Back at home after a week away. I took a short trip to Bohol, in the Philippines. While I was there I saw an old friend of mine. It was great to get away, i must say. Bohol is really a beautiful island and the people there are super friendly. I ended up traveling to the chocolate hills, strange cone shaped outcrops, the remnants of coral reefs that once belonged at the bottom of the ocean. After that I took a trip on a boat down the Loboc river, really pretty scenery. I visited a Tashier sanctuary too. A Tashier is the worlds smallest monkey. Actually its something between a monkey, a bat and a mouse. Its super cute and so tiny. Smaller than my fist. They can only be found on the island of Bohol, and even though I would love to sneak one through customs back home with me, they are an endangered specie. The rest of my time there was spent on the beach, in the pool and in cafes eating yummy Filipino food. Was a good little break. I arrived back at my place in Seoul at 12am Wednesday morning and was out again later at about 8 on a fieldtrip to central Korea, the Mungyeong and Andong area in Gyeonsangbuk-do province. The first day we did a historic hike along a trail used by ancient Korean scholars as they traveled to Seoul to take an exam that would allow them to become civil servants in the Joseon kingdom, the ancient name for Korea. The path was scattered with beautiful scenery, a river on the one side and majestic mountains on the other, temples, resting pavilions for scholars to swap stories and drink Makoli, ancient walls and gates, the set of an t.v. drama about the ancient Joseon Kingdom. It really was spectacular. The next day was relaxed, we went rail biking, which is a bicycle that used to carry coal from the nearby coalmine, now a tourist draw card. After that we went to a mildly interesting coal museum, I mean how interesting can coal be? It was good to see though how they transformed a desperate community of out of work coal miners into entrepreneurs. The last day there we went to Hahoe village. Its an authentic Korean village over 600 years old. Its actually a world heritage site and it was really interesting, its a living village in that the decedents of the original inhabitants still live there. Very beautiful town, would love to see it in autumn. After that i returned to Seoul nursing a cold which has basically ridden me to my bed for the last few days, which i dont mind because i have been very busy this past week and needed to take a little break from everything. Such a lazy Sunday today, just feel like doing absolutely nothing.
