, (private karaoke room.)

hiking seoul's fortress wall, part 2

it was 2:30 in the afternoon.  the sun was blazing down on our shoulders, our bags were starting to feel a little heavier and our lunch was starting to weigh down our bellies and eyelids.  we had yet to hike the most difficult part of the journey, bugaksan mountain.

bugaksan is the largest mountain that we hiked on this trail.  it consisted of  hundreds of stairs that cascaded down the mountain, large trees, young korean guards, the stone stacked wall to our left and barbed wire guarding the stone wall.  it took us probably 45 minutes to an hour to climb up all the stairs and finally take a much needed breather on top of the city.

unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any photographs while climbing the mountain, but we were able to take some on our descent.

this tree shows the bullet markings from the mini battle when north korea tried to assassinate the president.

luckily the city posted many of these signs for us to follow since much of the wall is missing in certain areas and it is very difficult to figure out where it meets back up.

we reached the third main gate.  we took a short break to take a picture together, and by this time my knees were falling off my legs so i was very grateful.

descending from the mountain was refreshing.  not only were we able to give our quads a break, but we were blessed with dirt trails that twirled between trees a good distance away from the city.

when we reached the bottom of the mountain is was 5pm and we had more city, more wall and more mountains to climb.

seoul's fortress wall

one of the coolest things i have done in south korea is hike seoul's fortress wall, and it took about 9 hours to do.

it was first built in 1396 as a means to protect the city during the joseon dynasty.  most of the wall still exists today, though since 1396 seoul has grown tremendously and the wall no longer hugs the city, but the city now hugs the wall.  

the wall was built to connect with 4 of seoul's small mountains to help aide in seoul's protection.  it stretches out for 18.2 km and forms a ring around the city, up mountains, through parks and beside restaurants.  within the wall are 4 main gates each facing a different direction; north, south, east and west.  

we started our hike at 10:30 in the morning.  it began at the south gate called sungnyemun which is the largest gate constructed in seoul.

in 2008 a man set fire to this gate as revenge to the government for taking over his land.  the top half of the gate was made of wood, so unfortunately a lot of the gate was destroyed.  since then they have begun reconstruction and hope to be finished by the end of the year.

these men are sorting through remains that they have salvaged to place back onto the gate.



we continued on our hike through the city.  some of the time we were able to walk along the wall and other times we found the wall to be non-existent and had to wind through back alleys in order to find it again.

after about an hour of hiking we got a little side tracked and thought it would be fun to geo-cache, not realizing that we still had 8 hours to go.

we continued on our hike and ascended up our first mountain called inwangsan.  this part of the hike provided beautiful views of the city scape which contrasted old structures with new high rises as well as  allowed us to see the blue house, (which is where the president lives and is the equivalent to the united states' white house.)

as we left inwangsan, we approached a memorial in honor of the south korean soldiers who fought off north korean soldiers who planned to assassinate the president in 1968.  in the end, south korea was able to divert the mission.  because of their attempt, the wall was officially closed off to the public in order to protect that part of the wall that guards the blue house.  in 2007 the wall was reopened to the public.

immediately after viewing the statue we were led to our second gate, changuimun gate.  we walked through the gate and ate lunch at a quaint little restaurant.

.

after lunch we continued up the mountain called bugaksan.  in order to have access to this part of the wall, we needed our passport or alien card.  this part of the wall is heavily guarded every 50-100 yards and many areas along the wall are restricted to taking any photos.

still to come: 6 more hours of hiking.