Finally, I was able to get out of Daegu and breathe and run and.... Sit on a bus for a grand total of 12 hours in one day. Actually, on three different buses. At the end of this trip my but was numb and sore all at once for the next day.
I tell you this so that you can understand when I say this was a super, freaking, funerific time of awesomeness and splendacious sights, you can understand I say this, even having suffered the bum flattening bus rides to get there and back. Even with that, this trip rocked. I was able to feel, at separate times, like a pirate and Gandalf, and yes the inner nerd in me came out massively at certain points on this trip, as did the immature, giggles-at-penis-jokes self, and the self reflective, stand-with-eyes-closed-and-arms-out-to-breathe-it-all-in self. But enough of that, let me tell you what actually happened, not just gush about how awesome sauce it was.
For me, this trip started at one am, when I left a very disgruntled Dash, and got a cab to the bus station. I got the 1:30 bus to Seoul and sat next to a very loud snoring woman who managed to keep me awake most of the trip. At about 5 am, I arrived in Seoul and then wandered around the bus terminal for two hours, waiting for shops to open and give me coffee, and for the meeting time at 7:30 outside of the bus terminal. 7:00 finally rolled around, I went to the meeting spot, and took some pictures of a random sculpture I found there while I drank my third coffee and waited for other people to show up. It didn't take very long before groups of foreigners began arriving in sleepy, coffee-chugging groups. We said out hellos and exchanged names, hometowns, places of work, and those random details you forget after five minutes and then waited around for the bus to show up.
Once on the bus, it was time for a two hour nap fest until we reached the next stop to pick up a few more people then arrived at the lake for the ferry ride.
Chungju Lake is huge and surrounded by big rocky hills/mountains. There are also hiking trails and many other things to explore there, but we were there for the ferry ride. Two hours of cruising through the water, enjoying the breeze and the amazingly nice 60 degree weather and sunshine, snapping as many pictures as we could. It could not have been a nicer day. halfway through our trip, we switched ferries and continued into even more beautiful areas of the lake. Being outside, away from work and stress and Daegu and everyday life felt great. And the sunny day wasn't to shabby either. We ate our luches and talked and oooed and ahhhhhed over the wonderful day.
After the ferry, we explored the shops a little, used the restrooms, stretched our legs, and then got back on the bus and headed to
Gosu Cave. I don't know a lot about this cave, but it was beautiful inside, with hundreds of amazing formations and colors and puddles to step in. More then once I had to fight the nerdy urge to run through it yelling, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!" I can't really say much about it that the pictures I took can't say for themselves. The cave took about 40 minutes to walk through, even with stopping every five seconds for another picture. On the way down from the cae we walked past shops and shooting games and some very odd bits a pieces... Some examples: the humping panda salt and pepper shakers, carved stone penis's, and scariest baby doll I have ever seen. We also ran into a man offering horse rides. I took advantage of this by getting to pet the first horse I have seen in over a year. And left happily smelling of horsey slobber.
The last stop on the trip was the "Three Strange Rocks" or
Dodam Sambong. There is a story about them that involves something to do with a cheating husband and the gods punishing him and the women. We also hiked up a ways to see the stone doorway. I was reminded of Devil's Doorway back home and got a little misty over it, but after hiking up many stairs and seeing a Korean walk past wearing a sweatshirt that said florida on in right underneath a big Canadian flag, I felt better. When I got back to the bottom there was a girl from the trip giving out
Makgeolli which I happily accepted and we sat around and talked about Korea and teaching and our homes. Then it was back on the bus and back to Seoul and then Daegu. By midnight I was home and flopped over on my bed, with a meowing and grumpy Dash. That was one wicked Saturday. And here are a bunch more pretty pictures:
Over St. Patty's Weekend, I went to a temple stay at Geumsansa Temple in Gimje. For the past several years my memories of this particular day of the year are fuzzy to non-existent, so I decided that going to a temple and pretending I was a Buddhist Monk would be a nice change up. I trucked it up to seoul in the early morning hours again, though not until five in the morning this time, instead of 1 am. I made my way to at 9 am and then slugged it onto the bus. I spent the trip to the temple chatting and napping and arrived in the early afternoon to a beautiful mountainside temple. We wandered a bit, looking around and taking pictures of all the temple buildings until we were called to meet the monks and get our temple stay outfits and our schedules. 
I had a ton of fun, and the pictures I took can show how beautiful the area was. Before we left we were tasked with doing 108 full bows in front of Buddha. This doesn't sound so bad, until you learn what a full bow is. First you stand and half bow then you drop to your knees and place your forehead on the floor with your hands next to your head. Then raise you hands to ear height, palms up for a second, then lower them and sit up on your knees and half bow again. That is one bow. After each bow we were to put a wooden bead on a string they had given us. Many of us went into the bowing not fully convinced we could do it, but we all pushed through and it actually didn't hurt at all. The string of beads was then made into a necklace for us to take home along with the lotus lantern we made the previous day. 
