Team JMS: Sarah and Mom's Visit (aka: the month that flew by much too quickly ...)

Today my mom and sister returned to Canada. They were in Korea for 3.5 weeks and boy, did they do a lot! We tried to take advantage of all the time we had. I'll attempt to recap.

The first weekend that they were here was spent in Cheonan. We played some ultimate frisbee with our Cheonan group and then went out for shabu shabu. Mom was struggling with the chopsticks, but surprisingly, she liked the kimchi! Sunday we headed out to Independence Hall for some history and scenic pictures.

Post ultimate smiles!

Post ultimate eats!

Independence Hall: Entrance and Korea Flags

The next week, they headed out to Seoraksan National Park to do some serious hiking and then to Seoul for shopping and a templestay experience. JM and I had some frisbee games that weekend, so we did not join them, but we all met up again after the weekend for our Chuseok break in Busan.

Templestay outfits!

Touring Gyeongbokgung Palace

After Chuseok, the four of us took an evening trip into Seoul to see the Nanta cooking experience. I had read some great reviews of the show online (it is Korea's longest running broadway show) and was excited to go to the theatre. Audience members are often pulled up on stage and lucky for us, we had aisle seats! So both Sarah and JM were called up. Sarah had to pull a barrel off some guy's butt and JM had to make mandu on stage as part of a competition. His team didn't win, but he was given a picture and a chef's hat as a souvenir. It was a great show - highly recommended for some amazing chopping skills and laughs!

Finally, our last trip was a long weekend in Jeju. Sarah and Mom took the ferry and I flew up after my last class. We rented a car that Sarah drove (!!) and it was by far the best decision we made. It was so convenient to have the freedom to travel when and where we wanted. We grabbed a tourist map and started circling places we wanted to hit. We planned out three days: east side, hiking Hallasan, and the west side. Jeju is an old volcanic island, Hallasan is a dormant volcano, so lots of sight seeing revolved around awesome lava rocks, formations, tubes, and cones. We stayed at the very cute Breakfast at Tiffany's B&B and our hosts were lovely people. Nice view from the rooms, log cabin style with the smell of pine. Very relaxing!

Jeju - Beautiful volcanic island

Day 1: Seongsan Ilchulbong, a tuff cone also called sunrise peak, has a great view of the ocean. By far the coolest part of the trip was the 1km long lava tube we walked through. A UNESCO world heritage site, this was such a unique geological wonder that all I could do was wish my grandfather was able to experience it with us.

View from the top of Seongsan Ilchulbong

Lots of stairs on the way back down

View of Jeju from the tuff cone

The entrance/exit of the lava tube. The ground caved in here, and that's how they found it!

Mom and Sarah walking through the tube

Melted rock

Day 2: Hiking Hallasan in the rain and sleet. Not as much fun as it sounds. Hallasan is the tallest mountain in Jeju, but sadly, we had no view at the top.

We made it to the top!

Day 3: The west side brought with it the amazing seashell museum/gallery (this was my favourite place), a hilarious waterfall (road drainage), a chocolate museum, and finally, the beach! A cute setting, where the beach was quite private and you had to climb down the escarpment to get to it.