Saturday, January 14, 2012

Autumn-NYE or THE BIG BLOG


Happy New Years all!  Been ultra busy,  traveling on weekends, getting ready for my kinder's graduation performance of the Yellow Submarine. 

My first out of town visitor came by in November.  Bri Whitcraft stopped in for a week on her way back to MN.  She stopped in between Tokyo and Hawaii.  We did some traveling, unfortunately I haven't had time to edit those photos.   My backlog is in the hundreds.  I need to learn when to say when in the photo dept.







We had a beautiful Autumn in Yeoksam and I'm still waiting for winter to set in.




















Out of the "Random" bin


Check your prowess at kicking and punching.









I haven't eaten here yet, I'm working my way up to it.  Dog first. Live Octopus second, then Human.











This place has a more selective menu.

















Mini Penny Farthing.










The Korean obsession with cute poop is one of my favorite things about living here.  So here's a couple poopy products that I particularly enjoyed.






Ice cream and cookie shop.  Note the little bird between the red words.







This one is a little more disturbing to me I wouldn't want to encourage my kids to stick their toothbrushes into a toilet or a pile of poop, but whatever floats yer......







MMMMMMM




Jon and I went on a trip for Xmas.  We went to an island off the southwest coast of Korea called Jeju.
We got there by riding on a bus for 4 hours then riding a "cruise ship" to the island.























The cruise ship had an arcade with a couple of games that I enjoyed. EZ DJ 2,  can't recommend it highly enough.











Or you can step back in time and make beats the way they used to.  I liked this one better.











































































This room was way better than the arcade.














This is a UV cup cleaner.  They have similar devices all over my school for the kid's toothbrushes... and after the poo and toilet toothbrush holders, I'm glad that they exist.








Once on Jeju we visited a volcano crater...


















The view from the top was beautiful.






















The hotel had an awesome bathroom.







Jeju has 3 UNESCO sites and is a unique place in the world.  There's a road here that either has some kind of magnetic field phenomenon or an optical illusion that makes the road look like it's going uphill but when you put a vehicle in neutral it will start to roll up.  It's like the Mystery Spot in the Dells (or at least what I imagine that place to be like.)






We tried to roll an empty beer can up hill without help.  It worked, but the cars and buses weren't that happy with our little experiment.






We also saw a lavatube.   I still think that they were formed by Magmaworms  eating their way out of the earth during a infant stages of this island.   But all the "scientists" said it was an underground river of lava which is almost as cool.







The Maw.









































Then we went to a Shrub maze. 


Got lost.










The high points were snow covered.  In the clouds to the left is the highest point in South Korea.
called Halla Mt.















Noribang time.  Totally into it.



















Seascape








We went to another smaller island called Udo where we ATV'd around.  The whole island builds these beautiful little volcanic rock walls. 









We stopped a pirate themed coffee shop to warm up.






















It was Xmas so you'll notice some Santa gear here and there.















































































Udo was awesome.









































Jeju has a kind of pig that it is known for,  it's black and is often calles S*%# pig.  

Despite the name it was excellent. 













We went to an orange grove to pick oranges one morning.  The weirdest thing was that we were an hour late getting there because we had to fight our way through a blizzard.  But the oranges were amazing after all the beer we had the night before.  








They had a cool bug display there too.









The Lonely Rock














Volcanic rocks. 
















We went to a temple, there was a grotto temple up the hill in the side of the hill in the side of another volcano.






















































































They put fencing over the path up to the grotto temple to keep falling rocks from bonking buddhists on the head while coming up to talk to Buddha.

































I wish I had taken this one.









I've been an indicidual all of my life.  






On New Years I went to Busan with a friend.  Busan is the the second largest city (I think) in South Korea.  But I didn't take many photos...

































Another Korean knockoff





I like that her fishtail looks like a blanket with flukes.  I think I just invented the next Snuggie








Year of the dragon!  And I'm a dragon!

























































I'm not sure if Charlie, Howard, and Rob have sanctioned this.  But I kind of hope they have.











The Eastface