Korea - Snow hike, Sex & Health Museum

The winds are pretty intense up above the tree line and create a lot of cool snow formations on the trees.

Karissa eating Ramen at the top of our hike. There is a little cafe, that feels like a ski lodge on a much smaller scale, where you can get coffee and ramen. It's not very "wildernessy" in Korea because there are just loads of people on the trail and they make it so easy with bathroom and food stops along the way. There is almost no amount of traverssing because most of the trail is covered in wooden boards for walking on, or has rock steps. However, because of the snow and ice it was a bit more unstable.

Eating Galby (where you cook the meat yourself on the grill) and as you can see, it comes with many, many side dishes. They keep refilling them until you say stop! Koreans always want you to eat, and eat and eat more! I had a rice/vege dish that was awesome

Same hike at Mt. Halla

A traditional Shaman ceremony where they gave offerings to the gods and sent wicker made baskets of food out into the ocean for the Sea God.

Ooooo! Korean food is tasty!

A very "Jeju" picture with the Hallabang oranges and the stone statue

On a trek to view some waterfalls we went over the most gorgeous bridge, you'll have to view the Kodak album for the rest of those photos

We went to the Sex & Health Museum (Jeju is famous for its masses of Museums! This one was potentially the most entertaining museum of my life)

Museum of Sex & Health

It was another fun and interesting week in Korea. I've now been attending regular acupuncture and it's getting less and less painful, only because he puts the needles in at a quicker pace (still the same needles in the same places, along a meridian line on the top of my hand, through my middle finger and up to my wrist). I've also been regularly attending the Korean Sauna, and I've discovered that some people actually go every day! They don't spend hours and hours like I do, but nevertheless, it's a very regular activity.

Our hike up the mountain was amazing and beautiful, the Korean style of hiking is completely opposite from what I've been doing the past 4 months in New Zealand. They get totally decked out in serious hiking gear, equipped with spikes on the shoes, walking poles and all, and then walk along a boarded path virtually the entire way. We actually went most of the way down without seeing many people because we started late in the day, but on the way up you could not go 2 minutes without passing people. Halla is the highest mountain in South Korea. AND the parking lot at the trail head is full of tour busses, there must have been 6 or 7 of them on this hike...and don't forget the gift shop and cafe at the trail head as well. They have little gift shops everywhere, I especially like the ones at the Temples!

Speaking of temples, we went to the 2nd largest temple on the island, Yakchunsa, and arrived just in time for the Buddhist evening worship. So we stayed for that and did about 45 min of meditation and chanting with the monks and other visitors.