Seoraksan National Park

For spring break we took a driving trip to the NE corner of Korea. It took us about 4 hours to drive to the town of Sokcho which is just outside the national park. It was really nice to get out of the big cities and see the beautiful mountains and the East Sea.

The cherry blossoms were in full bloom. Many of the streets were lined with blossoming trees. To the left is a picture of the road leading to our hotel.

Below is a picture of Austin and Lauren on the East coast of Korea. Most of the world knows this body of water as the Sea of Japan, but the Koreans call it the East Sea.

The park was very beautiful despite the cloudy day. Right when we got there, we took a cable car to the top of one of the mountains and then hiked another 1/2 mile to the top. It was a pretty steep climb.

Cambodia

This was our favorite section of the Christmas trip. Cambodia is a beautiful country with a wonderful (and troubled) history. Our tour guide was great. He taught us a lot about the Khmer civilization and culture, cambodian religous beliefs and he really helped us understand recent regional political issues.

We arrived in Siem Reap on Christmas day. It was sunny and 90 degrees (not exactly a white Christmas). We only had a few days to see all the sights. It was busy, but fun.

We are standing inside the outerwall and in front of the main temple.

Lauren and Austin really enjoyed feeding and playing with the monkeys (there is a monkey in the tree above Austin. He had just given the monkey a banana).

We are standing in front of Angkor Thom and one of the many face sculptures.

The Ta Prohm temple (also called the "Jungle Temple") is overgrown with gigantic trees. Some of the trees are actually demolishing sections of the temple while others are holding it together.

Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh - We went to Vietnam For Christmas!

We decided that since we can't be with our families, we wouldn't just sit around our apartment for Christmas. Instead, we spent 3 days in Hanoi, 3 days in Saigon and 3 days in Siem Reap, Cambodia. It was far from a traditional Christmas although, we were very surprised at all of the Christmas decorations and celebrations all over Vietnam and Cambodia. Our tour guide told us that, even though there are very few Christians in Vietnam, they still like to celebrate Christmas. They usually have a party and even decorate trees. It has nothing to do with Jesus, it is just a chance to have fun (seems this way in the US too).We had a great time. Here are a few photos (click on the picture for full-sized view)

Here is Austin, Lauren and Brooke on a cyclo tour of Hanoi's old section.


Here we are at our first dinner in Hanoi. We had frog legs. If you look closely you can see Eric holding a frog leg, and Lauren has one sticking out of her mouth. Austin is trying to control his gag reflex.

A family photo at the One-Pillar Pagoda (Hanoi)

Austin and Lauren on the river trip to the Tam Coc Caves (South of Hanoi)

We took a river boat tour of the Meekong Delta

The New Apartment

It really isn't a "new" apartment anymore since we moved in June, but here are the photos. Overall, we almost doubled our living space. We went from 800 sq ft to about 1500. If you want to compare, go to the archives and look at the posting from 20 Sep 05.

Here are two views of the living room

Austin's Room

Lauren's Room

The entry way.

The wall that is at the beginning of the hallway.

A view of the dining room (from the kitchen).

Thanksgiving in Hong Kong

Since we can't be with our families on Thanksgiving, we try to go somewhere new and exciting rather than sit at home. So, to get away from the 22 million people in the greater Seoul metropolitan area, we went to the most densly populated area on earth - Hong Kong. It is a very nice city with a beautiful sky line. We went on a half day tour of Hong Kong Island and then took a harbor cruise. We also went to Lantau Island and took a gondola to the world's largest sitting Buddha (60 feet high). We hiked back from the Buddha (instead of taking the gondola). It took about 2.5 hours to go 7 KM down the mountain and through the city back to the subway station.

During our tour of Aberdeen (a fishing village) the boat operator took our picture in front of a floating restaurant. With us wearing the hats you almost can't tell that we aren't Chinese.Every evening at 8 pm there is a laser show. Many of the buildings have special lighting and lasers on their tops. They perform a 15 minute show that is pretty neat to watch. The picture of the boat at night was taken while we were waiting for the light show to begin.

Adventures in Mongolia

We just returned from one of the best vacations we have ever taken. Mongolia is a wonderful place. We spent 8 days traveling through the Gobi desert and the Northern mountains.
Here are a few of our favorite pictures (for our families, you will soon receive a DVD with all the pictures).
The first 4 pictures are of us in the Gobi desert. We rode camels and got caught in a huge sand storm. The fourth picture is traditional Mongolian tent called a ger. We slept in a ger for most of our trip. When we went to the north, we had an opportunity to ride horses and reindeer as we enjoyed the beautiful scenery.

April Invasion

The parents arrived in April. It was great to show them around the local area. We introduced them to some wonderful Korean cuisine and showed them the walled city of Suwon.













Here we are at the Sam Il Bulgogi House. This is the same retaurant as the one from our first blog post from Korea. The chicken and beef is very good and they have some of the best kimchi, especially the cucumber kimchi.














We took the train/subway most of the time. It is easy to use but can get a little tiring at times.