Do the Dangyang
In Korea, school vacation happens in the winter, not summer. The 23rd was the last day of school and to celebrate, the school staff took a trip to Dangyang, about 2.5 hours away from where I live, in Taebaek. We did a bunch of fun stuff: visited a restored ancient village, cruised a lake on a ferry, cave splunked (sort of), fired off some rounds at a shooting range. We also ate a bunch of weird food. It was two days of eating uncooked animals — fish, snails, and who knows what else. And, of course, there was the mandatory soju drinking that comes along with any school event. Here are some pictures:
More pictures can be viewed here.
Clay shooting at the range was great, like Duck Hunt come to life. I’d never fired a real gun and was expecting to have really poor aim. All men in Korea have to do at least two years of mandatory military service so I thought the guys from my school would be pretty acurate shooters. Turns out they’re not. Guess who is? I outshot all the dudes, which was suprising and made me feel a little less confident about Korea’s ability to defend itself against the Great Northern Threat.
__
I’m looking forward to New Year’s Day. Our local Taebaek Mountain (태백산) is the supposed birthplace of Dangun, the mythological founder of the first Korean kingdom somewhere around 2330 BC. Anyway, he is regarded as the local mountain god and each year on New Year’s Day thousands of people climb up the mountain to do something (light a candle, say a little prayer? I’m not really sure) to assure that they are granted health and happiness for another year. It should be really interesting to see.
