Nothing Short Of A Yog . . .

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Discontinue blog?

If you have any objections to me discontinuing this blog. Let me know in a comment please. We're back in Canada now...won't have exciting adventures to blog about anymore. But I may write things here and there if anyone is reading them. I'll keep updates in here. Let me know if you read this or I'll likely stop altogether.

Peace,
Lee

Mountain Retreat

Our church had another Mountain Retreat this weekend. They call it a "retreat", but it's really not. It's a good time to get together with our friends and fellowship with each other, play games, eat, and have a bon fire, but it isn't a place to relax and recharge. Church retreats have become known for being sleepless and exhausting, yet fun. We all had a great time. It was a beautiful area in the mountains with a fresh mountain spring. There was a nice river there and we were surrounded by lush green mountains. It definitely was nice there. It was nice to chill and hang out with friends. A few of us brought our dogs. Devin, Rachel, and Christine and I all had a dog. So there are now three puppies hanging around. They loved it. They got lots of attention from the kids.

The frogs also got a lot of attention. There were frogs everywhere there was water. It was apparently frog mating season or something because nearly all the frogs were attached in couples. They were cool looking frogs with green on top and bright orange and black on the bottom side.

One interesting that happened there was when the retreat center owner came out with some mosquito killing machine. It was a machine that pumped out some kind of bug killer that was apparently safe for humans to breathe. He clouded out the entire area with billows of this stuff. It was crazy. I can't imagine it being healthy in any way, but it did kill off the mosquitos in the area.

We played a bit of Chinese hacky-sack too. Devin picked one up in China when we were there and brought it to the retreat. Our record was a whopping 33 hits, and I think our second best was 17. It's kinda like hacky-sack in that you kick it, but it's got feathers and a plastic bottom (not anything like a sac). It's fun though. It's a totally different feel.

We had a nice french toast, scrambled eggs, and bacon breakfast in the morning and headed back to Ulsan. We were exhausted and went home to take a nap straight away after church. We woke up about 4 hours after we fell asleep.
When we go on retreats we don't expect to get any sleep but we do expect a good time, and that it was.

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Hae-Dong-Yong-Gung-Sa (temple)

So, it's Korean Remembrance Day today. We got the day off.

We decided we would take a short trip to a temple near Busan with a couple of friends. We took our scooters on the road for about 50 minutes there and back. The weather was quite hot and I ended up getting sunburn on my arms from the drive. But the breeze was wonderful on the bikes.
We didn't know what to expect when we arrived at the temple. It was actually pretty nice there. It was situated on the coast, so it was really beautiful. The temple itself had a bunch of different things around it.
There were a good amount of people there. It wasn't too busy.
We only have 3 months left in Korea so we better get on the road and see as much in Korea as we can before it's all over. I'm not sure where we'll go next. I actually haven't seen everything in my area yet. We've used up all our vacation travelling to other countries.

Anyway, temples are temples. But some of them are really nice and situated in really great areas. I think this one was one of the better ones.

Check out some pictures at this URL: (copy and paste it in the launch bar)

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Trip to China!

Christine, two friends, and I went on a 4 day/3 night tour to Beijing, China. It was a more luxurious tour than the other countries we visited. It was relaxing and fun. We toured the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City, The Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, The Temple of Heaven, and some markets. The trip was short, but sweet.

The Great Wall wasn't exactly what I had expected. Over the years it has fallen apart, so we only climbed a short fragment of it. It was really cool though. It took about 45 minutes of straight climbing to get to the top. The stairs were pretty steep in most cases so it was tiring. I figure that helped me get my weak leg back into shape. It was a beautiful veiw from the top. The mountains in China are gorgeous. It was a really cool landscape with the great wall stretching across the mountains. I really enjoyed our time there.

The Forbidden City was pretty neat. The building structures are similar to Korean style, but there are a few differences in color and minor details. It was a really huge area with lots of traditional style buildings. It was the old Imperial Palace that had 999 rooms. Nine was considered a lucky number. Most of the Forbidden City is under reconstruction for the Beijing Olypic Games in 2008.

The Summer Palace was nice. It was similar to one of the palaces we visited in Seoul. It was located on a beautiful lake. There were fresh water clams there. We also visited a pearl shop where we watched them open up the clam and take out the pearls. Usually the big clams have 20-30 pearls. We were supposed to guess how many would be in there. The winner got to keep a pearl. I guessed 24, Christine guessed 2. The funny thing was that they all expected over 20 and there were actually only 2. So Christine won the free pearl!

