Spa Valley!

Hi everyone!
Last weekend, we took a trip to Spa Valley! Spa Valley is a water theme park like a Windsor Water Works plus hot springs and jjimgilbangs (hot tubs, saunas, baths, showers). Even though the weather wasn't perfect, it was nice enough to play in the water and it didn't rain :)


Directions:
From DAEGU BANK on the green line (NOT Daegu Station) take exit 2. There is a Paris Baguette on the corner and the bus stop is right there. Take Express Bus 2. (It's red) It will take about 20 minutes. The stop is called "Spa Valley." The bus sign thingy says Spa Valley in Hangul and in English so you can't miss it!

At the entrance.

We woke up early to get there (had to take the subway and a bus ride) and at the ticket counter we somehow got a discount! After buying tickets, we went up to the locker rooms. Our shoes went in the first room of lockers (co-ed), then Jackie and I separated from Fluke to go in the main locker rooms to change out of our regular clothes. We wondered why our shoes went in a different locker, but then figured it out at the end of the day :) Anyway, when we got to the water park area, we walked into the wave pool. The water was cold, but we were making progress until one of the lifeguards blew a whistle at us! Apparently, to be in the wave pool, you must have a life vest and a hat. So, we left the wave pool and headed to one of the water slides. Again, we were told we needed a life vest. We found the area to rent them and went back to the water slides. Some of the slides required inner tubes and others didn't. All the rides were fun and the best part was...there were no lines! A couple times we waited a few minutes, but ya. 


After the slides, we went down the lazy river! Then we lounged in a heated outdoor pool listening to the K-Pop music. Jackie has a waterproof camera so we got some cool water pictures throughout the day. We had burgers for lunch and churros for dessert! I seriously think I have had more churros in Korea in 4 months than I had in an entire year or two at home haha. How did we pay when all we had were bathing suits and life vests??? With our locker keys of course! When we bought something, Spa Valley charged it to our locker number and we would pay the bill at the end!

After one of the rides!

Somehow we ended the ride backwards!
You can see our locker keys on our ankles..that's what the cool people do!

Our life vests made it easy to float and relax :)

Underneath a waterfall thing!

On the lazy river

When it got colder in the late afternoon, we headed to the indoor part of the water park. We lounged by the water jets in the pool, relaxed in the purple water hot tub, and put our feet in the "doctor fish" pool. We each paid the equivalent of $4 for 30 minutes. Doctor fish are these tiny brown colored fish that eat dead skin off feet! It took me about 15 minutes to get used to the tickling, prickly feeling. It was strange and awesome to have my feet cleaned by small fish, but I'm telling you--it worked! My feet were much smoother after 30 minutes it was crazy! I will definitely do it again and hope I get used to the feeling faster because every time I flinched or moved my feet, the fish would leave...and go eat the skin off Fluke's feet! haha

Purple hot tub!

Doctor fish!

Anyway, after the doctor fish adventure, we decided we should get going. In the locker rooms, they had bathing suit dryers! So, we put our suits in the dryers, changed into our regular clothes, and in 5 minutes, our suits were dry!!! It was awesome. They weren't completely dry, but almost...Anyway, we gave our locker keys to the cashier just before the shoe locker section. We paid the bills, then got our key back. Then we could get our shoes out of the lockers! It is the perfect system because who is going to leave without shoes? And you can't get your shoes until you pay your bill! Anyway, it was time to leave Spa Valley, but it was too early to head back to the apartment. So...we went downtown and saw a movie! 

We picked a perfect day because we got there before lunch, it wasn't a hot, sunny day, and most schools had Saturday school that day. We will definitely go back to Spa Valley!

Beautiful Busan!

Hey! Three day weekend was  coming up and Jenn and I had no idea what we were going to do. So we figured we'd go to Busan, which is the 2nd largest city in Korea, and right next to the coast. This is a little late of an update, but the three day weekend that we are referring to is the June 6th,7th,8th. At least thats what I remember. Korea had a Veterans Day too so we had no school Monday. Regardless, on to our trip. A little background info on Busan, its BIG! Not nearly as big as Seoul, but bigger than Daegu. It is also a very popular place to visit among Koreans, and tourists. Since it's right by the coast, it has a lot of great beaches, and the weather is a lot cooler. Anyways, we are lucky enough to live 45 minutes by KTX from Busan. And we can take this high speed rail for the low cost of 24 dollars round trip. It was great. The KTX is always a great train ride. Quiet, fast, and just...dang, its a high speed train! These things are awesome! But yeah, we took an early KTX to Busan at 8ish in the morning, with the idea of staying in Busan if we found a cheap enough place, or just taking the late train back to Daegu if we didn't want to spend the extra dough. But I'll get to that later.

