Party Animals!

As our time in the ROK comes to a close, we are squeezing in a few more Korean adventures.  The latest and greatest? An animal themed birthday party at Lotte World, a theme park in Seoul. No... this was not a party for one of our students, but for one of our friends, a fellow English teacher. 

You see, Korea (or at least the foreign community in Bundang), has these animal pajamas/costumes that you can buy online. They are great for Halloween,  Animal-themed parties, or simply a Sunday afternoon.   Most of our friends (and everyone at this party) have them.

Unfortunately, Clayton and I didn't order our costumes in time. So, we settled for the other Korean classic: couples shirts. And later we paired them with these fabulous accessories!

Lotte World is the world's largest indoor theme park. It has roller coasters winding through the building, its own version of Splash Mountain, an ice rink, a monorail, and a plethora of other attractions. Outside, there is another section of amusement park called Magic Island.  Magic Island has a roller coaster called the Atlantis, on which an employee lost their head last year due to standing up on the ride.  After riding it, I can see how it could happen. The ceilings were pretty low. Yikes!  While we enjoyed riding it, we did not enjoy the 40 minute wait in the freezing cold with no coats. The second time outside we were wiser.

 

 

The French Revolution, the indoor roller coaster, was our favorite ride. This roller coaster wound all the way through part of Lotte World, and the loop-de-loop went around a walking bridge, so you could stand under the people and make faces at them as they went upside down (see above picture).  It was amazing to see people eating lunch right under the roller coaster. It also made the ride better because you felt like you could hit something at any moment.

We stayed until just before the park closed... or at least until the outdoor rides closed. We even tried (and almost succeeded) to sweet-talk our way on to the Atlantis after it was closed...  

The skating rink.

Lotte World at night!

All in all it was a fabulous day. Highlights included being given fast-passes because we were dumb foreigners, joining a parade, and "stampeding" through the park with a bunch of animals.   With such wacky, wonderful friends, you can see why it is hard for us to leave.

Oh yea... and we went to Malaysia!

In September, during Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving), we went to Malaysia. It just so happens that it was also our 1st anniversary.  Good gift? We think so.  We landed in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday night, and left first thing in the morning for Taman Negara National Park, the world's oldest rainforest.

Since we were on a limited schedule, we booked a tour company to get to Taman Negara. On the way there, we were taken to a "deer farm" where we were walked around a sad looking zoo and shown "exotic" animals, like this osterich, some deer, and some jungle cats that looked remarkably like house cats.

We also fed a sun bear and held a python. The other ladies with us on this little excursion weren't that excited about touching the animals, but Clayton and I weren't going to turn down the opportunity. It's not every day a bear eats honey from your hand!

After the petting zoo, we ate lunch and drove to an elephant sanctuary... the real highlight of our time in Taman Negara. We fed adorable baby elephants, rode them, and watched them bathe.

This little guy was so cute!

We were supposed to get to wash the elephants in the nearby river, but the water was too high that day, so we had to settle for this. It was still awesome.

Taxi? Subway? No thanks, I'll go by elephant.

In Taman Negara, we ate on a floating restaurant every day. The food was delicious and the view was amazing!  

 Our first night, we went on a night jungle hike, in search of creepy crawly bugs! Can you see the hand-sized hunstman spider in this photo? Not only is it well disguised, it is fast as lightning.  We also saw scorpions, centipedes, and a wild pig.

 

Jungle!

The view during our hike through the jungle.

After our hike, we went up the world's longest canopy walk. It was beautiful!

After our hard work hiking through the rainforest, we thought it was a good idea to spend some time on the beach.  We took a very long bus ride, followed by a speedboat out to the Perhentian Islands.  We stayed on Perhentian Kecil, the smaller and less built up of the islands. Be thankful you will ever see us again, because if it was up to us, we would probably still be there. It was the most beautiful place.

We spent some time on the beach, snorkeled, and just relaxed. We ate delcious meals of bbq baracuda, king fish,  fresh coconut milkshakes, and malaysian noodles.

We went snorkeling and tried out out underwater camera. It was both of our first time snorkeling, and we loved it!

We threw bread out for some of the smaller fish. But we also saw sharks, and some giant fish whose names we don't know.

We also saw a sea turtle! He was so cute! We were able to swim close to him and watch while he went up and down for air.  As with all sea turtles, this guy is endangered. There were signs all around the island warning against touching them.

Island butterfly.

One of the nights, we went to the other side of the island and watched a fire show. It was pretty incredible. The guy who did most of it was foreign. We imagined that he just showed up on the island one day and never left. A tempting thought...

The view from our bungalow and around the island. 

 

After the island glory, we went back to Kuala Lumpur to experience a little grungy city life. We went to several markets in the city, including one in Little India. We also went to the night market in China town, where we haggled to our heart's content.

 Our second day in KL, we woke up early and headed over to the famouse Petronus Towers. Despite getting there early, we would have had to wait for hours to actually go up the towers, so we took photos outside and went up the KL Tower instead, where we got lovely views of the city and of the towers.

