Walking in the Jagalchi Fish Market, Running in Dadaepo Beach, and Hiking in Seoul

Hello!!!
So last weekend, we went to Busan with our friends! The main reason for the trip was the Dadaepo Beach race~ I signed up for my third 10km and 3 of our friends signed up for the 5km!! We figured it made sense to stay in Dadaepo to make the next morning easy, but after walking near the race start and not finding much, we decided to stay in the Jagalchi/Nampo area of Busan instead! This area is full of restaurants, shops, bars, and...the Jagalchi Fish Market! We spent the rest of our Saturday afternoon/evening exploring this area. Check out some of our pics!

One of the entrances to the fish market.

View from the top of the big Lotte department store in Nampo.

Sunday morning we made our way back to Dadaepo! It was an easy subway ride to Sinpyeong and then there were shuttle buses from the station to the race starting point. The race route was flat and along the coastline so we had a nice ocean breeze and pretty view! It was a perfect race day and...I finished the race in 53:28! That's 5 minutes faster than my first 10km time!!! I guess all my training worked! The picture below was from the Daegu Stadium race. The pictures of the Busan race aren't online yet...

Where's Jenn and Fluke?!?! I'll give you a hint...I'm wearing grey shorts and a white shirt. Still can't find us? We're to the right of the "S" in LEPORTS. ^^

Anyway, enough about running! Let's talk about hiking...
Two weeks ago, Fluke and I went up to see our friend in Seoul. We decided to hike Bukhansan again but start at a different point this time. We hiked on a ridge line (really fun and scary and awesome) AND made it to Baegundae Peak, the highest peak in Seoul (836.5 meters tall!!)... and it only took us...6 hours!!! Yes, we hiked for 6 hours! Definitely didn't start the morning thinking we would hike all day, but that's how it ended up! Sunday we headed back to Daegu, but first we went to Tomatillo to get some yummy Mexican food! We of course got 2 burritos to-go to have for dinner later that night. ^-^ Here's some of our favorite pictures from our hike and our food~

The start of our day! About 10am...

See Fluke way at the top?!?!

Our view of Seoul. It wasn't a clear day unfortunately.

Top of the ridge line part of our hike!

View from the ridge line.

On our way to Bagundae Peak...

We made it!! 
It looks cold...but it wasn't at all!! Just really cloudy.

Now for some food pics!!! So yummy!!!! ^-^*

Burrito Special at Tomatillo!!

Nachos at Tomatillo!

Boseong Green Tea Plantation 2012

Weather is finally getting nice enough for me and Jenn to venture outside of Daegu. A couple weekends ago, we decided to check out the Boseong Green Tea plantations! We wanted to go because we had never seen a green tea plantation before, and the pictures looked great. It was also just a chance for us to scratch our traveling itch!


Getting there (from Daegu):
- Take the express bus to Gwangju from the bus station directly to the left of the Dongdaegu Subway exit.
  We recommend buying tickets a couple days in advance (just go to the station itself for that). This takes about 4 hours with traffic. We went up on Friday night, stayed in Gwangju, and in the morning, went to Boseong.
- Once in Gwangju, from the bus terminal that you are dropped off at, take a bus from Gwangju to Boseong. These run every 30-40 minutes. This takes about an hour and a half.
- Once in Boseong, from the bus terminal that you are dropped off at, get a bus to the Boseong Green Tea plantations. This should take about 10 minutes.
- When you are dropped off, make sure you head to the left a little bit, and avoid the Green Tea Plantation that has the museum in it. It's nice, but the one to the left and up the hill a little bit offers far greater views and awesomeness. If you get lost, just follow the crowd, they know which one is better!


Once there, we wandered around the plantations, taking a lot of pictures, and just enjoying the fresh, clean air. It smelled really, really nice and was a nice change from the smoggy Daegu city air. If we had waited another month, the green tea plants would have been much greener, but all the same, we were still pretty impressed. Check out some pics!

We also got to try out a lot of green tea food! We had some green tea ja jang myun (black bean sauce noodles), green tea naemmyun (cold noodles), green tea pork katsu, and our favorites, green tea ice cream and shakes!

Green tea noodles on the left, Green Tea Pork Katsu on the right!

Fresh, Iced Green Tea. Yum!

Standing in line for Green Tea ice cream. ^_^

After buying some green tea snacks (candy, cookies, latte packs!), we headed to the beach nearby. Now, I think you can take the bus that dropped you off at the plantations straight to Yulpo beach, but we were pretty lucky. We met another tourist, who spoke Korean fluently, and called us a taxi! So we headed down the coast to Yulpo beach. It was really nice and scenic. But well, to be honest, seen one beach, seen em all.  What is worth mentioning though is that we got bored very quickly and wanted to head back to Boseong. When we couldn't find the bus stop, we thought we'd head over to the police station and ask for directions. We got more than that. The police officer actually gave us a ride...back to the Boseong bus terminal! (20-30 minute drive). We were so surprised at their kindness, and appreciative as well. After thanking him profusely, we headed back to Gwangju from Boseong.

Yulpo Beach

In Gwangju, we took in some of the sights and ate at (of all places), a T.G.I.F.! Haha. Here are some pics of Gwangju. After one more night in Gwangju, we headed back home to Daegu. Overall, really nice weekend, and I'd highly recommend Boseong to Green tea lovers, nature lovers, and photography buffs.

Statue we found while walking

An amphitheater