First Hike

Today was beautiful so after Caleb's nap we decided to go try to find the "mountain" about a quarter mile from our apartment.  To me it is more of a large hill but people call it the mountain (there really are real mountains in Korea, just not in Songtan).  As I've mentioned before, hiking is really big here which is exciting to me.  We had a fun time and were pretty winded by the time we made it to the "top" but it was worth the climb.  We forgot our camera at home but I did have Steve's phone camera and I took some pictures along to way to share with you. 

Caleb was excited, pointing ahead!

We walked through some "farm" areas before getting to the "mountain" path...It seems here in Korea they use whatever little free spaces they can to farm, since there really isn't a lot of room on this peninsula.

Pictured above are Kimchi pots....It is what traditionally they leave the kimchi in to ferment.

There is a lot of random art in Korea...It's pretty cool. 

I thought of you, Gene VanAlstine when I saw these =)

Stopping to take a break

I was too busy huffing and puffing to take many pictures on our way UP the "mountain" (it got my heart beating and made me break a sweat that's for sure, no wonder Asians are tiny!) but I took some pics once we made it to the top and on the way back down.

I love this picture...same exact expression!

GREEN!!! Some buds starting to pop out.

This deserves a post all in itself so I will probably do  more on this later but around Korea you will find random workout equipment (as pictured above and below).  And you will find Koreans "working out" on them at various intervals...So above is a type of eliptical, there are ab machines, pull up bars, stretching bars, lat pull downs, free weights and a number of machines we have no idea what they are.  It's awesome and totally random....maybe that's their secret to low cost healthcare?

And then on our way home we saw this car and I thought the random English was funny so I made Steve take a picture.

It's the "don't be angry, be happy" car!

Korea is all about being "happy."  All the advertising centers on "make your nose happy" "make your smile happy"  "make your life happy"  "make your feet happy" (these are all sayings we've seen, there are more, I could keep going but you get the idea).