Happy 추석 Part 2

After school ended on Friday, the Hankins family set out for the mountains. We went east to Seoraksan National Park, which is conveniently close to the east coast of Korea with beaches also. Sadly, a typhoon decided to hit Korea this past weekend, so we did not get to visit the beach. On Saturday, we went for a hike. The rain couldn't stop us! 

Last year during Chuseok, Taylor and I had a similar holiday.

 This was a fun moment. As always, the hiking in Korea involves many, many stairs. As I was crossing a bridge, I accidentally dropped the cap to my water bottle down through the bridge. My wonderful husband went way out of the way to retrieve it for me. 

Topless waterbottle and my new chacos!

Success!

Gotta love Korea's method of hiking

stopping for food at one of the many resting areas on the way up the mountain

Who cares about rain?

 On Sunday it was still raining. Thanks, typhoon. After being rained on all day hiking Saturday plus being sore from the hike, we decided to take a drive along the coast. We had a rental car so we headed north along the coast. Yes, I said north- like in the direction of North Korea! It only took us about 45 minutes to make it to the DMZ along the East Coast. We went to the DMZ museum and the North Korea observatory where we could look into North Korea.

North Korea in the background

This was pretty much our weekend

I thought this was interesting. A small Catholic statue (from far away we thought it was Jesus) with a ginormous statue of Buddha further up.

DMZ Museum

The picture is sideways, but the badge says "The Land that God Forgot" at the top and around the patch it says, "I'm sure to go to heaven because I've spent my time in Hell"

North vs. South