night hikes: umyeunsan & naksan.
a sunset hike: achasan, where you'll find the largest hula hoop ever :)
and a day hike up suraksan in bukhansan national park (where you can dine w/ your feet in the cool stream, and we did).
these mountain vistas are pretty darn gorgeous...and conveniently accessible by subway. oh, what a world we live in. :D
august was a month full of hiking and climbing. i went on a sweet overnight hike at seoraksan, which was absolutely breathtaking... i didn't get any sleep on the mountain, but it was so worth it. at 3:30am, we hiked through the dark up to a 
perfect little peak just above the cloudline to catch the sunrise.... the most epic sunrise i've ever seen. and the way out was just as gorgeous. we followed the crystal blue-green water the whole way down and, of course, a giant buddha was waiting at the bottom. perfect.
(hwanseongul) and spending a day at the 
beach in samcheok. fun times...wish he could have hung around longer...and wish my summer break was longer than just a week. wah. :)
last weekend was the kick-off of the boryeong MUD FEST, which has been an annual festival since '98. the mud, which is used in cosmetics because of its proclaimed rich mineral content, is dug up in boryeong and then carted to daecheon beach (on the east sea) for the festival. this festival attracts more than a million tourists each year ... many, many which are foreigners.
so this is what happens at mudfest, according to my experience: you paint your entire body with mud (or to be more efficient, you use the mud hose), then you participate in the mud fun! there's a mud slide, mud bouncy castles, mud wrestling rings, a mud prison (where people sling buckets of mud at the voluntary prisoners), etc. plus there is a big stage, which provides all-day / nite entertainment.
back at the crash pad, the party was just getting started. most everybody was so drunk, but a small group of us staked our claim on the room w/ the ocean view and had our own little festival. 
i'll just call it spoonfest. mucho blankets, pillows, massages, cuddle puddles & spooning. good times.
we did our best to entertain ourselves inside by playing cards, filling the room w/ soap bubbles, more massaging, more cuddle puddles, games of chess ... and we were about to play marbles when we decided to up and leave early. so onto the noraebang bus we went ... and we were back home before dinner time. a hot shower never felt so good.
... our pal william's plot that we rescued is full of luscious greens!
... lots of dirty, ripe cherry tomatoes on the vine!
... the eggplants that we relocated (because they were being taken over by our monster tomato bush / mess) are alive again!
... the radish seeds we planted have taken off!
... our herbies are getting too big for their britches (namely the mint)
... and i snatched a couple shots of some jungle wildlife: spidey & mantis.
as 
rafting goes, it was a great time ... the rapids were pretty weak, but we somehow flipped, we all got wet, we jumped off of rocks, etc. oh, and the guide of my boat was hot ... and i didn't think i'd ever say that about a korean dude. ^^
bbq ex-tra-va-gan-za. cooking was a group effort ... everyone had a job of some sort, from washing, rinsing, chopping, sauteing, & grilling, to playing music to simply keeping everybody's cup full. the food turned out pretty amazing, for both veggie and meat-a-tarians alike.
after the eatin', some folks started the jam off old skool w/ some pots and pans to accompany the sole guitar. i think just about everybody joined in w/ some noisemaker and some rhythm at some point...and maybe i was just drunk, but i think we sounded pretty sweet. so sweet that we gave ourselves a name... "rice beats".
while jamming, ka (my newfound hawaii friend ... who is just awesome, btw) fired up his hookah and a new circle formed. so a little smokey, chill time. and then began the fireworks fun. i can't really remember what all kinds we had, but the usual, roman candles, bottle rockets, sparklers... i do remember that i was given some sort of sparkler wand, which freaked me out because it looked just like a roman candle, but it was really just a big tube that threw lots of sparks. there was lots of jumping and running around, and of course a horrible rendition of the US national anthem. oh, and then ka busted out his glowing poi balls and was teaching a few of us to spin...until trisha succeeded in killing one of the poi by repeatedly smashing it on the concrete. ha.
the next day was really saweeeeet. we went river trekking for like 6 hours. entered the river by jumping off of a bridge, then did a medley of stepping cautiously, climbing, slipping, sliding, jumping & floating for however many kilometers of that river we followed. river trekking is probably my most favorite outdoor activity ever. for real. being cool & wet & climbing all over warm rocks. it just 
doesn't get much better.
friday was the reggae bar, then saturday was the wild women's performing arts festival, which was pretty darn great, i must say. 
the venue was all cavelike and gushing w/ beautiful people and expression. activists, poets, dancers, drumming, fire spinning, singers and music makers of all sorts...and a dj to keep us moving until the early morning light. both nights i just danced until the subway started back up (which is 5:30am) and i could go home to sleep. super fun, but i can't handle too many weekends like that. sunday was a day of rest and relaxation w/ good food and a book.
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