My Trip to Danyang Part One

Sorry everyone for not posting much in the past week! My school had a three day vacation, so I suddenly had five days off in a row. So, thanks to the generosity of one of my coworkers, it was off to Danyang (단양) for three days!

Danyang is a city in rural Korea, about halfway between Busan and Seoul. It's apparently quite famous for garlic and most of the dishes were served with lots of garlic on the side or in the dish. It's also apparently the Mecca for fishers, and has an aquarium that rivals the aquarium in Vancouver. We ended up arriving on Friday afternoon and were shown up to the apartment I would be staying at. My friend's husband's family lives in Danyang, so I would be staying with my friend, him, and his mother. For clarity, my fellow teacher's name is Sarah, her husband's name is Toohyun, and his mother's name is Teresa.

Immediately afterwards I was shown around the traditional market there, as we waited for a couple of my Sarah's friends. As we walked around, Teresa bought some food for the dinner we were going to be having. I was given lots of different things to try, and I have to say all of it was delicious. Sarah's friends arrived soon, so we ate a small lunch and then set off to a famous tourist destination.

There were lots of photos from the trip, but I'll only be posting a couple to keep the blog smaller. I'll probably upload more to my Google+ if people want to see more. This castle is called 온달관광지 which translates to Ondal Tourist Attraction. It's a recreation of a castle used in a number of different movies and TV dramas. Most interestingly, it's connected to a cave almost 1 km in length. So we got to explore that portion as well, which definitely had some pretty tight squeezes.

After 온달관광지 we headed back home to get ready for dinner. As most of the conversation about dinner had been in Korean, I didn't really know what to expect. Turns out that we were headed to one of Toohyun's friend's farms to pick some fresh vegetables and eat Korean BBQ. So of course, a 12 pack of soju was picked up, despite the fact that only three of us would be drinking: Toohyun, one of Sarah's friends, and I. The meal was absolutely amazing, and I ate so much. I learned a fair bit about pouring drinks for elders, as well as a lot of table manners. It was a fantastic night!

I'll post Part 2 later today or tomorrow, as I'm headed off to work now.