hiking in our "backyard"

Although we live far away from the subway, the beach, and many of our friends, we do live close to some great hiking.  For our 6 month anniversary we set out to explore our neighborhood trails; when else will we celebrate a 6 month anniversary? We set out with appetizers in a backpack but without any clear destination in mind.

This was the beginning of the trail.

I'm standing at the start of the trail looking back at our apartment.  We are  so close to the trails!

A cave/shrine.

Inside the cave.

Inside the cave.

It's humid here.

After hiking a little further we came upon the requisite exercise park.  

We both spent some time upside down.

We treated ourselves to wine, brie, pistachios and chocolate.  Yum!

Taejongdae Day

In the spirit of trying new things, Saturday we grabbed our Kindle edition Lonely Planet (thanks mom and dad) and headed out to the southern tip of Yeongdo Island, just off the coast of Busan.  It was easy to get to and definitely one of the top 5 things I have experienced in Busan.  

We rode the festive tram to the observation point.

We saw teapot island.  

Inside the observation deck was a funny art exhibit, of what looked like model shots  of this one woman.  We did take this sweet picture though.

John is doing the same pose as someone posing next to him.

On the beach below the cliffs were a bunch of raw seafood restaurants competing for business.

After the cliffs we stopped at a Buddhist temple along the loop.

This temple was abundant with hydrangea flowers.  Unfortunately we just missed the hydrangea festival 2 weekends before.

After the hike we wandered around for dinner and came upon these lovely pieces of public art.  John's says "Let's Shake Hands" and mine says, "Let's hug!"

He's so dreamy.

Coasting

Recently, John and I realized that we've started to coast.  We have a few friends, restaurants and neighborhoods that we feel comfortable with and like.  That comfort is something I felt was sorely lacking for the first few months, and now that we have it, it's time to shake things up.  So Friday night we set out to hankering for the uncomfortable.

Our evening began and what we fondly call "Street Bar".  On one side of the department store downtown there are a lot of food carts set up all the time, and one bar.  

We had passed by "Street Bar" many times before always promising ourselves that we would stop, and so finally on Friday we did.

There was no beer on the menu, so I ordered a Margarita, not anticipating that he would actually crush the ice.

It was cold enough Friday to wear pants, and a scarf (with a sleeveless shirt)!

After street bar we headed to a restaurant we had never been to but was bustling with customers.  Turns out it was a mussel restaurant.  When we ordered the guy gave us a funny look, which we can never tell is because we are just silly foreigners or whether we are actually doing something wrong.  Turns out we ordered steamed mussels for about 8-10 people for the two of us.  

Mudfest

Last Saturday (the 16th) morning we took a bus 5 hours northwest to Boryeong for the 13th annual Mud Festival.  We signed up 3 months ago and this weekend really snuck up upon us.  It was a great weekend (although there wasn't as much mud as I would have hoped), we got sufficiently muddy, enjoyed fireworks, spent a lot of time in the ocean and continued to work on our sleeping on the floor technique.

Bus

Pre-mud.

Where we stayed.

I thought the sidewalk was pretty.

Beach.  We didn't sit under the umbrellas because you had to pay. 

Sunday morning I got up early and walked down to the tide-pools.

Sea star!

Post mud wrestling.

We spent a lot of time (along with a lot of other people) in the ocean.

If you feel like you didn't get enough mud, you could paint yourself in mud.

John with our complementary mud soap!