Nonsan Strawberry Festival

Earlier this month my friend April and I ventured to Nonsan to check out their Strawberry Festival! I am pretty sure that the strawberry festival is the only thing going for this city, and it is a ghost town the other 51 weekends of the year. However, it brings lots of attention to people in neighboring cities and they come out to try the Nonsan strawberries. It took us about 90 minutes to get there by train (Pyeongtaek to Nonsan Station) and then another 15 minute walk to the festival grounds, which I might add were geniously marked by high flying strawberry balloons!

Nonsan City

Strawberry festival flags they had hanging all over the city, we decided to follow them and ended up in circles. Ha ha.

This picture is a little crazy but on our walk to the festival we ran into some Korean women selling bunnies, ducks, dogs, roosters, and chickens..

Finally we found the mirage of strawberry balloons!

I love how in Korea they dress kindergarten students in yellow suits so they can stick together.

And this trip wouldn't be complete without a random monkey at the "petting zoo", which also included komodo dragons, donkeys, bears, and groundhogs.

What? Did you think I wasn't telling the truth?!? :o)

Mmmm sprinkles on Strawberries!

A large vat of soup!

We then learned that we could make our own strawberry shortcake!! I let April take the reigns on this one since she is an awesome cake decorator!!

Hope everyone is enjoying their week, I am definitely enjoying the warmer weather here in Korea. We are looking forward to a busy summer!!! 

Out of hibernation!

So now that winter is officially over here in Korea (longest winter of my life!) I can come out of hibernation and catch you all up on what we have been doing since the sun has come out. There has been a lot of bike riding around the city lately, and we have met some great friends who enjoy biking as well!

Here are some pictures of us biking through Pyeongtaek (the city we live in):

This is a lake we like to bike to, it is in an area of our city that is expanding.. surrounding us were about 30+ cranes building new high rises.. if you can believe it!

(Oops! Flat tire!)

(The tall high rises to the right are where we live!)

When we are done biking we usually hit up the local Baskin Robbins for some ice cream, or in this case the ice cream fondue!

This would be our biking gang; Andy, Tyler, Bobbie Jo, Zak, Me and April!

Oh and did I mention there is also some late night biking involved to get fried food?!

And the best way to cure cabin fever during the winter is going out for some drinks, here is a photo diary of our nights out locally and in Seoul... and oh yes, here in Korea you can pull the ice out of your beer and throw it at a wall for a chance to win another beer...

...and that is exactly what Zak did! 

 Drinking on the train.. one of our favorite past times..

Soju Bowl!!!!!! 

Oh and Pip made some new friends as well! Here she is with Einstein and Vamp :)

Her best defense is kicking big dogs in the face, and well, its her only defense!

Another update soon! Thanks for reading

xxx

Two Years Ago Today..

Zak and I made one of the biggest, yet easiest decisions of our life.. getting married. I can't even begin to say how happy I am to be able to share all of the moments that are on this blog, and many more, with each other. So here is to many more special moments, adventures, and years of happiness! I love you Zak Moreland!

*Happy Anniversary!*

Indoor theme parks and Korean theater shows!

      Earlier this month Zak and I decided to take a trip to "Lotte World" (pretty much everything in Korea is owned by Lotte.. even our apartments!) the world's largest indoor theme park! It is estimated that 8 million people visit Lotte World every year. I can see why, because it was below freezing outside and we were on the inside having fun on the roller coasters! Lotte World does have an outside portion with more thrilling rides, and we braved the cold for a few of them.

There were roller coasters going in and out of the walls, pharoah boats almost touching the ceiling and even an ice skating rink (which we did not attempt to do, due to the fact that the little 5 year old Korean speed skaters would have shown us up!). And this is me upside down on a ride..

All in all it was a very neat place to visit for a few hours, I would recommend not going on a weekend though if you can.. the lines can get verrrrrry long! 

The weekend after visiting Lotte World we decided to go see a Korean theater show called "JUMP". It is a martial arts based comedy show, with very little talking so we were able to understand the whole show. I definitely recommend seeing this show if you are in Seoul and have 2 hours to spare. Not only were the stunts awesome but it had the laughs to back it up! But before we went to the show we walked through some market areas in Seoul, the one I am pictured in below is Namdaemun Market, I had to cover my purse's eyes as we ventured through the land of fake purses hehe...

Then we randomly found a giant digital screen on our walk to the theater...

And here we are with our best "JUMP" pose as we were heading in to see the show:

Thanks for reading 

xxx