(Happy Birthday DAD!!! 💙)
Today was such a fun day! We drove all the way up to the northeast corner of the country and spent the day on the beach with the Simons Family. It took us almost 4 hours to get there because of traffic (despite leaving at 5:30AM). Summer school just ended so today is the first official day of summer for the Koreans. One of the craziest things you'll ever see in Korea are the rest stops. Rest stops here are kind of like mini street malls, so there's lots of food and some shopping places. Kind of cool, but nothing super extravagant, right? I mean, it's still a rest stop. But driving by, it's almost as if the rest stop is the final destination for the Koreans. Literally PACKED. Sometimes there's even a backup on the interstate from cars trying to get off at a rest stop. Why? Who knows. On the way to Gangwon, we passed the turn off to Pyeongchang where the 2018 Winter Olympics were held. South Korea built tunnels through the mountains in preparation for the games to make it easy for people to get to the venues. One of the tunnels is 11 km long and in the middle they put grooves in the road that sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" as you drive over it. It's pretty neat. To get to the beach today, we drove through 40 km of tunnels.
We got to the beach around 9:30AM and set up camp! The Simons brought a huge 9-man tent for shelter from the sun (plus apparently it's a thing in Korea). We had soccer balls, footballs, inner tubes, all the food you can imagine, and a beautiful beach to play on. We caked ourselves in sunscreen and then went to play. I got in the water, but it was too cold for Spencer as the sun wasn't entirely up yet, so he and Sophia made a sand castle instead. It was actually pretty good!
The water was cold, but it felt sooo good. It's been in the upper 90s all week and add in the humidity and it feels like it's 110 degrees outside. The water was beautiful and crystal clear. I could see my toes perfectly even when I was in waist deep water. Of course, we were restricted from going too far out to sea by a rope in the water about 20 yards out from the shore. The best part is, the rope is supposed to be the "Do not cross" line, but it's actually the "Do not get within 10 feet of this rope or the lifeguards will have a heart attack" line. Even better, when I walked out to where the rope was tied, I was still only in about waist deep water. I'm touching the ground, there are no waves, and no current, but I still might drown if I get too close to that rope. Koreans are all about the safety. It's partly hilarious and partly really annoying. We got the whistle blown at us so many times for being too close to the rope. #YOLO
After several hours on the beach we walked over to the Naksansa Buddhist Temple which is just up the road and overlooks the Sea of Japan. To get there we walked by a cool little market that had huge sting ray skeletons. Not sure what people do with them, but they were pretty cool to see! Jessica was saying something about jerky...maybe they eat them?
The temple was gorgeous. It's definitely the biggest one we've seen yet. In the main worship hall there was a huge Bodhisattva with 3 Buddhas on each side and hundreds of tiny Buddhas on the wall behind them. The walls and ceilings were painted with the traditional bright colors and the architecture was amazing! We walked around and bought some ice cream to cool off. There is a huge stone statue called Haesugwaneumsang which means "Bodhisattva of Mercy."
Spencer had a pretty bad headache and wasn't feeling well most of the day so after the temple we decided to head home so we packed up and left. It was such a fun day! We love hanging out with the Simons. It is always a blast!