Happy Birthday, Buddah!

Because a good number of Koreans are Buddhists, schools close for Buddah's birthday, meaning we had a long weekend. We decided to go on some kind of trip. It started as a group of less than 10 of us, but (as always) grew to about 25. We decided to go to Geoje Island and rented a mini bus for our group.

This is what happens when you have too many friends...

The trip was pretty long, and longer than it should have been because of the traffic. We had a pretty good time on the bus though, playing 20 questions and whatnot. 

We stayed in a pension and had to get three separate rooms to fit everyone. It was a pretty nice place. Each room had a kitchen/living room area, a small deck and a bedroom upstairs. Of course most of us slept on mats on the floor. The people who ran it were super nice, too. They had an area with grills and picnic tables, so we bought our own food and barbecued both nights for dinner.

Some pictures of where we stayed.

View from the pension deck. 

The first day we just went into the little town area and to the pebble beach and walked around. One of the boys brought a football so we just kind of hung out and threw it around for a while. 

Pebble Beach

We also met this cute little family :)

That night, we went back to the pension and cooked our dinner and played some drinking games and stuff. We were thinking it would be super crazy with so many people, but it was actually pretty chill and easy. 

The next day, we all kind of split up. Some of us decided to go check out a place called "Windy Hill" that one of Laura's co-teachers recommended. When we got to the bus stop we were told it wasn't coming for another 2 hours or something ridiculous, so we decided to walk. It was a pretty long walk and uphill most of the way but, it actually wasn't that bad, and the place ended up being pretty cool.

If Dan's head wasn't in the way, you could see that the sign says "Windy Hill". 

(Meabh, Michelle, me, Dan)

 Some cute little buildings on the way.

Finally, we arrived!

When we got there, first we sat down at a little cafe outside a museum and had some coffee and snacks. Then we checked out some interesting statues and stuff outside the museum. We didn't actually go inside but the stuff outside was interesting enough...

The museum. That brown roof thing is where we had coffee.

Statues outside the museum.

After that, we saw some huge rock formations and people were climbing on and taking pictures and stuff, so we went over to check it out. It was actually one of our favorite parts of the trip. We could look out at the sea and we found a somewhat secluded part to just sit down and hang out for a while. 

Big rock formations.

Next we decided to go see the reason this place is even called "Windy Hill" in the first place: the windmill! It's actually pretty small but it was cute. Also, something about this place made it a goldmine for couples. Meabh likes to take pictures whenever she sees matching couples (which is something they do a lot in Korea) and she found so many here. 

Dan, me, Michelle, Laura, Meabh

Not a couple, but super cute!

After the windmill, we decided to head back- on the bus this time. It was a pretty short bus ride and we didn't have to wait TOO long (still kind of long though...). At night, we grilled food and everything pretty much the same as before. We played a few games again and Mina tried to teach us a new Korean game...it didn't really catch on...

Paudi, Sam, Mina

The next day, it was back to Daegu! We packed up, took a few pictures and got back on the bus. It didn't end up being the trip we had kind of expected (we were thinking more sunshine and sandy beaches) but it was actually a really good time and not as difficult to manage as we had expected with such a big group.

Goodbye Geoje!

(This song is actually in Japanese but the group is Korean, so it's still Kpop to me.)

Artist: Girls' Generation

Song: Love and Girls

Album: Girls & Peace

Released: November 2012