Travels and Tidbits

I have become more and more homesick. I'd like nothing more than to be close to my family right now. N8 and I both have strong family ties and its hard to be away for so long, even though its only one year. Thank goodness we have each other! I hope you all know that we miss you and we think about you everyday.

I think about my family even more whenever we go on little outings or traveling adventures, because I wish you all could experience this with me. Two weekends ago N8, Jose and I went to Gyeongju, which is supposed to be a very historically rich city. We arrived on Friday and searched around for a cheap motel. We were only allowed two people per room, but since all white people look the same, we were able to sneak N8 up afterwards and all sleep in the same room for only $25 (all together). We walked around the city area for a while and saw that there were small hills everywhere. Some small and some larger grassy mounds of earth which we found out are burial sights were scattered all throughout the city and the city parks. It was a chilly night on Friday but everyone seemed to be out enjoying the evening, children where screaming and playing and flying kites, couples were out holding hands and old people were drooling on the benches...it was a lovely evening. We walked through a park when it got darker and we were able to take a cool snapshot of N8 at the top of the grassy mound with the moon in between his arms.

Later on in the night we were told to visit a place where they have rebuilt temples that surround a small pond. The lights from the temple are reflected in the water and make for a very romantic evening, even though there were tons of people there. Koreans seem to love their tourist attractions. They all gather round with there very large and expensive cameras to all of the tourist sites located on the map. The next day we ended up going to Bolsaka temple, which was also rebuilt and restored and again there were many many people there. I, personally, like to travel with more seclusion but it seems as though we can't get off the tourist path. The temple was not that exciting or impressive especially since it isnt authentic. We ended up taking a nice hike up a mountain and reached the top. My fellow friends really enjoyed the challenge of the hike and were proud of the completion of it, I truly enjoyed the scenery from above. The mountains surrounded us with a thick mist covering them which made your eyes sleepy. There was a stillness on the top of the mountain that was calming and relaxing. many people do these kinds of hikes and bring a small picnic, but were too eager and forgot to bring food so we had to rush back down in order to find something to eat because we were starving!

We ended up leaving that evening on the bus back to Gangneung. It was a short trip that wasn't too eventful or spectacular but it was nice to get out of our city and see something different.