Fermentation Celebration

This weekend there was an event called Fermentation Celebration. It was probably the best day ever.

Basically, you paid $20 to wander around all day drinking and eating fermented things. There was kombucha, yogurt, sour kraut, salsa, green smoothie, makgeoli, beer and kimchi tacos. Unfortunately, I was so distracted eating and drinking that I neglected to take many pictures, but I reassure you it was seriously like the most exciting thing ever.

Here are the pictures I did manage to take:

The fermentation enthusiasts post consumption.





The line for kimchi tacos. I couldn't believe how many people were into fermentation.



Homebrew!



We ate some lunch.




Kombucha! I'm actually not very into kombucha but everyone else in the world seems to be so I should probably sort that out.

Happy Birthday Bucheonim!

Warning: this blog post contains material that some people would potentially consider inappropriate.

We had two days off for Buddha's Birthday so KK and I rolled to Samcheok.

B-day party preparations at the local temple.








Lonely Planet informed us that we should go see this. So we did.





We pretended that the weather was pleasanter than it was.





Slightly more realistic.





Our beautiful love motel.



omg slumber party!!!!!!!





Day two. Haeshindang Penis park. It was windy.




Penises.








The whole park is dedicated to this girl who died a virgin.



Trying to get seaweed on a rock (like this lady) when a wave came and swept her away.



The seaweed of someone who didn't die.



After her death, the fishing got bad until someone peed into the sea and realized that she was just angry to have died a virgin. So they started throwing phallus carvings into the water and the fishing got good again. Now there is a whole park full of penis statues etc.



After the penis park, we went to see Hwanseongul Cave. The hike up to the cave was lovely. Here is an old fashioned mill. It was really cool.



And the weather was lovely.





You weren't allowed to take pictures inside the cave. But we sneaked this one on the Bridge to Hell. The whole cave was huge and took us maybe an hour and a half to walk through. I was kind of freaked out the whole time but it was still fun. No bats were spotted.



Here we are outside the cave.



After the cave we ate at this outdoor restaurant that served mountain food. I don't really know how I feel about mountain food after the experience.




The whole area was bat-themed.



That night we went to the local hot springs spa thing. It wasn't nearly as nice as the one next to my apartment.



Then back in the love motel for some more slumber party fun.



All-in-all a nice getaway from Seoul and an interesting experience.

Red Ginseng Spa

Last weekend a couple of my friends and I headed to a small town a four-hour bus ride south of Seoul to go to the Jinan Red Ginseng Spa. It was an excellent time.

Things are so much prettier outside of Seoul-this is the view from the roof of the spa. I stole the next three pictures from their website because I didn't want to ruin my camera by getting it wet.



The whole thing was like a program where you went from room to room having weird life experiences.

Here is the room where you lie wrapped in a sheet in a box full of hay. This room taught me just how incapable I am of relaxing. I just don't understand why you would be awake and not doing something.



This was my favorite weird life experience. The bubble room! You sat in a room that had fountains of red ginseng-scented bubbles.



Marina and Jiyoung on the bus there.



Kelly Katharine and Becky.



Outside the spa.



Group shot.



KK and Becky relaxing in the lobby post-spa.



With the red ginseng.



And again.



We ate at a really nice restaurant that even had a vegan option! This was some sort of spicy stir-fry of root vegetables. It was sooo good.



The non-vegans had roast-duck skewers.



It's really weird to be able to afford things like going to spas and especially staying in spa hotels. But our room was lovely and only cost like $100 for the five of us.



Nature. Jinan smelled so much better than Seoul.