The Times to Come

It's been awhile since I just gave an update simply about day-to-day life here in the good ol' ROK (that's Republic of Korea for those of you who may have just said to yourselves, "I thought he was in South Korea.") so I thought I'd give a quick preview of the next month. I will not be spending another weekend in Seoul for 4 weeks! This is actually a big deal. I've only been out of the city limits a half dozen times in this first year so getting out four weeks in a row is HUGE!

This weekend, Trash and I will be heading to the Boryeong Mud Festival. You can click that link to find out more about it, but the basics are that several tons of mud are dug up and dumped on the beach. Then, for 9 days, over a million people play in it. Some may find that disgusting, but for those of you who know me, you know that I'm pumped. Actually, last year's festival started the day after I arrived in Korea. I didn't find out about it until the day before it ended, and I was still just trying to adjust to regular life over here. I wasn't about to venture out of the city on my own...but I have been looking forward to this weekend all year.

The following weekend, I'll be reliving my first trek out of Seoul. Last year, I went rafting and bungee jumping with Adventure Korea. This year, I'll be heading to the same river but as a weekend adventure with friends from my church. The bungee jumping isn't a scheduled part of the trip, but I mentioned it, and we may swing by. I sure hope so. The nice thing is, this won't just be a day trip. We'll be heading out Friday night, rafting saturday afternoon and heading back Sunday morning. It should be a refreshing weekend spent with some of the people who have blessed me the most this year (Unfortunately, several of my closest friends at church have recently moved back the the USA).

The weekend after rafting, my summer vacation starts. I will be off work from Saturday until the following Sunday. This is my first full week of vacation is almost two years! I'm really excited. Trash and I went through several tentative itineraries, but since the last week of July is the absolute PEAK of tourist season, all the flights were just too expensive so we decided to just stay in country and spend the week traveling around Korea. We're going to visit our friend Bang's house on the East Coast, watch the sun rise over the East Sea (known as the Sea of Japan to every other country in the world haha), visit the capital of the Silla Empire (one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea - founded in 57B.C.), hang out on the beach in Busan and round out the week at Everland. It should be a pretty great week.

So that's the skinny of what's coming up this month. I'm really excited and will be sure to post updates and photos. I'll also have a post about this past Fourth of July pretty soon. Yes, there will be another video of my students that I'm sure many of you will find amusing.