We Got Visitors!

Last week was completely jam-packed as Trevor and I did our best to show Trevor's parents as much of Korea as physically possible!  We absolutely loved having Birch and Kelley come visit and we had so much fun showing them around this beautiful country.  They were real troopers as we walked them absolutely here, there, and everywhere.  Birch kept track of the miles and flights of stairs and I can't remember what it all came out to, but I can say it was A LOT!!! Thanks for coming to see us!

We took a ton of pictures and videos of our adventurous week so it was hard to consolidate them to only a few favorites so this might be a bit of a long post! Hope you enjoy I think we saw and did a lot of cool stuff!

 The first day we were all in Seoul.  We took the opportunity to do a session at the LDS Temple in Seoul which was really great.  You have to walk up a pretty good hill to get to the temple and Kelley said that finally she saw the Moroni and knew she could make it after that :D.  I am so blessed to have so many family members who have the same beliefs as me.

 They look so good especially for having a long long day of traveling the day before and probably being jet lagged beyond belief! Plus what a great background too, am I right?

 I really really wanted to sit in the middle of this and have Trev pull me around like an Asian princess

 This is one of the big buildings of the King's Palace at Gyeongbookoon.  Lots of cool traditional architecture and artifacts.

 While in Seoul, we met up with Bart, an exchange student who lived with Kelley and Birch for a few weeks to study a couple of years ago.  He took us around the touristy shopping district and to a really cool tea shop.  After our time in Seoul, we all went to our house in Ulsan, but didn't stay for long because there's so much more to see!  The very next day we traveled to Gyeongju to see more traditional Buddhist temples.

 Every sightseeing place in Gyeongju is always spectacularly scenic.  Bulguksa and Seokuram are certainly no exception.  Korea is very green and vibrant right now so we were able to bask in its full glory.

 Great view of the temples at Bulguksa.  It was such a nice day!

 This is at Seokuram.  There are a ton of colorful lanterns up all around Korea right now because it is getting close to Buddha's Birthday.  The colors added vibrancy to the already beautiful scenes.

Well, we certainly wore them out ;) What great sports letting us drag them all around and up and down where the only breaks were on various forms of transportation between places.

 There was a giant bell at one of the temples.  Birch decided to have a go.  The sound quality of the video doesn't even give the sound of the bell a tiny bit of justice.  It was much louder and gong-ier in real life.

We heard about a random lantern festival in Ulsan so we decided to go.  We heard about about an hour or so too late and only made it for the last half of the parade but we still had fun and got to check out a little flea market at the park below.

 Here is a little snip-it of the lantern parade.  Once again, better in person.

 This is one of my favorite places in Ulsan.  It literally translates to "flower rock" due to the unique rock formations.  It is also beautiful because it is right on the coast and there are bridges that light up when it gets dark.  We went right after a storm so the ocean was really acting up with big waves.

 A night view of our "side of town" across the way

 I love my baby!

 This was probably my favorite part of the trip.  There is a temple on the sea close to Busan that Trevor and I have never been to before.  It was incredibly beautiful and we definitely recommend it if you ever visit South Korea.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves here.

 So pretty.  Photo credit goes to Trevor for this awesome panoramic view!

 Throw a coin into the fountain and if you make it into either of the bowls, you get good luck.  Watch the videos to see who makes it in!

Trev's turn!

My turn! If you know me at all or my track record in PE class in high school, you will truly realize how lucky it was for me to make it into the pot.  Mine was the one that bounced off the bottom wall into the bottom bowl.

 There was a monk chanting in one of the temples.  Pretty cool. Very serene.

Next was the beach in Busan.  The water was still pretty darn cold but we splashed around anyways.  This first pic is right after a big unexpected wave came up and got Birch's pants pretty wet! 

My little monkey splashin' around! :D

 Haha had to put this one up.  I told you we totally wore them out, right? ;)

Look at them, practically natives riding the public buses and stuff!

Here's some of the food we had on our trip. Couldn't help but get a delicious burrito while in Busan :D  Thanks Birch and Kelley for the great meal!

 Meat buffet! Yum Yum :D

 Jjim dark! Also yum yum!

 Can't forget Tangsuyuk

And jajangmyeun!

 This was a really great shabu shabu place.  It was a little more pricey but it was so good and high quality.  If you don't know what shabu shabu is, read one of my previous posts about food ;).  For anyone living in Ulsan, it's down by Ilsan beach close to Home Plus and the restaurant looks like a couple of mushroom tops.

 My monkey hears no evil. or something like that.  We went to the little zoo at Ulsan Grand Park.

 The end!  What a week!  We had easily 3 or 4 times more pictures than this and even more memories!  Thanks again for coming to see us we had a blast :D  Now everyone else who didn't come see us will be jealous ;)

A last little side note about our trip is that we went to a Korean bath house together.  That in and of itself deserves its own post I think.  Stay tuned ;)