A few weekends ago, Francesca and I went to Samcheok, a city on the coast. It was about a two hour bus adventure to the cave we were going to. The cave, Hwanseongul, was the most peculiar cave I have ever been to. First, it was MASSIVE. The chambers could fit buildings. There was no guided tour, but a railed walkway that everyone shuffled through. The second peculiar thing was the juxtaposition between the cave formations (some only present in this one cave in the whole world) and the neon lights that were added to make the 'tour' more interesting.
If you're wondering, is that a rainbow? Yes. Yes it is. It was the Vegas of caves really. The third thing that made it so strange was the Christian motifs. You did hear me right. Each chamber you go through was named things like "the Chamber of Desire," "the Chamber of Love," etc. Jokingly, Francesca and I were like, "dang, we are sinning or something." Two seconds later we stumble upon this:
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The Bridge of Hell. The sign says something about how we have been sinning in the cave and in our lives and we must cross the bridge to cleanse ourselves. Also, I'm not sure why the bridge's mascot is a mummy, but it is. Who knew mummies were rampant in Hell? After this bridge we crossed the Bridge of Confessions, which forgave us for our past transgressions.
After this, we saw a stalactite that looked like the Virgin Mary. It was actually creepy how much it looked like her. Nevertheless, I felt pretty pure and holy after our trip to the cave.
The next week my co-workers and I headed to Seoul. I still don't like Seoul, but I was going to meet up with one of my Cornell friends Hatcher and find clothes that were big enough to fit my cherub curves. Hatcher and I went to the Korean War Museum; which had really well-done exhibits. I learned a bunch about Korea's wars; still always more to learn though. The English translations weren't the best. Afterwards, we met-up with everyone else and got Mexican food. NOM! It's very odd not eating tacos. I have to make a three hour trip to get tacos!?!?!? It's mad. The next day we went shopping, and finding American fitting clothes is still a task. It wasn't very successful, sadly.
FINALLY to this past weekend. It was the joyous St. Patty's; one of my favorite holidays. On Friday a few of us went out and ended up going to a Noribang with a bunch of other people. It was just a bunch of foreign girls singing. The Korean men at the place were very curious and kept coming in our room to see what we were doing. It was odd, creepy, but extremely funny. Saturday night was the big event. We went bar hopping. All of the foreign community was doing this and going to the same bars. It was so much fun! I met so many new people and hung out with people who I don't get to see very often. It was a blast.
Sunday and Monday consisted of a few of us trying to go to a CatCafe (you get coffee and pet cats I guess), Paul and Mary's for hamburgers, and other random things. ALL of which were closed. We had walked and taxied all over town trying to do this stuff for hours, and all of it was closed. So we settled for hot dogs and beer by our house. During the evening we went up to the park by our apartments and had a fire. Blake and Rachel (the married co-workers) play the violin and the guitar (I myself have recently acquired a mandolin which I'm learning how to play), so we brought those and had a 'jam' session. It was such a great time. We did set a bucket on fire, and I did burn myself, but it was worth it! All in all one of the best weekends since I've been here.
Lets hope there's more of those to come.
Nice blogging with you!
<3 Stine
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