Spring Break-Part 3-The East Coast

We live on the western side of Korea and decided on one of our Spring Break days to take a drive over to a town on the east coast, Samcheok.  It really isn't that far of a drive, but the traffic around Seoul is terrible so it took us almost 4 hours to get over there.  Our first stop on the east coast was the 2nd largest cave in all of Asia, Hwanseongul Cave. There are two large caves in this area, but we just choose to visit the one.  One cave a day is enough for us. 

 The entrance to the park around the cave.

We had to hike part way up a mountain in order to get to the cave.  They had a cable car that would take you most of the way up, but that just didn't seem like as much fun as hiking up.

It was a beautiful hike-

Some fresh cave water for you to drink.

Ready to walk into the cave-

This picture does not do the entrance of the cave justice.  You can see the girls at the bottom of the picture and see how small they look.

This cave was massive, but it was difficult to get pictures inside a very dark cave.  Lucy took her camera with us and she got the best pictures inside of the cave.

 They had these fun lights in different areas.  This was the only one we got a decent picture of.

After the cave we drove out to the coast to look at the ocean.  One of the things I miss about Camp Lejeune is the beach.  I love the smell of ocean air and the sound of the waves crashing.  It was too cold to get into the water, but just smelling the air was enough for me.  This was my very favorite part of our spring break week. 

Standing in front of the East Sea

Along the coast, some old railroad tracks have been converted into an ocean railway bike.  It is about 5 km one way then they bus you back to the starting point. 

It was a beautiful ride along the coast and through some tunnels.  Each of the tunnels we went through had a theme and a light show in it.

 The Koreans got a big kick out of waving to us as we passed each other.  Of course, our girls got into this and were practically hanging out the sides of our cart waving to everyone.

We made a "rest stop" along the way to take some pictures.

Russ did some push ups at the rest stop.

Smelling the ocean air is good for my soul. 

After the 4sh hour drive back home we were tired.  We took the next day off from adventuring around Korea and spent the day at home. 

Happy One Year In Korea To Us!!

If you have been reading this blog for any time at all you know that we love Korea.  We love the adventure of living in a foreign country, exploring new sights and learning about a different culture.  This last year has flown by so fast that it is very hard for us to believe we have been here for a year already.  But even though we love it here, there are still times we miss America and American things.  So tonight I asked this question at dinner:

"What are some things that you miss about America?"

Lucy:

• having a place to ride my bike
• Cici's Pizza
• Chuck E. Cheese

Taylor:

• a big back yard with trees to climb
• Golden Corral
• Burrberry Frozen Yougert

Me:

• Chick-fil-a
• Target
• a garbage disposal
• The freedom to run out to the store and have a choice of things to purchase.  We are able to get most of our necessities here on base, but if there is something specific that we want I almost always have to order it online.  Sometimes I miss being able to run out to the store and have more than one option.

Russ:

• driving over 25 mph
• Buffalo Wild Wings

 One down two to go!

Spring Break-Day 2 Everland Amusement Park

I am so far behind in my blogging.  The end of school and the beginning of PCS season has brought many commitments and I haven't had time to sit behind my computer as much.  I will try to get us caught up over the next few weeks. 

They have a few different amusement parks here in Seoul.  Due to the lack of land space they are not as big as they are in America, but other than the size they are pretty much the same as American amusement parks.  Lots of rides, junk food and shows. We decided one of the days while the girls were on Spring Break that it would be the perfect day to check out the biggest one in this area called Everland. 

Lucy wasn't quite tall enough to ride a few of the bigger rides but Taylor was.  So she and Russ braved the spinning, upside down rides while Lucy and I stayed safely on the solid ground.

All buckled in and ready to go.  At this point I was yelling at Russ to hold onto her.  She looked so small in that huge seat.

Off they go...

Getting higher...

You could not have paid me to ride this ride.

And here we are safely on the ground.

 Most of the rides were very similar to what we have in the states, so I didn't take a lot of ride pictures.  But they did have a fun Madagascar 3 show that we went to.  The only problem...it was all in Korean.  We didn't realize it until it was to late to leave.  We still had fun watching the characters and they did have some of it translated, but it really lost something in the translation.

It was during their Tulip Festival so there were beautiful tulips everywhere. 

No trip to an amusement park is complete without cotton candy.

One unique part of the park was an entire animal land.  The girls were able to feed birds out of their hands.

 

They had a drive through safari and the animals were really active.  They even fed the bears out of the drivers window. 

That night we watched a Moonlight Parade.  It was probably one of my favorite parts of the park.  The floats were beautiful and HUGE!!

One last roller coaster ride before we went home.

It was a good day at the Everland amusement park.