We all had Thursday off as a Korean holiday, but some (most) teachers didn't have school on Friday either, so a few people went up to Chuncheon on Wednesday night. Of course, I had school on Friday still, so I headed up Friday afternoon with one of my friends who had had to stay behind because of a teacher's trip. Luckily, I got out of school early because of midterms, so we caught an afternoon bus to head north.
There is no direct bus from Jeomchon to Chuncheon, so we had to take a bus to Seoul, and then take the subway to Chuncheon. When we arrived at the bus station in Seoul I was immediately overwhelmed. There were people EVERYWHERE. I have grown accustomed to living in Jeomchon, and it was quite intense to all of a sudden be surrounded by SO MANY PEOPLE. We had a little time to kill because we were waiting for one other member of our group to meet up with us in Seoul, so we walked around the subway station for a while. There was a HUGE food court that had all kinds of western foods. It's been six weeks since I've had much access to any western food, so I felt a little bit like a little puppy that has just been let out of its kennel after a long day. My eyes were bouncing from place to place and I felt like I couldn't quite fight my way through the crowds quick enough. We ended up getting a little bit of everything, which is actually pretty disgusting, but hey, I usually eat healthy...so I guess it's ok to binge every once in a while?
 |
| Binge eating at its finest |
After our eating adventures, we caught the subway, which took us to Chuncheon. It's actually quite amazing that the subway goes all the way from Seoul to Chuncheon, because Chuncheon is in a different province from Seoul--it's really quite the distance. It's kind of like if the T went from Boston to Manchester. Which, by the way, I would love. The more I travel around Korea, the more I am left wondering why the US can't have better public transportation....get your act together, America!
Anywho, when we got to Chuncheon, the owner of our pension picked us up and gave us a ride to the pension where we stayed for the rest of the weekend. The other members of our group were already there, and beyond ready to eat dinner. We did some grilling, had a few drinks, and hung out for the rest of the night.
The next morning, we had some breakfast and then headed to Nami Island. To get to the island, you take a short ferry ride, which was quite lovely since the weather was fantastic and we were surrounded by some beautiful mountains.
Nami Island is a very popular tourist destination in Korea. Actually, Nami Island is its own republic....so you can buy souvenirs of the currency and once you're on the island. A famous Korean movie called "Winter Sonata" was filled on Nami Island, so many landmarks on the island relate to that movie and provide photo opps for people who know the movie (but none of us had ever seen it...)
 |
| View on our ferry ride |
The island kind of reminded me of a big park with random photo opportunities everywhere. There were really random statues located throughout the island, and many things that were there were clearly placed with the intention of creating places for people to take pictures. Regardless, it was a beautiful day and we couldn't have had better weather to walk around in.
 |
| Oh, Korea. |
 |
| This is just so Korea. |
 |
| Kind of scary.. |
Eventually we were got quite hungry, and we got some lunch at a Chinese restaurant (think real Chinese food, not the kind you get in America). After lunch we walked around some more, got some more snacks, and then a few of us decided to ride some swan boats out on the lake. This was hands down my favorite part of the day. The weather was beautiful, we had an awesome view of the mountains, and we could just sit back and hang out on the water. It was lovely.
 |
| Beautiful view out on the boats |
After we got off the boat, it was already around 5:00, so we had to get back to our pension. We had some confusion about where we were supposed to meet our pension owner, but eventually we made our way back to the subway station, where he picked us up and brought us back.
That night we grilled (or should I say braaied) again. This is where the fun began.
The previous night we had noticed that there were some wasps were in our pension. They were all up on the top window and were pretty inactive, and we thought it must be because of the cooler weather. We hadn't worried about it much because they didn't seem to leave that top corner.
However, on the second night while we were eating dinner one flew up and landed on a pile of radish. We slightly freaked out and came up with the solid solution of throwing the radish over the edge of the deck. Problem solved. Kind of.
Now, if you know me at all , you are aware of my bee-phobia. I hate bees, wasps, hornets, really anything that stings. If you're ever outside with me while a bee comes by, I WILL run away as fast as I can. It's a completely irrational fear, but when I'm in the situation I can't quite control the impulse to run away.
Needless to say, once the wasp flew up in the middle of our dinner, I was on heightened alert.
As I was eating, I thought I felt something on my back. Naturally, I freaked out, and had my friend check my back. He assured me there was nothing there, so I continued to eat.
That's when things got worse. I was eating and all of a sudden I felt something in my hair. I KNEW it was a wasp. I started to freak out and essentially went into the fetal position as my friends tried to get it off of me. I was anticipating the sting, because I thought it was inevitable as they tried to remove it from my hair. It the midst of the jumble, it somehow moved down to my thigh...I had my eyes shut the whole time in absolute fear, but they somehow got it off of me. By this point my skin was absolutely crawling and my freak out was at its prime. I was afraid to be outside because I thought it was going to happen again, and afraid to be be inside because of the wasps that had been in there for the past few days.
We decided at that point to go ask the pension owner if he had any spray to kill the wasps. I went downstairs with one of the other girls and since we don't know how to say "do you have wasp spray?" in Korean she pulled up a picture of a bug on her phone then used some acting skills to get across the spray part. It was quite hilarious, but he understood what we were trying to communicate, thank God.
Thankfully, he had spray, and the fearless members of our group started the wasp rampage inside while I tried to calm my nerves with some soju.
The rest of the night was thankfully wasp free, and we spent the evening hanging out and playing some games (we made up a few of our own, complete with getting to use chopsticks as wands...can't go wrong!) We were up until about 5 AM and closed the night with some Lion King....don't ask. But it was a really fun night all around.
The next morning we packed up our stuff and headed back to the subway station. Two members of our group got an early start back, and the rest of us headed to Dakgalbi Street. Dakgalbi is a type of meal with chicken, cabbage, potatoes, and rice cakes, all cooked in a spicy sauce in a large pan in the middle of your table. I had it once in Jeomchon, and LOVED it, so needless to say I was excited when I found out that Chuncheon is famous for its dakgalbi. Dakgalbi Street is an area of Chuncheon where they have plentiful options of dakgalbi restaurants, so we knew we had to check it out before we came back home. Naturally, we picked the restaurant with the Wonder Woman in front of it....because what could say "great dakgalbi" better than Wonder Woman? I love Korea.
 |
| Because nothing makes you want to eat at a restaurant like Wonder Woman! |
 |
| Absolutely delicious |
Lunch was fantastic, and once we were full we were on our way back home. We decided to go a more roundabout way home to avoid the Seoul weekend craziness. We were home by 6, and after a fun weekend, I was ready for bed!
No comments:
Post a Comment