5 Day Weekend

The students at KBU had a 3 day retreat from Monday-Wednesday, and I decided to go up for at least a day. It turned out to be quite the trip!

I rode up with the staff and students and got there early Monday morning, then we headed to put our stuff away in some dorm-like rooms. They were pretty big, about as big as my apartment room! And it was just for 2 people!! So I shared the room with Sujin, my supervisor/friend from KBU. She's really nice, and speaks perfect English from living overseas since she was little. We sat in on a worship service, and then headed to check out the area. We drove half an hour north to see a really pretty lake, folk village, and movie set. We had a delicious tofu soup for dinner, and then headed back to the retreat center. The night was beautiful being able to see the stars and dark mountains around us.

The next morning, we drove north-east about an hour and a half. Going in and out, over and under the mountains was so breathtaking! At one point, we went in a fall-like, long, under-mountain tunnel and came out in the snow! We got to our destination and were at a Sheep Farm. I'll bet it's really beautiful in the spring and summer, but during the snowy winter, it was freezing!! The wind was blowing, and there was a good 3 feet of snow on the ground, so the sheep were all inside. But that was ok for us. We had lots of fun playing with the sheep and talking to the baby lambs.

Then we drove another 2 hours to the east coast to see the Sea of Japan (East Sea as it's referred to in Korea). On the way, we stopped at different places. One was a 425 year old house that was original (it looked the same as the ones in the folk villages here), and people still lived there!! We stopped to take pictures, and the woman asked if we wanted to come inside! It was such a neat opportunity we had to see how they use this really old house in modern times. The floors are still heated by hot fire smoke under the house. She showed us her kimchi pots and let me see the insides of them!! Wow!!! I was so excited to see what was inside. It looked kind of gross, but Sujin said that if you stir it up, then it's normal. The woman had dwenjang (bean curd paste) and kwanjang (soy sauce) and gochujang (pepper paste) all fermenting. I didn't get to see any kimchi, but it was neat to see how they make that stuff and then serve it in the restaurant connected to their house.

Next place was a park dedicated to a woman who is Korea's "exemplary mother". Her son did great things for Korea, and she is honored in Korea. She's even on the 50 dollar bill which is a big deal since they only have 3 other bills. 1, 5, 10, and now 50 which was just added 7 months ago.

At the beach it was soo cold!! But the beach was fun to walk around. The water looked really deep and dark. Near there was another folk village that we stopped at on our way back home. We were gone from 9am to 7pm!! It was a long, but really exciting trip.