London's Suji South Korea Adventure: Sokcho, South Korea

This past week we had Thursday and Friday off for Chuseok, Korea's version of Thanksgiving. A group of 7 teachers from LCI (Janice, James, Steve, Blake, Michael, Gina) including myself, decided a few weeks ago that we wanted to go to Sokcho. Sokcho is a city of about 500,000 on the north-east coast of South Korea. It is very close the the boarder of Korea. Sokcho has a beautiful National Park called Seorak-san. It was so nice to be by the ocean and surrounded by trees and mountains instead of being in crowded Suji.

We left Suji on Thursday morning and took an express bus to Sokcho. It took us under 3 hrs to get there. We stayed at this place that a man and his wife own and operate. They have a few rooms above their house that you can rent. We were met by them at the bus station. They took us to buy some food (we had kitchens and a patio area to BBQ) and then brought us to their house. It was close to the National Park and outside of Sokcho which was so refreshing. It was really nice because we had 3 of the 5 rooms and no one else was there. We were able to sit outside, play cards, cook our food and feel like we had rented a cabin. From there we decided to get lunch and head to the beach. We sat by the water enjoying the weather. It was really warm outside and nice to be in tank tops and swimsuits for the first weekend of October. After the ocean we went to Waterpia. It is this indoor and outdoor place that is full of pools and hot springs. We sat there for a while before we decided to get a message. I have never had a message before and it was a nice splurge for vacation! After that we went back for the night and had BBQ for dinner. Fred joined us that night (well really 3 am) when his bus got there. He had to work on Thursday.

On Friday we got up and made breakfast before heading to the Park. We hiked a trail that lead to a waterfall. After we left the Park we went into town and went screen golfing. It was a lot of fun however I need practice!

On Saturday we went back to the Park and walked around a temple. Then we took a cable car ride to the top of another mountain. It was beautiful! We could just walk wherever and climb all around the mountain without any restrictions. We could just climb a peak that had a 100 feet drop off underneath it. That would never happen at home! We then went back to out place and relaxed and played cards before heading to the harbor for dinner. We went to a great spot that served tons of seafood. We ended up getting plates of shrimp and clams. Sokcho is also known for its stuffed squid. It was stuffed with carrots, potatoes and your basic stuffing. After dinner we shot off fireworks before going back for the night. We got up early on Sunday to head back to Suji to beat the traffic from the holiday weekend. It was so nice to be away from Suji!