Nydam-Park Nonfiction: What a chewy Chuseok it was.

Wowy wow wow. Time for a post. Let's get right to it.

Korea has a holiday a bit like Thanksgiving (only it is in September) and it is called Chuseok (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuseok). Traditionally, everyone goes home to their families and eats a big meal. Much to my relief there is absolutely no pressure to watch any American football and it would be really inconvenient to even try. Unfortunately, the all day X-Files marathon is also unavailable.

We didn't get an invite from Scott's family until about two days before and by then it was "too late" to join in the family festivities because we'd already decided to go to Namhae Island with our dear friends Missy and Clint. And yes, that was one big run-on sentence.

We stayed at a new pension (hotel plus a kitchen and minus a bed kind of place). The owners didn't speak much English, but they were very friendly. In fact, I think they felt sort of bad for these foreigners with no family to spend Chuseok with. This is the rice cake and rice wine they gave us upon arrival.

After we got settled in we had the seriously ingenious idea of walking to the beach and going for a midnight swim. We didn't bring our bathing suits or anything else useful. And it was fantastic.

The next day we drove/walked/hiked in the rain to a temple. There is supposedly a great view from the top, but as you can see the misty-rainy weather didn't really allow for that. We had fun anyway.

All in favor of Scott using this photo on the jacket of his first philosophy book say Ai.
Ai.

Slippy stairs.

If you've been paying any attention at all, you'll remember that kiwi tree parking lot I mentioned in a previous post. Well, here it is again, but this time I had to see if the kiwis were ripe. They weren't.

Our second day in Namhae was sunny and beautiful.

So, we spent the day at the beach. There was hardly anyone else around and it was great. At one point we rented these tiny (crappy) ATVs and rode them around. What a hoot.

These flowers were really orange and there were a lot of them.

The next morning we got up really early and drove home (because I had to work that afternoon).

Tired smiles!

Before Missy and Clint headed out we drove/walked/hike up a mountain outside of our town. The view was better than I anticipated. Also, notice my shirt. It says MONEY IS BLOOD and I thought that was funny. And that isn't sweat on Scott's shirt - it is a really subtle Rorschach inkblot test. What do you see?