Touring South Korea

Well, we had another adventure this past Palm Sunday weekend. The EPIK orientation was actually a really beneficial time for us, if only because we were able to make some great friends there. One couple, Taylor and Lindsey Lett, invited us to come stay a night at their home in Yeoungsan.

Yeoungsan.

...

Yeoungsan, Yeounsan, Yeoungsan!!!

This little town is about a 45 minute bus ride south of Daegu, so it's fairly close. The drive to Yeoungsan (from Busan) is scenicly surrounded by mountains even larger than we have in the Daegu area. At night, Yeoungsan actually looks devent sized, but in actuality it is about half the size of Seongju, the small city Anna and I teach in. I don't really know what the drive from Daegu to Yeoungsan looks like, though.

"Why is this?" you may ask.

Well, there are many towns and cities in Korea that sound similar to Yeoungsan, such as: Youngsan, Yangsan, Yongson, etc. The hangul for our intended Yeoungsan, however, is 영산. When we arrived at the bus station, the attendant apparently said something along the lines of, "oh no, you don't want to go there. You want to go to 양 산." Well, we didn't know, so we did what she said... Little did we know this would result in the waste of a significant portion of our Saturday. We left our apartment at 1:30p and should have arrived by 3p. Instead, we arrived at our destination around, oh... 8:30p!!! The bus we took went in a huge loop. If you have access to a map of Korea, we went east to Gyeongju and then south to Yangsan, which is a suburb of Busan. Busan is about 2.5 hours south east of Daegu.

So, after telling Taylor and Lindsey that we would be in Yeoungsan around 3p, we arrived in Yangsan around 5:30-6p. The bus driver literally kicked us out on the side of the road. We had no idea where we were. We ended up walking about 2 miles through Yangsan, dragging a suitcase and carrying 2 pillows, looking for a subway station/taxi. We finally found the latter that brought us to the former, and took a 30 min subway trip to Sangso, near central Busan. Fortunately, Taylor and Lindsey had just purchased a car the day before, and Taylor was able to find the bus station while driving in Busan for the first time. I can't even imagine how scary that would be. Once we found Taylor, it was 1-1.5 hours back to Yeoungsan. Wow.

After that we had a great time. They showed us a game (I think it was called San Juan) similar to Settlers, but without the board. A good game for Danny and Emily :). They also showed us their spunky son Corin. While waiting for us, Corin, two-year-old (almost) "beast" of a red-haired boy, managed to bust open both of his lips and his pinky toe. He's great!!! I have to say I am a bit jealous of their place though, a 3 bedroom with flat floors :). I am not, however, jealous of their location. They are pretty secluded.

In the morning we went with them back to Busan to visit their church. It was a foreigners church! Everyone spoke English! Actually, it was a little bit weird. We had a great time though: the message was about controlling the tongue, taken from James. It was interesting to apply, especially in Korea, where I find myself analyzing so many of the things around me, and where often times there are only one or two people within hearing range who can understand what I am saying, if that. Afterwards they treated us to lunch at another Italian Restaurant :), and then we joined them for a couple's bible study.

We were also able to see the Busan shoreline, which was excellent. It was easily the most gorgeous day we've experienced here so far, and we took a relaxing stroll along the beach. I can't remember what it was called, but we will post a video of it.

Overall, I don't think I could really call the weekend restful, but I can say that we had a great time, and if nothing else, I have a much better sense of distance and direction for the southeastern corner of the country.