Fantasticness by Blake Carlson

Finally, I'm back to editing more of our photos from our trip to Korea. This next set is from our second to last day while we were staying with Mari's aunt Bae Su Joung who lives in Goyang, Ilsan (about an hour northwest of Seoul). Here's a little map to help you out.

We met up with Mari's cousin Park Chan Ho (Park Jin Wan's brother) and visited Lake Park in Goyang. I'm sure it's beautiful in the summer, but it was just plain cold. So we left our mark (literally) and checked out a few other things around Goyang before stopping to treat Park Chan Ho to his first pint of Guinness - that was fun :) Later in the evening, it was time for round 2 ... "Korean Style". We had a few rounds of Soju (Korean rice wine) after dinner ... hence the red faces in the pictures. Pictured last in the photo set are a few shots of Mari's aunt Su Joung, her daughter Ye Lean, and her husband Sok Hyoung.

More pictures and videos are coming, I promise!

Okay, I'm turning back the clock a bit to our ninth day of the trip. On Day 9, we were back in Seoul and staying at Mari's uncle's place. We started the day with Jin Wan and Young Son and went to a traditional Korean village and park near the N Seoul Tower. Unfortunately, we picked the one day a week when the village interior was closed to visitors so we took some pictures around the gardens and headed out. It was freezing anyway!

Later, Young Son dropped us off in Insadong and Mari, Jin Wan, and I did some more touristy stuff and then visited the Jogyesa Buddhist Temple. This place was awesome! Hopefully you can get a sense for the coolness of the outside of the temple from the pictures. I wasn't able to take pictures of the inside, but it was even cooler. There were three giant 20+ foot tall golden Buddha statues inside and all kinds of ornate stuff inside the building. There were plenty of people there doing their meditation and prayers inside. Neat stuff.

Later in the day, we caught back up with Young Son and his wife Pok Soon and we headed out to play some pool and do some bowling. There are some cute pics there. On the way out, I was able to snap a few random evening shots of the Seoul city lights down a random street and the pics actually turned out. Woot! Anyway, this was just one little random street. Almost all the streets throughout the city are lit up like this at night so you can imagine driving through the city at night is a real trip.

Lastly are a few pics I snapped in the alleys around Young Son's place. There was an older lady selling cheap vegetables and frozen seafood in the alley each day ... hence the odd picture of the box of frozen fish in the street.

After a fantastic two weeks in Korea meeting a whole new family we never knew we had, it's great to be home. We arrived in Atlanta on Saturday evening around 5:30PM after a 12 hour flight and discovered our connecting flight to Boston had been canceled due to the snowstorms in New England. We spent the night at a hotel in Atlanta and got into Boston around 10:00AM on Sunday morning. In hindsight, it wasn't a big deal and worked out okay.

Our first American food was on the plane from Seoul to Atlanta and I totally gorged myself. I hadn't had fatty food with sugar and salt for two weeks so I sort of overdosed. We ordered Pizza Hut at the hotel which was also a luxury. Don't get me wrong, we loved the food in Korea. Mari's family is filled with excellent cooks and we were fed well. To all of my friends in Boston - we'll take you out anytime to Korean restaurants and help you navigate the menu!

I apologize for not updating the blog the last week. Internet access was a problem early in the week and then I just sort of ran out of convenient times to keep things updated later in the week. Mari and I have lots more photos and crazy videos to share which I'll continue to dribble out over the next couple weeks.

Here's a family photo we took on Friday night at Mari's aunt's apartment in Ilsan (about 1 hour northwest of Seoul). Pictured in the photo from left-to-right back-to-front are: Pok Soon (Young Son's wife), Jae Young (Su Joung's son, Mari's cousin), Grandma, Mari, Young Son (uncle), Blake, Su Joung (Mari's aunt), Sok Hyoung (Su Joung's husband), Jin Wan (cousin), Chan Ho (cousin), Ye Lean (Su Joung's daughter, Mari's cousin).

Here are some pics from our day around Seoul today. We visited the N Seoul Tower in the morning to get the view of the city from above. Smoggy haziness. I don't know if this is Seoul pollution or just from being downwind from China. Anyway, it's kind of gross.

We spent the day navigating the Seoul Metro subway and visiting some markets and malls. Major craziness. Blocks and blocks and blocks of narrow alleys full of street vendors and food. We actually stopped for dinner in a little stall just to get the full experience. We have some video to share later.

Monday we're back with the family again for the week.

This is a traditional game to play on New Years with the family. Mari and I won! I'm going to have to check back with the name of the game.

We stopped for tea at a traditional Korean tea house in the Hanok Village in Jeonju. The red tea I am drinking is very sweet while the tea Jung Yea and Mari were sipping from a spoon was very bitter. However, it had pieces of ginko beans and chestnuts in it that balanced the bitterness. Pictures in the video from left to right are Jin Wan, Hyung Gyu, Jung Yea, and Mari.

Here are some unedited rough pics from our fourth day around Jeonju. You'll see us making gimbap, playing with squid, Hyoung Gku the hiker, our visit to the historical hanok village area of Jeonju (fabulous tencho -- need to check the spelling on that but it's the painting on the buildings), a traditional tea house, old men playing chess, more cooking, more eating, and finally some family pictures. A great day.

We are so thankful to have family to take us into their home during our visit. It's truly been a once in a lifetime experience .... though we hope to come again so would it still be once in a lifetime :)

Happy New Year!

It's Korean custom to do a traditional bow to your elders on New Years Day and they give you money in return. Watch here as Mari and I totally butcher the bowing ... but we still get the money. But then it gets a little more interesting because we're older than Mari's cousin Tae Kwang (14) so he had to bow to us ... and in return we gave him or money. He was so surprised and confused. The in the end we invented new custom and bowed to Jin (sounds like Chin) Wan and we all just exchanged our money in a circle. Anyway, it was all kind of goofy. Also, you'll see just how inflexible I can be .... arrrrgh.

Day 3 was extremely busy and very emotional. I'll probably have to write about the details later, but I've posted a rough set of unedited pictures from the day. Some of the things you'll see in this photo set in chronological order are:

• The view from Mari's family's apartment in Jeonju
• Exchanging gifts with Mari's cousin and aunt
• A picture with Grandma
• The drive from Jeonju to Buan
• Pictures of the countryside (look for mountains!)
• Reunion of Mari and her mother's sister
• Pictures around the village in Buan
• Picture of Mari's grandpa's house in the village where she was raised. It had a fire and is abandoned.
• Picking cabbage!
• Travel through mountains to Byeonsanbando National Park
• Visiting a temple (20min hike and snowing and freezing cold so we cut it short)
• The beach ... and it's snowing
• The last pics are back at home in Jeonju

There are so many stories from the long emotional day. Everything from me cutting my fried chicken with scissors to visiting these impoverished villages where everyone remembered Mari and her parents, to Mari receiving a picture of her father and mother together. Priceless memories. Priceless memories.