Good Weekend

Last weekend Kelly and I, along with Joely-mon and Winnie Shi embarked on a weekend trip across Korea to Donghae in Gangwon-do province (subject to change because I'm not 100% on the location).  We took a bus that was originally intended to last 3 1/2 hours.  That Saturday, however, proved to have much peril as it began to snow.  The snow almost completely crippled all traffic flow.  The traffic was at a dead stop at times on the highway, extending our trip by 5 1/2 hours.  We didn't get to Donghae until 5:45pm.  Our original arrival time was to have been 12:30pm.  It was still a somewhat relaxing trip on the bus, when we didn't have cabin fever.

The premise of this trip was simple.  Get out of Seoul and go camping in a camper.  What was cool about this particular campground was that you can rent small campers that are on the beach.  The campground affords views of the East Sea such as the one below.

A mere 40 meters from the waters edge, we were able to sit back and relax whilst we watched the sunrise.  Don't be deceived by the pure beauty as it was very very cold being the last weekend in November.  Nevertheless, it was really cool.  Below are some sunrise photos.

After we watched the sunrise in the bitter cold (totally worth it), we went back to bed for an hour or so.  Then Winnie made the most delicious banana pancakes to which we indulged with great delight.

Here is are some quick shots of the inside of our camper.

After breakfast we cleaned up and checked out of our campers around noon and went hiking.  We really wanted to hike Saturday AND Sunday, but since we arrived so late on Saturday, we settled for a Sunday afternoon hike instead.  We went to a nearby national park (the name to which I'll add later) and went hunting for some waterfalls.

The waterfall is beginning to freeze over.  Would have been cool if it was completely frozen.

 Winnie and Joel.  This is a big step for Joel, as it might have been his first non-photo bomb.  Good work.

Around 5pm we took the train all the way back to Seoul.  The train was incredibly comfortable and we all pretty much slept/zombied the entire way home.  It was a great weekend to get out of Seoul.