Hiking Jirisan!

Sorry for the lack of posts this week. I guess I needed a break. Here's the quick and dirty:

Tuesday: Tried to book my plane tickets to China with Ike for our winter break trip and the website failed us. We both got really emo about it and spent the rest of the night grad-school-apping.

Wednesday: No afternoon classes for me, so I was done at 12:30 at school. I sprinted home, made myself a hard boiled egg and toast sandwich (delish!) and sprinted to the swimming pool and got in a decent number of laps. Then my friend Anne (living in Gwangju) came to spend the night with me! We hit up EMart and HomeEver for some shopping, and spent much of the night planning our Thailand-Cambodia-Vietnam trip in February. There is lots of research to be done, but we got a good chunk of it done this night.

Thursday: Today was the college entrance exam here in Korea, so all the high schools were closed. All the 1st and 2nd grade teachers proctor the exam for the 3rd year students. This test is huge here -- not only are other classes cancelled, they stop all air traffic during the listening portion of the exam, mothers of test takers stand outside the gates of the HS where their son or daughter is testing and pray all day long, some people go to work late to keep the roads open for test takers to arrive on time. Even the proctorers are nervous that they will mess up during administering the exam! Unlike in the US, this exam is only offered once a year, and is pretty much the main determinant of your college admissions. YIKES! Anyway, this all meant that Anne and I had the day off so we decided to go to Jiri Mountain, the 2nd tallest in Korea, and only about an hour away from me! (Yes, Seoraksan -- 3rd highest, and Jirisan -- 2nd highest, all in one week! How awesome am I?) We caught a bus from Suncheon to Gurye, and then from Gurye up to Seongsanjae (?). From there it was about a 3k walk to the peak Nogodan. Then we continued on to Piagol Valley. In total our hike was around 11 kilometers, and took just over 5 hours. We had BEAUTIFUL, PERFECT weather today! It was almost hot at some points. The sky was clear and blue and the sun was shining. It was amazing and definitely much more pleasant hiking than the rainy hike last weekend in Seoraksan with Stephanie. But, our legs were feeling pretty tired by the end. We had a great day together, though!! After coming back to Suncheon, I headed to Korean dance class - which was an hour earlier and shorter than usual. Thank goodness, because I was feeling pretty tired. After dance off to a meat restaurant with my host family! Yum! All in all, a great day!! I'll post pics tomorrow.

Oh, and I got our tickets to China booked! Yay for travel agents back in the US who can hook me up over in Korea!! We got better prices than even on the internet!! WOO! We'll be in China Dec 28-Jan 10. Can't wait!