Lunar New Year 2011

This past week we had a two day work week due to Lunar New Year. On Tuesday we all headed out for dinner and drinks after work. We went to this great hamburger place in Suji. After dinner we relaxed and headed home. On Wednesday we relaxed around Suji. We did not want to travel on Wednesday because it was the first day of the holiday and we thought that traffic would be bad. On Thursday morning we headed to the bus station at 7am and took a bus to Sokcho. Sokcho is a city on the north/eastern coast of Korea. It is one of the largets cities closest to the North Korean border. It is one of our favorite cities in Korea (we have been there four times). The bus ride took about 2 hours and 40 minutes. Our bus had to stop at three check points along the way to get sprayed with pesticides. There has been an outbreak of foot and mouth diseases in cows so the country is trying to stop it from spreading more. Anyway, we arrived and bought our return tickets for Friday because we were worried about them selling out. Next we jumped in a cab and headed to Seorak-san National Park. We went up the cable car and explored the top of the mountain. There are no barriers or bars so you have to be very careful when climbing around. There were a few points that we had to kneel behind a rock due to the strong winds. After climbing around we explored a temple in the Park then headed to our hotel. From there we went straight to Waterpia which is indoor/outdoor springs and hot tubes. Our hotel was located very close to Waterpia and had a shuttle bus which took about 2 minutes. After relaxing in the tubes for about 3 hours we left and went to dinner. We had chicken galbi which is cooked on a grill on your table. It had spicy chicken, rice cakes, mushrooms, oninos and cabbage. It was so good! After dinner we played cards then went to bed. On Friday we had lunch then headed back to Suji. The bus took about 40 minutes longer to get back due to traffic. We arrived at the bus terminal (7 subway stops away from our apt) and decided to stop at a Mexican restaurant on our way home. It was a quick trip but it was so nice to get out of Suji for a little bit.







Frozen Waterfall