Outside the Subway station

So we arrived in Busan around 9, and thought about our next option. First thing we had to do was get subway cards. Subway cards are different in each city, but I think they have plans to make them compatible anywhere in Korea eventually. At least I hope so. But yeah, we bought our subway cards and decided to head to Haundae Beach. This weekend, there was a Sand Festival at Hauendae, so we thought we'd check it out. We get there after about an hour on the subway (like I said, Busan is huge!) and instantly Jenn and I could smell the ocean breeze. It was nice to be reminded of how good we had it going to school down in SoCal. We headed toward the beach, and walked past a---gasp---Mexican restaurant! Busan was amazing already. Anyways, we ended up eating there later, but first, we had to check out this sand festival. It was pretty awesome. They had a bunch of sand sculptures, and some huge sand castles. They even had some sand...paintings? I'll put up some pics of them so you can check it out. We kept walking along the beach, and eventually we got to this roped off area with a big stage. Apparently not only was there a Sand Festival, there was also an International Dance Festival! And it was free, so we got some seats, and watched some contemporary dancers (from China I think). 

Fuzzy Navel Mexican Food!

After their dance we went back to that Mexican place, Fuzzy Navel. It was there that I realized that I didn't have my wallet. Yes. My wallet with 60 bucks or so, Alien Registration Card (like Korea's version of a Green card), two credit cards, and my coupon card to Star Kebab (hey, I'm like three stamps away from getting a free kebab, its' important! hehe). So I pretty much did what anyone would do. I curled up on the ground and started crying. Just kidding! That's what I felt like doing, but we traced our steps all the way back to the dance festival stage. It was there that I saw one of my tourism pamphlets, so I knew that my wallet must have fallen out when I was sitting down. So when my wallet wasn't there, I pretty much lost hope. But keep reading, there is a good ending! We talked to some of the staff members, and they said they would call me if anyone found it. We headed back to the restaurant to meet our friends, and I pretty much was I dunno, just thinking of how I couldn't imagine having any fun for the rest of the weekend if our trip started off like this. BUT, then I get a call from this Korean guy that we asked to help us, and he's behind us waving my wallet in his hand!!! I got my wallet back (apparently he just asked around the stage area), and it had all of my money, all of my credit cards, and nothing was stolen. I checked online later, and there were no charges on any of my banking accounts. I went from despair, to extreme happiness. And I pretty much locked my wallet into my shorts for the rest of the trip. We went back to Fuzzy Navel, had some pretty good Mexican food, and talked about how honest Korean people were. It was a good start to our trip :)


After lunch, we went back to the beach and walked around some more. We looked at a sand castle competition, and saw some pretty good sculptures forming up. We also wanted to go and take a look at the Aquarium. Busan has a pretty famous aquarium, and lucky for us, it was right on Haundae Beach. Well, not on the beach, but imagine a boardwalk, and the aquarium on the opposite side of it. It was all underground too. Anyways, we went into the aquarium, and looked at some pretty cool sea creatures. It was pretty fun, highlights though were definitely the otters, the penguins, the sharks, and the see through underwater tunnel. The Aquarium was pretty dark, so unfortunately, we didn't get a lot of good pics. Sorry!

After the aquarium, we went to get dinner. We got some grilled pork, and by the time we were done, it was pretty late outside. So we grabbed some dessert and drinks, and went to relax on the beach. It was nice to just relax on the beach at night. There were no bonfires allowed, but a lot of people had mini fireworks. We sat, ate, and drank, and generally had a good time. After a while, a drunk Korean guy came to join our group. He was basically kind of a creeper, so after awkwardly trying to be polite, we just got up and left. By this time it was about 12 or so, so we headed over to check out a bar that a bunch of foreigners liked to go to. It was nice I guess, but I dunno, didn't come to Korea to go to a bar with a bunch of English speakers. I can do that back home. Haha. We also met up with some of our friends from orientation. It was nice to see them, and we made plans to see them again soon. After the bar and some dancing, we decided to hit up a Norebang. Which is a place that has Karaoke rooms that you can rent out with your friends. And it was fun! We sang some K-pop, sang a lot of American pop songs, and even tried some rap songs. Their song selection was incredible.  By this time, it was 3 or 4 o'clock. But...the amazing thing was that, when we got out of the Norebang, there were still people everywhere. I might even say that it was more crowded than before! It's like Koreans don't sleep! (But I hate to generalize, so I'm just going to say that we were in a pretty popular night area). 


