Friday night was awesome. Our good friend Willow invited us out with her boyfriend Sean and his good friend from college Jeff who was currently visiting with his time off from his gig in china…. Which was cool to hear about. He had previously worked in Korea and loved it and was missing his friends and Korean food so he came to visit… and on his last night in town Willow and Sean wanted to send him home right so they got together a group of all us people in Jang Pyeong… and we went out for smoked duck.
Smoked Duck was fabulous, and so was the company. Our friends from South Africa, Dani and Malcolm also joined us so the seven of us put away about 90,000 won worth of smoked duck… which was nicely 13 dollars a person when all was said and done. Wonderful!
We then went out for drinks and just hung out and talked in a very odd bar called the crazy bar that played music from youtube on big tv screens. they ended up play music from Lily Allen, Dolly Parton, Zepplin, Kenny Rogers and some weird country stuff that I am pretty sure should never have made it’s way to Korea… ( I think the bar was owned by a white guy, but it was cheap and they gave you free chocolate and peanuts with your hite, so I won't complain!)
So anyway… needless to say, Saturday morning did not go as planned. I KNOW I set the alarm properly, so why we woke up 20 minutes after it was supposed to go off I have no clue. Maybe I turned it off in my sleep which is a possibility, but in any case this was not the best way to start off the morning. Next came the low rumble from Josephs belly which can only be described as “ bad news”. Korea is a plethora of new foods and experiences, most of which are good, some of which send us running for the restroom. For the Most part I was okay, but I had a bit of what Joseph was feeling, and so because of our late start and sensitive constitutions… we decided to research Busan more this week, and try again next week…but we could not let another weekend go by without doing SOMETHING….so we headed to the second cheapest bus destination…Tong Yeong…
Now if you are a frequent reader of my blog you know that our last time in Tong Yeong was somewhat of a bust. Sure we had a good time, but after going this time… I am absolutely positive that we missed EVERYTHING good about the place the first time we went. This time though, we had a plan. I had seen on the Map that they had a really cool tourist area that had some Cable Cars… so not wanting to miss out on what was probably the last really nice day in Korea before winter sets in, we took a bus to the Downtown area and went in search of the Illustrious Cable Cars.
Thanks to Joseph’s quick thinking and internal navigation system, we managed to hop on the correct #10 bus headed towards where we wanted to be.
Joseph being Pensive with the Map!
After the bus dropped us off, we started walking towards the other road parallel to the bus stop and passed by a ship yard. Here is a great picture. You can see just how massive these boats are. There on the top of the ladder thing is a person next to the boat building/fixing it... They are so huge it is hard to believe. 
Another shot of the massive boats, there was a fence so I took my camera and held it over the top so this picture was a suprise to me too! Hope that was not illegal!
So after our detour stealing pictures at the shipyard we finally came to the Cable Cars! And it was INSANELY crowded... people come and sit for an hour just to ride the things, but they had booths of food to eat, including, oysters, fried eel, squid, and Sea Squirts( I think).... none of which we sampled... we did get a hot coco out of the drink machine which was nice since it was about 2 when we got there and was starting to get chilly again..
So we waiting for about 45 minutes to ride the thing, listening to some cool jazz music from a korean on a sax.... and when our numbers were finally posted on the moving ticker sign ( we were 6,172 and 6,173) we made our way through the boarding line behind a family with three small kids and made our way into a cable car....along with the family of five.That cable at the top was all that was holding us and a family of five up in the air... it was really windy too so you could hear the cable straining a bit.... that part... not so fun.
The view was really pretty so we decided to take a picture or two of us being silly!
Another view out the window I kept trying to not be creepy and take pictures of the family ( who spoke no english, but the universal language of scared was easy to understand as I am pretty sure the oldest daugher almost wet her pants every time we hit a patch of wind)But I think they ended up in some pictures.
A view of the cable car station and Tong Yeong.
Another view of Tong Yeong.
The mother of the family noticed us trying to take pictures of ourselves, and offered to "Push button?" for us. So we got this picture!
This is a picture of a cable car heading back to the station that we passed, everytime we passed one the wind would be a bit patchy... so roughly every minute or so we got to hear a squeal of terror from the kids in our car... note to self, hitch a ride with some blind and deaf children next time...
....And more cable cars.....yeah we went pretty high up in those things...
Oops the dad and the younger daughter are making an appearance in this one, but I wanted to catch the end of the lift.
