To Sejong and the Macabees: Three Day Excursion

Hi, I just got back from our three day excursion. It was fun, but VERY busy! Friday: -left at 8:45 am for a Folk Village outside of Seoul; it was the same one I went to two years ago with my mom and Sarang and her family. they were filming an episode of a drama called King Sejeong so we couldn't see all of the village.

-we got to watch NongAk (drumming performance), noldwegi (널뛰기), and tightrope performances

-visited the KIA Motor factory; very weird....??? we watched a cheesey promo video and saw a light-up scale model of the entire plant. Then we literally walked through two diff. parts of the factory. Apparently, there was something wrong with the factory that day, so there was really nothing to see except a bunch of workers hanging around. -arrived in Gyeongju. We stayed at the Daemyung Resort on Boman Lake which is the same resort I stayed at last time; at times it kind of felt like I was reliving parts of my previous trip to Korea... there wasn't really anything to do there as far as we could tell - no real night life. We walked around the lake a bit and then hungout. Saturday: -breakfast buffet at the hotel consisted of everything from cereal and milk to salad and ranch dressing to bacon and eggs to bulgogi, seaweed and rice. -took a tour of Gyungju, a very historic city. I think it was the capital of the Shilla dynasty. -went to the Seokguram Grotto, Bulguksa Temple, both of which I have previously visited.

We also went to a craft village and got to make pottery which was really fun! the artisan helping us out aka. making our pottery for us... is pretty famous and amazingly good. I made a pitcher.

-went to the Gyeongju National Museum where the Emille bell among other things are housed -after all the touring some of us went to Aqua World which is a water park under our hotel. there was also the option of going to the sauna which required us to be naked; I declined as did everyone else. We had to wear swim caps which was interesting looking. : )After that all of the CIEE kids (14 of us) went to a Noribang in the basement of our hotel. Sunday: -checked out and left Gyeongju headed for Andong to an authentic folk village (Hahoe Village) that is 600 years old! This village is famous for their masks which are wooden and have movable mouths. We checked out some hand carved wooden figures by a local artist/performer and watched a mask dance performance (Talcheum); the first of the season.