Anyways, we headed back to our hotel, oh forgot to mention. We found a hotel earlier right next to the beach. 200 dollars for one night, but split between 5 people, it was only 40. We knew it was going to be somewhat expensive b/c of the holiday weekend, but 40 bucks a night per person is actually very cheap. Oh, and it was like a two room area. With a huge living room that could probably fit 10 people easily, and a connecting room with 2 queen size beds and a bathroom. It was nice! And it came with a lot of blankets and pillows. but yeah, we headed back to our hotel room, and called it a night.

Early Morning Beach Walk!

The next day, Jenn and I woke up early (around 9 am or so) and went to walk on the beach. It was already packed with families enjoying the 2nd day of the Sand Festival, but it was really nice to grab a coffee and walk on the beach. One of our favorite moments of the trip. Then we met with our slower waking friends for lunch, and decided to head over and check out Hadong Yongungsa temple. It took forever to get there, but the temple was definitely one of a kind. It literally is right next to the ocean, and you can get some pretty cool views there. It was also packed full of people (first time I had to wait in line to get into a temple), but definitely worth the trip. This was kind of a whole day thing, and we decided we weren't going to stay another night, and just headed back to Daegu. Long story short, we got back to Daegu around 8ish. We ate dinner (I think), and then got home. We did a lot in just two days, and we definitely want to go back to Busan. Especially because now we know how easy it is to get there! Sorry if this seems a little rushed, I'm tired! Until next time friends and family! 

Seoul Day 3! (finally...)

Let's talk about Day 3 of Seoul! Ya, I know...took me long enough to write about it. We've been really busy! After this, we have a blog post about our weekend in Busan, a city on the east coast of Korea! Anyway, back to Seoul!


Lotte World
After our breakfast of peanut butter and jelly toast with a cup of coffee, we headed to Lotte World! An amusement park outside the center of Seoul. It took us awhile to get there and then when we did, we saw an ENORMOUS line of people waiting to enter the park. After a quick chat with a woman in the information booth, we learned that it was too crowded and too long of a line to enter the part of Lotte World that required admission. Instead, we went exploring! We found an ice rink. Debated waiting in the line and then left. We found an arcade! So we played the basketball shooting game and the alligator hit-their-heads game. It was awesome. Next, we found a bowling alley and a shooting range! By this time, our friends were almost there and it was lunch time. So...we headed to the food court area in the Lotte department store. Yes, there is an enormous department store connected to a large amusement park. After lunch, we tried to go bowling but it was too crowded. We decided to leave Lotte World and head back to Dongdaemun to hang out before our dinner plans with our friend, Christa. 

Playing the alligator game!

One of the parts that required admission. We took it from the ice rink and restaurant area. 

A random fountain in a lobby area. Reminded us of Caesar's Palace in Vegas.

At one of the entrances. 

Dongdaemun
It started raining! So of course, our next idea was to go see a movie! We reserved our seats for Source code (movie theatres do assigned seating--it's awesome) and then spent a little over an hour shopping. In this time, Fluke bought 2 shirts, a pair of pants and a wallet. I bought a dress, a shirt and a wallet. There was so much to choose from and so much to look at! We still have to get his pants hemmed and I have not worn the dress yet. But...the weather is just now starting to get warm, so I'll be wearing it soon! After our mini shopping spree, we went to the movie! Source Code was an amazing movie. I highly recommend it to everyone. 


Dinner with Christa!
Christa took Fluke and me to a Mexican restaurant (of course haha) called Dos Tacos. We shared a plate of nachos and each got a burrito. It was definitely good Mexican food! The owners took a polaroid of us to put on their wall and Christa really wanted our copy, so she kept it. After dinner, we headed to the dog cafe! Please refer to our earlier post for more details on that! After the dog cafe, it was still early, so we headed to a norebang! Norebang is like karaoke. They had an incredible selection of English pop songs and we had trouble choosing which ones we really wanted to do. After singing for an hour and laughing a lot, we decided to call it a night!

Christa and me with a dog in the Dog Cafe!

