Last weekend we went on the ITT trip to Mt. Seorak. It is the third highest mountain in the country. We have always heard good things about it and we're so glad we went. It was beautiful. Such a nice change from what we're used to-very little green and even less fresh air.
Dried up sting ray anyone? We're still not used to the horrible smells in Korea.
Our first stop was at Naksansa Temple. It was beautiful. It was right on the Sea of Japan.
Aiden and his buddy, Collin. The big plus to this trip was that we knew everyone on the trip, so there was no saying "Come on kids. Keep up." They all stayed together and that made it very easy on the adults.
Elaina, Anna and Olivia in front of a figure that's supposed to scare the bad people away.
After a long bus ride sitting in our laps Hudson is OUT!
The kid's getting ready to go into the temple area. It's always a great lesson when we go to these temples about how one of God's commandments is "Though shall have no other gods before me." They have a little bit of trouble understanding it all, but we're always glad that they point out to us that "You're not supposed to bow to statues."
Pretty girl with pretty flowers.
Us in front of the big Buddha, who is actually a female. I wonder if that makes her a Buddess? She keeps the sea calm.
The kiddo's with the Sea of Japan in the background....our kid's have done so many cool things, haven't they? We can't get over how much they have seen in there lives and they're only 7 and 4!
Pretty girl with more pretty flowers!
Dad and Hud with the Sea of Japan in the distance.
We left the temple and drove for another hour and ended up at our hotel and the mountain. Our hotel was in a great location-literally in the mountain. It took us 2 minutes to walk from our hotel to this spot, which is a trail head.
Bodey, Noah, Aiden and John getting ready for our hike to Piryong Waterfall.
Fall colors-so pretty.
One of the many little waterfalls we passed on our hike up to the big waterfall. This mountain is made up of pinkish-gray granite.
More fall colors. Can you tell the sun was starting to set?
Olivia and Elaina at a picture point.
All of us sticking our hands in the cold water that was coming from the waterfall.
The fam in front of the waterfall. Now we have to race back down the mountain while we have a little bit of sunlight left.
Trying to get the colors before the sun is totally gone. By the end of the hike the sun had completely set. It was creepy walking in the woods in the dark. I was sure an Asian black bear was going to get us.
The next morning we got up for a hike to Kumkang Cave. Sadly we did not make it to the cave. We decided it was too hard to make it all the way up with the kid's. We were glad we made the decision that we did. By all accounts from our friends who did make it, it was HARD!
Another giant Buddha on our way up to the cave.
My sweet boys getting going on the hike.
Family picture on a bridg-e.
Look at how drastically different the colors are the higher we got. This is as far as we made it. We turned around here because the rest of the way literally looked like it was straight up.
Strong Man Aiden!
Our last morning on the trip we took a cable car to the top of Kwon-Kum Peak.
Were getting on that?
With all these people? Standard Korea they shove 50 people on each cable car. Not for the claustraphobic!
Just love cute kid's with fall colors!
Elaina at the top of Kwon-Kum peak. Well, almost. You could have gone a little higher, but again it was straight up. The remnants of a fort using during the Korean War are up there.
All the kid's at the best picture spot being super silly. Can you tell they had fun on this trip!
The fam in the awesome picture spot.
Looking over the edge. It was literally straight down right there. We were definitely nervous up there. It felt good to start heading down.
Doing a little relaxing on the way down. It was a really fun trip and I'm so glad we went.
Check back soon. We had Elaina's 'Glamour Girl' 5th Birthday party yesterday. I will blog that this week and then we're off to Australia next Saturday for 2 weeks-WOO HOO!
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