The Temple of Heaven was one of my favorite stops. It was really lush and green. It was a huge area full of people just hanging out and playing cards, singing and dancing to traditional music. There were musicians playing traditional instruments and singing loudly. It was really cool to hang out there with the locals and enjoy some culture. Back in the day there were human sacrifices at this temple. Kinda reminded us of Apocalypto. Anyway, it was really awesome there.

We also went to the world famous Tiananmen Square. It was really cool to be there, but in all honesty, there wasn't much to do there. It was a great big block with a ton of open space. The gate to the Forbidden City is right next to the Square. There are a bunch of buildings all around and a national flag being guarded by a few soldiers. It was really neat to be in the Square.

We were staying in the brand new Holiday Inn in Beijing. It was a sweet setup. We had really great rooms with robes and slippers. We had AC, cheap beer (a buck), and other snacks in the room. There was a swimming pool and a massage parlor. Massages are way cheaper in China, that is certain. Sadly I didn't end up getting one because the massage lady was 40 minutes late and it was a sketchy getup, so I cancelled it. Our guide ordered us massages from a different place for cheap, but they were not professional and I think they may have tried to give more than a massage. I was feeling slightly uneasy about a massage lady showing up at my door in blue jeans and high heels without any equipment. So I showed her the door and blamed it on the fact that she was too late.

But all in all, it was an awesome trip. It was a good chance to relax and take in the most popluar sites in Beijing. It was a short trip, but it was a good one!

CHINA PICTURES 1

CHINA PICTURES 2

Family visit

It was wonderful to have some family come and visit us in our home in Korea. Richard and Rashelle made their way through Korea after their vacation in Thailand. We had an awesome time. We spent the first 2 days in Ulsan. I was working while Christine took them around the town.
On the weekend we borrowed a friends scooter and had a scooter trip to Gyeongju (the ancient capital). The trip was awesome! We went up the coast and made a few stops along the way. The weather was perfect for the occasion.
We arrived in Gyeongju and went to one of the main attractions: Bulguska Temple. We wandered around in there for a while and enjoyed some tea in a korean traditional tea house.

After that we stopped by a folk village and looked at some crafts and bought a few things. Richard and I made some great $1 purchases on some glass bird whistles. These whistles actually sound like real birds. Pretty cool! (except we annoyed the girls with them).
Then we hit up the tombs park. These great big hills where the kings were buried. I've written about them before in my blog archives.
We stayed the night there at a nice motel. It was a national holiday (Children's Day) so we had to pay more than usual. But it was still cheaper than back home. Plus one of the rooms had a love bed. It's a round bed with a heater...haha. Kinky.

We took them to a Korean Bath house too. They loved it, just as we suspected! They are weird, but addicting. In fact, I am a frequent visitor to the jimjil bang.

Other than that, we had a great time around the house and in Busan. It was short but sweet.

There are some great pictures at this link.

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Busan Orphanage

We had an opportunity to go an orphanage in Busan. We spent about 2 hours playing with the children there. It was an awesome time! There were nearly 100 kids there. We played soccer, basketball, volleyball, and just ran around and played with the kids. Everyone had a wonderful time. The kids were amazing! We'll be making more frequent trips to the orphanage from now on. We'll have a chance to get to know some of the kids a little better and maybe teach them a little English too since they don't have the opportunities other kids do.

They were so excited to see us foreigners there, and especially excited to see what we could do with the basketball. So we gave them a show. Va'Shajn completed a nice two handed dunk off the back of Richard. They loved it! They also loved checking out all the guys bisceps...haha!

copy and paste this link to see more pictures
www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=14265&l=7000f&id=663740290

Happy Birthday Christine!

We had a birthday celebration for Christine on Friday. I organized a big dinner to celebrate Christine's birthday and also our friend Jazmine's birthday (her's was the day before Christine's). There were about 20 of us out for the party. We ate at a sam-gyeop-sal (korean pork strip BBQ) restaurant in the old downtown. It was a great time. Complete with the cake, party hats, and party streamers, the night was a success. In fact, we found many wonderful uses for the party streamers (little exploding streamer packages). They make great whistles, as well as telescopes.