(note, almost everyone was wearing masks, and the mom made the kids put them on when she saw that they were riding up with us... haha, yeah lady I am totally going to breath my germy H1N1 breath on your babies! But the kids at school wear them, and alot of adults too so maybe it was just because it was cold out.... )When we got to the top we took a stairwell down to a big huge deck on the side of the mountain which had food vendors, a waterfall, a giftshop and maps to the hiking trails to the top, and this cool fountain with a buddha and a huge dish to throw money in. Joseph threw a ten won piece in, but it didn't go in... no wish this time.
There was tons of money in there, as well as fish which I am pretty sure my 10 won hit instead of the aimed target!
We then decided to take the Hiking path up to the top, because apparently the view is amazing... the wooden "boardwalk" path was really pretty, but somewhat trecherous as there were lots of trees growing out of it....
And some parts were still under construction so it had no railing.... I was too scared to take a picture then, but imagine walking along a cliff on a boardwalk... it was scary.
The path did have it's cool parts, it had tons of lables for every plant you came in contact with along the trail... and they were even in English... which was nice of them.
And the view from the top was really beautiful. You can see all of Tong Yeong and the Islands... I was hesitant about the hike... because it was a small trail and really crowded but I am really glad we went for these pictures... and I love the noisy Korean lady who shoved her hand into my beautiful landscape pictures!
Here is another view (Hand free!)
I loved this tree growing out of the side of the mountain. It was really pretty up there.
From the top of the trail you could take pictures of the cable cars which was really cool. We were up really high!
I thought this was a neat picture because there was actually a big puddle of water and all these birds were drinking out of it. They had been flying and circling around, but by the time I got my camera out they were all taking a sip.
We came back down from the hike and were starving. So we indulged in some steamed corn... similar to the kind at the fair... but OMG so much cheaper... At the fair you pay five dollars for one ear of corn...
Here we got two ears of corn and a bottle of water for five dollars. 2 bucks for each corn ear and 1 buck for the water...Seriously, Bottled water has never been so cheap.
After busying ourselves eating our delicious corn and searching around the gift shop for some "non tacky gifts", we got back in line to head back down the mountain... Here is the funny part you can buy a ticket for one way or round trip... if you don't buy the round trip ticket or if you lose your stub, you can't take the cable car down.... I seriously have no idea how you get down if you don't take the cars.... maybe you climb the mountan... wow. Lucky for me I decided to not throw away my stub like I wanted to when we got to the top, because you had to have it to get back down... that would have been fun!
I thought this was a neat picture because there was actually a big puddle of water and all these birds were drinking out of it. They had been flying and circling around, but by the time I got my camera out they were all taking a sip.
We came back down from the hike and were starving. So we indulged in some steamed corn... similar to the kind at the fair... but OMG so much cheaper... At the fair you pay five dollars for one ear of corn...
Here we got two ears of corn and a bottle of water for five dollars. 2 bucks for each corn ear and 1 buck for the water...Seriously, Bottled water has never been so cheap.
After busying ourselves eating our delicious corn and searching around the gift shop for some "non tacky gifts", we got back in line to head back down the mountain... Here is the funny part you can buy a ticket for one way or round trip... if you don't buy the round trip ticket or if you lose your stub, you can't take the cable car down.... I seriously have no idea how you get down if you don't take the cars.... maybe you climb the mountan... wow. Lucky for me I decided to not throw away my stub like I wanted to when we got to the top, because you had to have it to get back down... that would have been fun!
here is a view from the top in the cable car station. 
This time instead of screaming kids, we rode down with four screaming ladies! HAHA... but in this group one of them spoke english. She didn't ask my name, she asked how old I was... since I don't feel I am at the point where I have to lie about my age yet, I told her "25"... she then started screaming " Oh my god!!!!" which made me think I should reconsider that vote of self confidence..... But apparently she thought I was much younger, they then asked Joseph how old he was... "29" and she said " OH MY GOD... I am Thirty".... so apparenlty she was just mad she was not the youngest person on the car... But they then asked us if we were brother and sister... and they liked Joseph's "special" suglasses and we had to break it to them that we were not brother and sister, just a couple... and then they told us we looked too much alike.... haha oh well.
But she wanted her picture taken with us so I made her take a picture with us on my camera too... I have no idea why she was hugging me, but she seemed friendly enough, and didn't put a mask on as soon as she saw she was riding with us, so she is alright in my book!
