The House We Stayed In

The House We Stayed In
Originally uploaded by Shazzbazz draws the Line!.

So I spent the weekend in Kangwando with my coworkers from the Continuing Education Centre of the college.
The house we stayed in was amazing, I was so happy to spend time in an open home rather than a closed-in apartment. The air was fresh and the scenery green but Spring has missed us and it already feels like summer. Too bad the swimming pool that was in front of the house was in dismay.
The drive up there was interesting too, stopping at many places on the way, as to drive almost four hours is such a long trip but yet to us Canadians it's just to the next city if you're lucky! The poor driver though how nervous he was, for this was his fourth month at the wheel in a country where driving abilities are interesting and colorful but sometimes the roads are a helter skelter.
There were a total of 16 people in the house, with the young guys fishing and drinking soju and us girls bored and starting to gossip. I was unsure of the plans or if there were any activities, but it seemed that getting to the house was so important but once we were there we were unsure of what to do next. I wish I had brought my pen and sketchbook as it was an ideal time to catch up in a place so inspiring.
When dinner rolled around and the drunk boys came homec and things heated up and the fun began, everybody was relaxed but the boys actually drank pretty much all the alcohol, as I had only two small paper cups of beer and one shot of soju...thanks guys!
The next day was a bit soggy but the air was so nice it reminded me of British Columbia and it's clouds. So what to do on a rainy day but to play "Go Stop" a Korean card game that I really can't understand my coworkers tried with their limited English, and I tried to watch but then there was money involved and I knew that I would lose so luckily for me the rain stopped and I took off on a walk.
The area around the house was interesting, like a little village full of North American style homes but a mixture of country homes to suburbia and one odd but qauint Korean home. Most of them are pensions, where people can rent during the holiday season, I would certainly do it again.
We finally got moving a few hours later and headed for home but we hit a few attrations on the way. First stop was a Korean Drama Show Set, which actually was very interesting. The set was back in the 1920's and another set was more like traditional Korea. We took millions of photos and had tons of fun acting as well stopping to eat Dubu Kimchi (freshly made tofu with spicy fermented cabbage one of my favorite dishes in Korea) along with some makolli (I posted earlier as to what it is).
We then then hit some caves that I saw just a few weeks earlier but I was still happy to see them again as it was much cooler to be inside than out plus a chance to get photos of what I missed.
I thought that I should also say at this point that I'm lucky to have a friend like Young-joo who lent me her camera as I lost mine just a few days before my trip. I'm still in shock that its gone, especially now that I have this bog!!! :(
And that was that, but next Thurs is Children's day and I'm off to Seoul...happy Sharon!