After the towers, we headed out to see the Batu Caves. The Batu Caves hold a large Hindu temple, and many monkeys. This one seems friendly, but don't be fooled. In the temple itself, we were chased by a monkey who attempted to steal the remainder of Clayton's lunch.  The monkey actually launched himself off some stairs and swung on the bag before we made it out.

Given my love of henna, I couldn't turn down this lady who was outside of the caves. She did an amazing job, and she was incredibly sweet. In fact, almost everyone we met in Malaysia was very nice. We really enjoyed our time there.

We were very glad that we took the time to go to the Batu Caves. The multitude of stairs were well worth the climb. The inside of the caves were beautiful. There was moss growing up the side of them, and huge openings where sunlight could shine through. It was a very pleasant end to a wonderful vacation.  We would definitely visit Malaysia again.  

Because, why wouldn't we climb a mountain in -10 degree weather?

Last weekend, we went to Seoraksan with our friends Jared and Katie. Seoraksan is one of the highest mountains in Korea, and it is a very popular place to visit. We stayed in a cute little town called Osaek.

 On Saturday, we donned our many layers and ventured out into the cold. We were so bundled up that we felt somewhat like human marshmallows, but we were thankful for the layers once the wind began blowing sideways. We drove a while to the Seoraksan National Park. Once there, we began the climb up one of the more popular peaks. We trekked over frozen ponds and past slow climbing (but well dressed) Koreans. We stopped to take photos at the balancing rock, where the tradition is to try to push it over the edge.

Finally, we got to the last few hundred meters of the climb, which also happened to be the steepest part. Because it wouldn’t be hiking in Korea without stairs, this mountain was fully equipped with probably the steepest set of metal stairs I have ever seen. With the wind practically knocking us over as it gusted through the mountains, we began to climb… all the while asking whose brilliant idea this was in the first place. Once we made it to the top, however, it was all worth it.

The view was beautiful. We could even see North Korea off in the distance. While we enjoyed it, we didn’t stop to eat a picnic on this particular trip, as the wind was so cold we could barely hold our cameras. So, after a few quick snapshots, we climbed back down and made our way to the local restaurants for some much needed lunch.

The view on the way back down the mountain. 

  

Raar!

On the way back to Osaek, we drove past a frozen pond where children and their families were sledding. Because this is Korea, and parents don’t seem to care if you take photos of their children, we decided to pull over and play paparazzi. The kids were really adorable and we had fun taking photos of them and playing on the ice.

These little guys had different agendas.

Sunday morning we got up early and headed off for a sight seeing trip home. The plan was to visit the Peace Dam, eat some Dakgalbi in Chuncheon and go to an Ice Fishing Festival. The trip turned out to be a very interesting ordeal. That morning it snowed all over Korea, including Seoul and the mountains through which we were to drive. After a few slow crawls up steep hills, and a few skids and slides, we made it safely out of the mountains and to the Peace Dam.

 

The Peace Dam or Pyeonghwa Dam is on the Bukhan river in NE South Korea. Construction on it first began in the 80s when there was concern over a dam upriver in North Korea. The Bukhan river is connected to the Han which flows through the center of Seoul. The concern was that if the North Korean dam collapsed whether on purpose or by accident, the waters would cause a major flood, taking out most of Seoul. Construction was stopped partway though, because people thought that the threat had been exaggerated. But in 2005, a crack in the North Korean dam caused a lot of flooding in Seoul, so construction on the Peace Dam began again. The place was eerily quiet and empty. It was strange to see a dam built where there is no water to dam. It just sits there, waiting for an attack that has not yet come.

The site of the dam was one of the major battle zones during the Korean War. This monument was found after the fighting stopped, and has remained here as a memorial for the soldiers who fought.

 Throughout the weekend, we enjoyed a healthy amount of banter and exchange with each other, mostly due to our various locations of origin. Being Oregonians, were surprised when Katie, who is from Minnesota, divulged that this was her second time to climb a mountain. Meanwhile, she rolled her eyes slightly at our intense excitement over the concept of ice fishing, or simply being able to walk on an iced over river or lake.

You can imagine our immense disappointment when  we discovered that the ice fishing festival was closed due to the hoof and mouth disease that is spreading rapidly throughout Korea. I am pretty sure fish don’t have hooves… but I suppose they were just being sure.  At any rate, we drove through the town and saw a few ice sculptures, and then headed to Chuncheon for some lunch.

After some delicious Dakgalbi, we began the final drive home. By this time, the traffic was pretty terrible due to the snow, and cars were stopped at these stations every five minutes to be sprayed down with a mysterious hoof and mouth cleansing substance. We had only 60km left in our drive home, which should have taken around an hour to an hour and a half. Five hours later, arrived home. It was a long trek, but we had a great time anyway. Seoraksan is beautiful, and we were happy to spend a little time out of the city in the weeks before we leave Korea.