We had an amazing weekend in Seoul and will definitely go back sometime. Phew, this concludes our blog posts on Seoul! Hope you enjoyed reading!

love and miss you,

Jenn

Herb Hillz in Daegu!

Phew, long time no update! Jenn and I had our open classes the last two weeks. Which is a class where the VP, Principal, other teachers, and co-workers come and observe us and evaluate us. So we were really busy preparing for it, and getting it over with! It went well though, and we both got pretty solid reviews. It's more of a show anyways, but I don't really feel like talking about it to be honest. Anyways, lets talk about the weekend after. Let's talk about Herb Hillz in Daegu. An amazingly awesome...eco-park? Yup!

Entrance to Herb Hillz

Herb Hillz is like a big...park? It's hard to describe, so I guess eco-park would be the right word. It cost us about 19,000 won (19 bucks-ish) to get in. Walking into Herb Hillz was awesome. Everything around us was so...green. And we went there as soon as it opened, so it was very quiet and peaceful. There was nature all around us. We walked past a hobbit house (inspired by Lord of the Rings) and eventually wandered up into the main area. The main area had so many cutesy naturey things. I'm not much of a describer, I know, but I will post pics. They also had a ton of herbs planted. We got to see a lot of herbs that go right into making our teas! (Jasmine, Chamomile, Peppermint). So we walked around the area, enjoyed the sights, there was a waterfall, some flowers, etc. But we eventually got to the main reason we wanted to come here...ZIPLINING! That was why it cost us an extra 10 dollars to get in. We showed them our tickets, suited up, and got a crash course entirely in Korean, with a little bit of broken English thrown in. But we were ready! And it was awesome. 

We picked the King Kong course, I forgot what the difficulty was, but it was so much fun. First we started out by climbing this big, webbed rope ladder and made our way to the first zipline. The course consisted of 3-4 ziplines and a bunch of ways to get to each one. One minute we were swinging ourselves from wooden board to wooden board, the next minute we were riding a bike across a wooden bridge. Sometimes we had to climb ladders (don't look down!) and other times we inched our way slowly across razor thin steel wires. How to describe ziplining? Fast, exhilarating, and incredibly fun. The whole experience was physical, tiring, and took us a solid two hours.

After we were done, we were super hungry. We walked around the park until we found a fried chicken place. Fried chicken places are very popular in Korea. They can usually be found anywhere, and are very tasty, if a little bit expensive. Jenn and I got a big plate of chicken tenders, and some sweet and sour sauce. It was good! After our lunch, we walked around Herb Hillz even more. We took a look at another waterfall, watched part of a magic show, took pictures of some statues, and wandered further and further into the park. We walked upwards, and through a couples "love path". It was obviously for couples, because we were the only group of people. I thought it was kinda funny, b/c they had signs along the path. The signs basically got more and more romantic as you went down the path, and at the end, there was a sign indicating that this was the part where you proposed! Haha. 

Couples Path

Eventually, we walked down past a rabbit patch (with real rabbits!), and got some ice cream. Then, we heard from our friend who was there earlier (or maybe even at the same time) about these little water bubble things. Needless to say, Jenn and I had to do it. I was a little reluctant at first b/c of how it seemed like it was only for kids. But then I stopped caring. I won't say much, I'd rather just show you, but I will say that yes, it was incredibly difficult to stand up, and that the inside of the bubble was a cold and welcome respite from the hot weather outside. After the water bubble thing, we walked around a little more. We eventually just sat and talked for a while, and then got on the bus for home. We did make a stop at Downtown for some burgers and mac and cheese before we went home though! Anyways, that was our day at Herb Hillz. It was really fun, and we will definitely be making a return visit. Bye!

Directions to Herb Hillz: (Updated 9/12/2012)

DAEGU BANK stop on the green line (NOT Daegu Station). Take Exit 2. A Paris Baguette is on the corner and the bus stop is right there. Take Express bus 2 (It's red) to Herb Hillz. It will take about 15-20 minutes without traffic. The stop is called 허브힐지 which is Herb Hillz in Hangul. However, the English translation of the name is NOT Herb Hillz. It is something completely different. So you have to read the Hangul to know it is the Herb Hillz stop. (It's the stop right before Spa Valley.) The bus drops you off in what seems to be nowhere. You can see Herb Hillz up the hill on your right. Just walk up that small street and you will see the parking lot in front of the ticket office. The sign that used to say, "this way to Herb Hillz" isn't there because they recently (??) changed the bus stop location.