In Which We See Some Neat Things

So, I don't have a lot to say about this, I just want to put up the pictures of our olle trail hike we did on Saturday. I actually have a few stories from our trip to Seoul now that are more interesting, but I managed to grab some sweet pictures when we hiked that olle trail, so I want to write a post about them. I'll make this one good, too, though, because I'm awesome like that. At any rate, Wednesday was the first day of our vacation. We weren't flying out for Seoul until Thursday morning, because flights on Wednesday were too expensive. So, we went hiking! I've wanted to do more of these olle trails for a while. They are a network of trails that are there to let you see the different things on the island, and it's pretty fun. They hit all of the major landmarks and also go through neighborhoods and everything else. This one was trail 17, and it goes right through Jeju City. I figured we'd start with the closest one. This one had a lot of neat things along it, including running right along the edge of a canyon that definitely has some technical stuff in it. It also went up a hill right next to the airport, so we could watch the planes landing and taking off, as well as giving us some great views of Hallasan. It was an unusually clear day, so the views were excellent. At any rate, here are the pictures:

Canyon! The ledge in front of me is definitely a rappel.

Flowers on the bridge.

Signpost! Olle trails are very well-marked.

More canyon!

Downclimb

This puppy sneaked up on us after we walked by his house. Nancy really liked him. He was really cute.

The safety signs are funny here. But then, I guess they warn you a little better than impersonal stick figures.

Ocean!

Looking up river. the big mountain in the background is Hallasan.

I was thoroughly pleased with how this photo turned out.

Wind surfers at Iho Beach. Pretty awesome! I'd totally like to give that a try, though I'm fairly certain that I'd suck at it.

Plane coming in for a landing.

Looking across toward Iho Beach. There was even a kite surfer out there and I thought I got a picture of him but I can't find it.

Found it! He was doing all sorts of cool jumps out there. 

Fish bridge!

Cool observation platform looking out over the ocean. Usually there's a huge bank of clouds about a mile out from the coast, but today you could see all the way to the horizon.

Plane taking off!

Cropped shot of the plane taking off. It was fun being so close to the airport.

Ocean!

Jeju City in the shadow of Hallasan.

Notice how my hair is getting long enough to develop fantastic wings.

Sun reflecting off the ocean.

So, overall it was a pretty good hike! I we caught a bus before we got to the very end of the trail, but we figure we'll go back and finish it some morning before school. At any rate, that's about all I've got for this post. I'll get up the post about Seoul soon. This is Captain Danger out.

In Which I Share a Few More Thoughts

Today was a pleasant Sunday. We had a nice morning (one of Nancy's mission friends spent the night) and a good time at church. After church we rode the bus home and I got started on making burritos. I had finished the salsa and had made the tortilla dough (I'm getting awesome at making tortillas, by the way.) when a member of our branch presidency (for those reading along who may not be members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that's our local church leadership) called and informed us that they were on their way over. This was prearranged, so we weren't surprised. We were, however, a little surprised to learn that three of the four of them had brought their wives (or soon to be wives (one of them is getting married in a few weeks)) with them. So, our tiny apartment got to play host to seven people, and it's a good thing that I thoroughly swept the floor yesterday, because we all sat on the floor. It was a nice visit, though. Our branch presidency is cool, and the branch president has awesome hair. They looked at our pictures and one of them shared a nice message about the love of Christ, thankfully in English. What got me thinking, though (and here's where I share some thoughts), is when he said that it must be hard for me, (but not really Nancy, since she served her mission here) living in Korea. I shrugged at the time, but I still got to thinking. Is it really hard? I had to finish that line of thought on a solid no. It really isn't that hard. Sure, I miss my family, my friends, and English, and Mexican food, and canyons, but all-in-all, living here in Korea really isn't any more difficult than living in the US, and may in some ways be easier.

I mean, probably the main thing that anyone would say would make it hard for me is the language barrier. And I will admit that it is frustrating sometimes. However, most of the time I don't mind at all. I generally don't really like talking to strangers anyway, and if anyone at church really needs to tell me something I have Nancy to translate for me. I also pride myself in saying that I'm a smart enough person to be able to interpret things like gestures and voice tones in a conversation, as well as the few Korean words that I do know, to have at least a general idea of what's going on. But here's something about really not understanding anything people say: It absolves me of a surprising amount of responsibility. If I don't understand what's being said, I can't be held responsible for what's being said, and the best part is, no one expects me to be!

Another thing is that I am a very adaptable person, at least, I pride myself (again) in saying so. That was something that I was surprised that the personality test I took yesterday didn't include (It said that I was Snape from Harry Potter.) But it's something that I think I'm very good at. I'm able to mold to most situations and feel at least fairly comfortable in them. Feeling sad or homesick here was never really a worry for me, and it still isn't.

On a more serious note, I never worried about coming to Korea being hard, because I knew I would be with Nancy. Back before I got married I always used to worry that I'd have to move away from Utah Valley to get a job or for some other reason and I would have to leave all of my friends and the things that I love to do behind. However, since I got married, I've realized that, while I miss my friends and I miss my canyons and my normal mountains that aren't filled with enormous bugs, as long as I'm with Nancy, that's where our home is. It's a pretty awesome realization, I'll tell you what.

Finally, it comes back to the message that our branch presidency gave us. It doesn't matter where we are, the love of Christ follows us everywhere, and I know that we can always feel that love, particularly if we're doing the things we should, but even if we weren't (and we are), our Savior would still love us and want us to succeed. I'm really glad we got that message today, it was a good reminder (Particularly because it was in English.).

So, anyway, that's about all I've got for these thoughts. I think I'll put up a picture of me and Nancy and call it good. I can't promise that it won't be a picture I've already posted, but we'll see.

This is Captain Danger out.

