Strawberries, Temples, and Unlimited Rocks to Climb

A temple decorated for Buddah's Birthday

The other weekend was one of the busiest in a while. I had seen a tour online, so my friend Mary and I decided to check it out. It involved ziplining, strawberry picking, and a nighttime temple tour. We were pretty excited, but then we heard that the ziplining was canceled. No big deal, we were going to go anyway!

Cable car to the top of the mountain

To get to the tour, my friend Mary and I had to go to Busan to catch the bus. We arrived a little early so we spent a few minutes talking to other tour-goers until the bus came and we were on our way. The first stop we made was a mountain. We took a cable car up a little ways, then spent about an hour walking around the waterfall and caves there, taking a lot of pictures. It was really nice and very beautiful!  The cave wasn’t anything huge, just an indent into the mountain really, but there was a ledge at the top where we could climb up and pretend to be cave monsters, which of course we did!

Waterfall View

Cave Monsters!!

 

After getting back on the bus, we promptly fell asleep listening to the constant jibber-jabber of our fellow tour friends. That didn’t stop us from getting a good 2 hour nap, and we awoke at stop number two. We were groggy from our long nap, so we slowly shuffled up a hill in the middle of some middle-of-nowhere place and into someone’s rundown yard. There, we were given a plastic carton and pushed into a giant greenhouse, where we were pleasantly surprised. There, inside, were tons and tons of strawberry plants covered in strawberries. The rule was – fill your box, but you can eat as many as you want! We sure did, and our tummies were fit to burst by the time we got done! With full bellies, we all shuffled back to the bus in a good mood and headed to the next place on the itinerary – a temple dinner.

Pickin' Strawberries

Temple dinner time!

We walked into this huge hall with rows of pillows to sit down on. In front of each pillow was a stack of bowls for our dinner. First you must lay out your placemat, then set your bowl on top. Inside the bowl were 4 more bowls, each were to be removed and put onto the placemat. Water was poured into one, food into the other three. The rule was that everyone had to eat everything they received, then clean their bowls using the water and a yellow radish. After, you had to drink the water, so that there was nothing left but clean bowls. 

Our meal set - all ready to go!

Getting our cleaning water!

Serving soup

All ready to eat!

Patrolling the room...checking to make sure every one is eating correctly

When dinner was done, the monks helpers set us into groups and gave us a little kit so that we could make paper lanterns. Our group decided to share colors, so our lamps were rainbow and beautiful. Inside was a candle, which we lit and then followed the head monk for a tour around the temple. At first, we just walked around some colorful lanterns a few times, but then we broke up and headed our own way. The main place to go though, was a colorful musical fountain.

Making Lanterns

The handiwork of the evening

My lantern all lit up

Musical fountain

After the songs were over, Mary and I headed back to the bus, not looking forward to the long ride back to Busan. Luckily, we were in for a surprise! It wasn’t a normal bus ride, but a karokee ride! They passed around a book and everyone was singing along to the tv in front, while the person with the mike got to dance through the aisle. Fantastic!

Having fun on the bus

 

When we arrived in Busan, we spent some time with our fellow travelers, then excused ourselves to find a Jimjillbang to sleep in. We wanted to get lots of rest, because we were going to Amnam park the next day! Luckily, a JJB wasn’t too far away. Though it was crowded, we were able to find a spot on the floor to crash until morning.

The next day we woke up, lazed around some hot tubs with a view out over the ocean, had some legit breakfast, then headed out to Amnam park for some climbing. When we arrived, there were already some other people climbing there. A few foreigners, and a lot of Koreans. There was this one group who were just eating all day. It seemed like the picnic that never ended! They weren’t even there to climb it seemed, though they knew how. They just sat at their table and continually cooked food!

Me and Mary - and the picnic in the background

Hanging out at the top

The climbing was really fun. I lead a route, Mary led a route, and we climbed a few of the routes the other foreigners were leading. They told us about a place in Ulsan that we could check out next weekend as well!

After the fun-filled weekend, we headed back to Pohang to relax and get ready for the next week of work.