Day 72: And It's One More Day Up In The Canyon

(bonus points if you can name the next line in this Counting Crows song!)

After our long sleep, we felt really alive and energized today and wanted to spend more time outdoors again. Steve suggested that we all go and hang out in Bukhansan National Park again for the day and we thought that sounded like a great idea! (Bukhansan is the park that we went hiking in about a month and a half ago.) We packed up a picnic lunch and the 5 of us went to the park (me, Brad, Steve, Andrea, and Megan also came along.)

It was another sunny clear day and Bukhansan was looking as spectacular as ever. The park actually looked even more beautiful this visit because of the fact that things are green now thanks to spring. Last time we were there it was all rather brown, but this day it was unbelievable green and lush and the colours were all so vivid! The trees are just SO GREEN it's hard to explain. It was almost how I imagined tropical Vietnam to look or something.

We hiked into the park and made our way down into the canyon/river bed that runs off one of the mountain peaks. We camped down next to this small waterfall and babbling brook and it was a perfect place for our picnic lunch. We ate lunch and then spent the afternoon reading in the sun (we all brought books, yeah we're geeks!) and playing frisbee (which is quite a challenge to play in a rocky riverbed!) Both Steve and Brad are avid rock climbers, so they entertained us with several climbing stunts on local rocks and even up the waterfall! What a wonderful afternoon just hanging out with friends in nature! It's almost hard to believe that we're right next door to Seoul, the park feels so removed...

We spent ALL DAY next to the river and then hiked back down in the early evening after we ran out of food. We went back to Insadong and had a delicious dinner at this restaurant called Torros, located at the LaFesta mall near where they live. I ordered this gourmet shrimp and prawn cream sauce spaghetti dish and it was HEAVENLY! The flavours were unbelievable and it was quite possibly my best restaurant meal yet here in Korea!

After dinner it was time to head back to my corner of suburbia. I said goodbye to all my buds and it was back on the bus for me (yah, MORE time on the bus, just what I was dreaming about!) My weekends here are awesome, but they go way too fast! I wish I could freeze time! At least I felt really rested after this weekend, and after such a shitty week last week I really needed to have a good weekend. Luckily it came through! Let's hope I can survive the next week....oh boy....