This time instead of screaming kids, we rode down with four screaming ladies! HAHA... but in this group one of them spoke english. She didn't ask my name, she asked how old I was... since I don't feel I am at the point where I have to lie about my age yet, I told her "25"... she then started screaming " Oh my god!!!!" which made me think I should reconsider that vote of self confidence..... But apparently she thought I was much younger, they then asked Joseph how old he was... "29" and she said " OH MY GOD... I am Thirty".... so apparenlty she was just mad she was not the youngest person on the car... But they then asked us if we were brother and sister... and they liked Joseph's "special" suglasses and we had to break it to them that we were not brother and sister, just a couple... and then they told us we looked too much alike.... haha oh well.
But she wanted her picture taken with us so I made her take a picture with us on my camera too... I have no idea why she was hugging me, but she seemed friendly enough, and didn't put a mask on as soon as she saw she was riding with us, so she is alright in my book!After saying goodbye to our four new friends, we decided we were starving and we wanted some seafood... we have, up until this point, been too terrified to eat at a seafood place, one because it is so hard to tell how much the food is, and two beacuse we never are sure what the food is.... and not wanting to get served up raw eel or something, we have been hesitant to try much of it, which is sad, because we live on an Island and seafood is on every block...
So we went out to the cool tanks they had outside and determined to get something we wanted, we pointed, and asked how much, and pulled out the Korea Travel guide and found the hanguel word for grilled fish.... so that is what we got folks... a fish that was grilled.
Even though it looks scary, it was divine! They brought us each a bowl with half a lemon and some olive oil. We mixed the juice of the lemon with the olive oil and used that to dip the fish in. We also had soy sauce and some chili sauce. We had some side dishes too, boiled peanuts, potato salad and celery sticks with mayonaise to dip it in... which was actually really good! Crazy I know... but I was so hungry I totally ate it!
We also got this crab soup.... yeah... it was cold, and I have no idea what they did to the crab, but we busted open one of the claws and there was like crab jelly inside it... so we both tasted it... and that was a no go... cold crab jelly just was not going to ruin this delicious fish.
So we ate and ate until we could eat no more... ( well actually we hit guts and decided we were finished!) It was so good though. Joseph liked the lemon and olive oil dip best, and I was quite fond of the soy sauce... which now that I think of it... this was the first time we were served soy sauce since we got to korea... it must be a chinese thing.
So we went out to the cool tanks they had outside and determined to get something we wanted, we pointed, and asked how much, and pulled out the Korea Travel guide and found the hanguel word for grilled fish.... so that is what we got folks... a fish that was grilled.
Even though it looks scary, it was divine! They brought us each a bowl with half a lemon and some olive oil. We mixed the juice of the lemon with the olive oil and used that to dip the fish in. We also had soy sauce and some chili sauce. We had some side dishes too, boiled peanuts, potato salad and celery sticks with mayonaise to dip it in... which was actually really good! Crazy I know... but I was so hungry I totally ate it!
We also got this crab soup.... yeah... it was cold, and I have no idea what they did to the crab, but we busted open one of the claws and there was like crab jelly inside it... so we both tasted it... and that was a no go... cold crab jelly just was not going to ruin this delicious fish.
So we ate and ate until we could eat no more... ( well actually we hit guts and decided we were finished!) It was so good though. Joseph liked the lemon and olive oil dip best, and I was quite fond of the soy sauce... which now that I think of it... this was the first time we were served soy sauce since we got to korea... it must be a chinese thing.
So the fun part was going to pay for the food. We also got rice and pepsi with it, but when we were outside we asked the woman, Ulmay Eho which is "how much" she said "Five".... so I countered with... 1.2.3.4.5? and she said... Yes five... now I figured they would charge us for the soup we didn't like, the pepsi and the rice ( Bap)... but when we got up there the tab was much higher than we expected... apparently five in broken english really means fifty... yeah... that was an expensive dinner... well worth it for seafood, but we will make them write out the amount next time... Ahhh the joys of miscommunication....
After our delicious dinner (and shock of a lifetime) we were glad we had been taking the bus all day and not taxis... so we still had plenty of money... so we took a bus back to the bus station and headed home.... once the sun goes down it is too cold for comfort. Thankfully Saturday ended as a good day to what was a crappy start of a day... so even though we paid too much for a fish, and got our ears attacked by little kids while trapped in a cable car, I felt like we experienced Korea, and saturday was a day to remember...
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