In Which We Get Very Wet

So this past week we invested in our first tent. It's a small tent, but it has a lot of potential. We decided that we should go and make use of it this weekend. It's the first time that I've been camping just for the sake of camping in like 7 years or so. Long time. Good idea in theory. Heck, good idea in practice. However, actually practicing it turned out to be not as fun. You see, it started raining around midnight or so. Also, it turns out we didn't choose the best place to put our tent, because a pool of water soon formed around our feet. Luckily, our upper bodies were spared from that. It rained for a while, and then it stopped, and we thought that would be the end of it. Then it started raining again. And, the worst thing about this was, we were stuck! We couldn't go back home, because we had taken the bus out to our camping spot (Hyeopjae Beach) and the buses don't run in the middle of the night! So, it finally stopped raining, and we, and all of our stuff, were soaked. I managed to get a little sleep, but around 4:00 am, we decided we'd had enough. We got out of the tent and walked over to the convenience store near the beach, and woke up the guy there (Who, coincidentally, looked absolutely miserable.) when we opened the door (Which loudly played a .midi version of "It's a Small World.") to buy some snacks and hot chocolate, and then went to the beach and sat under one of their umbrellas that you can rent during the day. It was a little more dry under there. Around 5:00 we went and packed up our stuff, and then went and sat at the bus stop and caught the first bus back to the city around 5:50. Then we came home and slept until 1:00 or so. So yeah, not the best camping trip we've ever been on. We'll have to try again sometime, and when we go again, we WON'T assume that we'll be okay when the forecast says it will rain. However, one good thing came out of this trip: I got some night pictures that I'm fairly proud of. I will post them here:

This isn't one of the night pictures I'm proud of (the picture isn't high quality) I just wanted to show the scale of our tent.

 Hyeopjae looks like this during the day:

 Here's what it looks like at night!

This is one of the ones I'm pleased with.

This one not so much, but it's still kind of cool.

I like this one. The really bright lights in front of the island are actually from a passing boat.

I only just noticed tonight that I caught that random person standing in front of their car in this one. Pretty cool picture, though.

This one is looking east along the coast. Cool clouds.

I took this one from the beach at about 4:30 am. Pretty cool. You can see the reflection of the lights where the water is washing up on the beach in the foreground. Also, if you look really close at the foreground, you can see the waves on the beach. Like I said, I'm pretty pleased.

At any rate, that's that story. We're definitely going to try again. What we really want to do is camp near Sunrise Peak and then wake up sickly early so we can hike to the top and watch the sunrise. It's supposed to be really pretty, because it's at the very eastern point of the island and it's just open ocean past it. At any rate, that's all I've got for this post. This is Captain Danger out.

Saturday at Sanbangsan

Yesterday we took a trip to Sanbangsan, a volcanic mountain on the other side of the mountain.  Supposedly the second highest on Jeju but you can't actual hike to the top because its used for botanical research.  There were lots of cool things to see.

There are two Buddhist temples on the mountain.   The first, Sanbangsa Temple, is just a short hike up and has one of the famous giant bronze Buddha statues.  This one had a mustache, which I don't recall seeing on others but I don't know for sure. (Photo captions by Captain Danger)

Us with the giant Buddha.

I, like Nancy, have never seen a Buddha with a mustache (it's hard to see in the pictures. I had to do this pose.

View from the temple. That ship down there is a replica of a ship from the Netherlands that got lost and landed on Jeju and then the captain ended up being like the first westerner to write about Korea or something.

This mountain gets its name meaning "a cave inside a mountain" because it contains a cave.  When you venture a little higher up the mountain, you can see this cave, which is also a second temple containing many Buddhist relics.  It was a pretty small cave but still pretty cool.

STAIRS! What's a Buddhist temple without them?

Cave temple up on the mountain.

I always think it's cool when they do this thing with the bajillion tiny Buddhas. 

I also think that these Buddhist belfries are cool.

Then we headed across the street to the coast.  It was just like most coasts with an ocean and a couple gold sand beaches but in between these beaches were some really neat rock formations with a rock  pathway  going around the rocks and next to the water.  It was a really nice walk (minus the thousands of cockroach like roaches) with some really pretty rock formations, awesome tide-pool like inlet areas, and lovely grandmothers selling mysterious sea creatures.

That's not the camera lying. It really is that green here. And my wife really is that attractive.

I told Nancy that if she was into Facebook profile pictures that didn't show her face, this would be the best one ever.

Some random foreigner asked if we wanted a picture together. We said what the heck. 

Pretty kickawesome inlet.

Arch!

The way in/out.

One last photo of the mountain. Interesting tidbit: Sanbangsan is like the only hill/mountain on the island that doesn't have a crater. They have a legend that said a god broke the top off of Hallasan (the big volcano in the center of the island) and threw it and it became Sanbangsan. Also, this give a good perspective on how big that Buddha is. He's pretty dang big. This is Captain Danger out.

Anyways, it was a great day and well worth the trip to this beautiful ocean and mountain.  This was also our first visit to a Buddhist temple on the island.  Guess we got all tired out of them for awhile from our trip to Japan.

In Which Something Terrible Happens

So, I have something to tell the people who read our blog. It's a terrible thing. A travesty, really. I, Captain Danger, have developed a taste for kimchi. I thought it would never happen. I really did. I haven't even been eating it! But, the other day I just thought I'd try some, just to see if it really was as nasty as I remembered, and it wasn't! Dangit! I know it used to be nasty. I know I didn't used to be able to stand it. But now I don't mind the taste at all. It's not my favorite thing, and I'm not going to be buying it or ordering it at restaurants, but I can officially eat kimchi, and it's a terrible, terrible thing. At any rate, that's all I've got for the day. This is Captain Danger out.