Korea

Here's my very brief recap of our trip to Korea. Considering we took over 300 pictures there's no way I can show them all. So here are the highlights! If you are friends with me on Facebook some of these pictures might be a repeat, but I've tried to add different ones to my blog just for the sake of something different to look at.

We were gone 9 days, 2 of which were traveling. We knew it would be really hard to take Emmett with us on such a big trip so we decided to leave him at home with Grandma (Mike's mom). I had a lot of anxiety leaving Emmett for the first time. We booked tickets 1 month in advance and I swear I didn't sleep well the entire month leading up to the trip. He did great though and it ended up being nice to have a break for a week!

For those of you who don't know, about a year and 1/2 ago my dad got recruited to work for a company in Korea called Woongjin. They are there for at least 2 years and he is working for them as a chemical engineer and helping/consulting for the company as they build a new polysilicon plant. Which is what he has done most of his career in the states. They live in a town (population about 70,000) in the middle of Korea called Sangju. We got the tour from my mom while we were there and they are the only Americans in the town. Lots of people stared at us while we walked down the streets as towns like this don't get tourists. Most people do not speak English there. And if we really needed help getting directions or something we tried to snag a teenager or young adult as usually they were the only ones who could pick out a few English words for us.

We took a bus into Seoul and spent 2 days there. There's a temple in Seoul, and it has dormitories in the basement for people to stay overnight if they are traveling from far away. So we did a session there and slept at the temple too. Other than the fact that men and women were separated in their own "dorm" it was a rather cozy hotel for the night.

While in Seoul we did a lot of shopping, road lots of subways, and sightseeing. Its a huge city (about 11 million) so there was lots to do and we probably only saw a smidgen of it.

We got to go on lots of hikes to see various Buddhist temples. Buddhism is the main religion in Korea and there are temples everywhere. They are always on mountainsides and its very remote and actually quite peaceful and beautiful. Monks live in them and people go there to worship and say their hundreds of prayers.

This guy was banging the drums as part of the monks sunset ritual.

If you saw shoes outside the door then that probably meant someone was inside praying....(or sleeping, not sure which)

This picture was probably a little inappropriate of me to take, but the lady on the far right is doing her prayers to Buddha. Shortly after taking the photo a woman came up to me and shooed me away saying "no picture".

Kimchee pots. A type of Korean food that they serve at every meal. They sit in these pots and get "ripe" or rot. One of the two.

The rock wall on either side of us was made by people stacking rocks one on top of another. There was no mud or cement holding them together. Supposedly it means good luck when someone makes a "rock stack" (sorry don't know the real term).

The food...oh the food. It was really hard to eat. Koreans eat the weirdest food. The boys (Mike and Nate) loved it. Krista and I on the other hand had a harder time. I don't like fish, and I don't like spicy. Both of which are very popular in Korea. There were moments when I thought I was going to starve and then there were times when I thought I was going to lose whatever food was left in my stomach. But mostly I ate out of my mom's cupboards as she had quite a bit of American food. But there were SOME edible Korean dishes that I tried as well. So I can't say it was all bad.

And I have to throw this picture in. Here's a picture of a funky little squirrel we saw on one of our hikes. It had really tall furry ears.

It was an awesome trip and when we got back we were so glad to see Emmett again! For the first 2 days he kept repeating "momma" "dadda" and pointing at us like he couldn't believe we were actually there. So I think he'll forgive us for abandoning him for a week, however he refused to go to nursery on Sunday without Mike in plain sight. I think he's a little nervous now. :)