My Last Days

So to make my last day in Seoul special. My friend Stephanie accompanied me for the day. We got to go to all of my favorite places.

After having free lunch with a friend of a mutual friend, we went to "Real SM" building and then explored the area to go find our way to CUBE Cafe. It was really fun to go there and hang out at the place where all m Kpop adventures really seemed to start.

After we finished going to the agencies, we got on the subway and made our way up the orange line to Dongguk University station to take the bus to Namsan Tower. It had always been one of my dreams to go to Namsan at night so I could look out at my city at night and see all the lights that Seoul had to show off.

I am no going to lie, I was tearing up on the road up to the tower. it was weird to think that this was going to be mu last night in the city. I was able to hold in the tears, but they threatened to spill when I was up in the tower. Seoul during the day is so vibrant and lively, but Seoul at night is breathe taking. Looking out over the Han is so hauntingly beautiful; the highways illuminated red and white, like veins pumping the life blood of the city even late into the night. I was struggling to hold in the tears while I was trying to say my goodbyes.

The next morning, the day I was going to fly out. I moved my things into Stephanie's room after I checked out and we went to Alice Cafe with our mutual friend Abby (see lunch from above) and got cupcakes and drinks for breakfast. Afterwards Stephanie helped me bring my things to the bus stop and waited with me until my shuttle arrived.

It may not have been the most glitzy and high rolling way to leave the country like some of my friends, but I would not have changed anything. It was perfect, it was just like my personality while I was there in Seoul. And hopefully am able to go back one day and visit all these magical places again ^^

AYP Coastal Trip Part 2

Ok, I last left off at the first night of the AYP trip, so let's start with day 2:

We had to wake up pretty early since we had a big day planned. So at 0800 we got up and since breakfast was still being made, we walked around the fields and even visited a privately own temple. Truthfully I kind of wanted to sleep more, since breakfast was not for another hour or so, but I rolled out of bed and put on my tennis shoes and went out side. I am so glad that I went^^

Baby birds outside of our room

Fresh mountain berries that our host picked for us so we could have a snack before we did our hike

On our way to the shrine

The shrines and the surrounding area was amazing!

Rice field and the drainage ditch off to the side that helps regulate the water levels

An old women working in the fields

Part of the Shrine. There is an older women that lives on the grounds. It is stylized at a representation of Buddhist Heaven. 

View of the valley and part of the compound that we were staying on  ( Right Side through the trees) form the Temple Grounds. 

I loved walking around and seeing all the fields and the people out in them picking and weeding. It really reminded me of my family farm out in Alabama. All the people up early working in the fields until later in the day when they would come in for breakfast and just hang out and shoot the breeze until is was time to work again.  I felt at home because it reminded me of my family there. Everything was just so peaceful. After walking around we can back to the MT/ factory that we were staying at and ate breakfast. It was so good. Even though the ingredients were simple and it was not fancy, everything was so fresh and perfectly seasoned that it was just absolutely wonderful and I could have eaten everything in sight had  that not been socially unacceptable/ time constraints.

Super delicious breakfast. Really considered bringing the 할머니 back home to Seoul with us so we could have all of her wonderful meals everyday^^

After breakfast, we drove to our next destination. It was a far drive (about an hour and a half) but all of us crashed in the van, so it seemed like no time at all when we arrived at the town next to Sorak-do for lunch. Now  one thing about CIEE excursions, is that you get fed very well (almost too much).

For lunch we got another seafood spread that was really good, even though I did not eat that much since I am not a huge seafood fan/ try to stay away from shell fish as much as possible. But it was really good all that same ^^

ALL THE FOOD!!

Again more crabs from all the marsh lands

After the huge dinner, we went out to Sorrak-do to tour the island. Sorrak-do is interesting because it has only been open to the public for about 15 years or so. Before that it was closed as a private hospital residence for the remaining patients that had opted to remain on the island  so that the government would continue to take care of them even though their treatments were complete.

I realize that I am writing all this history without telling you what the residences where suffering from. Sorrak-do was established as a leper colony during the Japanese colonization. Even after the Japanese left, the Koreans still used the island as a colony for the infirm. Even at the present, there are still patients that are there, but we were told that they were done with treatment, not that we were going to be around them anyway. The main reason that we went there was not only because it is one of the relatively "untouched" tourist places in Korea, but because it is well known for the garden that residents created themselves over the years. All the stones, all the flowers, even down to the upkeep was done by the leper patients, and it was gorgeous. Everything was in bloom and it was so pretty!

Sorrak can be roughly translated into "Little Deer" so there was this mural of a deer that was absolutely beautiful. At first I was not sure what it was, but once I got right in front of it, I could see the deer.

This was the room where the Japanese soldiers would do autopsies on the Leper prisoners that they had on the island (sometimes when they were still alive!!). Really felt like I should have been on an episode of Ghost Hunters International. 

What the island looks like from the air. See why they named it little deer

After Sorrak, we went to the grocery store to get food to take with us to the next island, because there was not going to be any types of food stores there, so  we needed to bring everything that we could think we would need. In the end we ended up getting too much food, but that is not always a bad thing; rather too much, then not enough.

After getting the food, we drove to the pension that we were going to be staying at for the night. It was right on the beach and really beautiful. We were the only guests there besides a group of businessmen, but we did not really see them all that much except for when we were grilling dinner while they were eating as well.

the girl's shopping list

Super good ice cream that you need to let melt a little so it tastes like a milkshake. Perfect on a hot day

Our pension where we were staying. The girls' room was the farthest on the left.

The A-frames that our program leader was staying in.

 After we settled in and relaxed some, all of us AYPs went down to the beach with our program director and just chilled for an hour before we started dinner. The beach was so cool, because there was really no sand, but rather the beach was made out of smooth rocks. We played around in the small area that was sand (making sand castles, playing in the water, etc) and just bonded until we all got hungry and decided to make dinner (삼겹살 again ^^)!

View of the beach from the back lawn of the pension

Drawings that someone had made on the rocks

Our finished sand castle

More meat for dinner

After dinner, some people went off to bed, while the rest of us hung out in the girls' cabin and played charades and just hung out and talked. The next morning we had to pack up and drive back to Suncheon to catch our train back to Seoul.