Field Trip!

Entrance to the ancient tomb excavation site.

As promised today held more adventures. Our Korean language program had a field trip! This means that the students were primarily made up of Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, and a few Americans scattered in among some Africans. I had to get ready a bit early since we were supposed to meet outside the international dorms at 8:20, and I don't stay in the international dorms. I also had to get breakfast before leaving. I went to our favorite kitchen called 팔호관 (Pal Ho Gwan) or building number 8 restaurant. I had to get my signature Dak Kalbi since I knew it was going to be a day filled with some physical work.

I finished eating and got out to the buses. Our teacher yesterday had told us that we were going to be on bus 3. However when we got there, our other teacher told us bus 4. I wasn't going to complain, we got on the bus and departed about 10 min late. It was an hour and twenty minute ride to our first destination. This was complete with a rest stop. I was pretty surprised since in the states we would have likely gone the entire way without even thinking of a rest stop. The rest stop was very nice though with restaurants and even workout equipment in a little park area.

Pretty good workout equipment for a rest stop!

Our first stop was Daegaya. This is a very historic place I found out. Home to the tombs of many ancient kings, as well as a trading post with China and Japan in early Korea. There was a resort park, as well as a museum, and ancient tomb excavation where we visited. A very cool spot. I'm going to let pictures do a lot of the talking on this one.

A model of an ancient Korean hut.

Just inside the resort a depiction of Korean children playing traditional games.

Ancient Korean military models.

A beautiful Goddess watching over Daegaya.

Unfortunately it's still March so the trees leave a lot to be desired.

A maze!

We did it!

The house of King Gasil.

Nice little heart shaped flower walkway.

Ancient tomb excavation!

This was fascinating.

Many many marked tombs.

They had platforms you could walk up and over the excavation.

These enabled you to look inside a lot of the tombs.

OMG What's in here?!

A body!

A king buried with his treasure.

This was truly fascinating to look at, I didn't get enough time before they rushed us out.

Next came the big climb! There were countless tombs on the hills overlooking Daegaya. I mean countless. The hill/mountain we climbed up also seemed to go on forever. Yours truly gave the old legs a workout and made it to the top first! Score one for the stars and stripes! Here are some pics from the ascent.

First rest point.

This was maybe a 5 minute climb from the bottom.

Overlooking a hill with other tombs across the way.

Overlooking Daegaya.

Welp, the picture movement in this blog is less than intuitive so I'm not going to add captions and try to keep the post from being 100 miles long. After climbing this good sized hill it was time to head back down to the bottom and go to the market for lunch.

As you guessed it, I didn't bring any cash so I doubted my ability to actually buy anything from this traditional market. I wasn't really hungry anyway since I had a good breakfast so I used the time to walk around and enjoy.

Traditional market! Street food looks so good!

Fresh fish and other disgusting things.

Man they had everything. Fish so fresh they were literally still living. Eels an other types of strange fish you could eat. Walking around this market was pretty interesting. I can't imagine the last time these people saw an American walking through. Or a giant for that matter. I got stopped a few times and talked to, and many others stopped walking and stared at me. Quite interesting indeed. This doesn't bother me though, I get looks in the states too.

After lunch it was FINALLY time to go to the strawberry farm. This was about 2pm. We got to the strawberry farm around 2:30 and it was time to pick strawberries! Unfortunately I was one of the last ones to go in so there weren't many good ones left by the time I got to picking. I still got a small styrofoam case of them to take home and chomp on, and they are excellent.

The strawberry farm!

There were about 4-5 of these strawberry houses on a farm and you would go back and forth looking at strawberries and deciding to pick them. Some people just picked anything they saw with red. I don't settle for anything less than perfect so I didn't get that many, but the ones I have are treasures.

After getting ours wrapped up it was time to hit the bus and head back home. Another rest stop was hit on the way back, and pretty much everyone was taking a nap. I was more than happy to join in and we were back at the university in no time. Thanks for taking a field trip with me and I will see you tomorrow!

Korean Word/Phrase of the Day: 괜찮아 (Gwen Chan Ha) This is usually pronounced Gen Chan Ah and means fine or ok. You would use this if you're asking someone if they are ok or to say that everything is fine. Add a Yo at the end for that little twist of formality you're looking for.

TL:DR I'm in Korea.