Halloween Weekend

Since I'm behind, as usual, this is a post about Halloween. Hey, it's only a month late, right? In any case, Halloween isn't really celebrated here, so there wasn't much to do unless you want to go to a party at one of the bars where Americans hang out, but I didn't really want to, so my friends and I went to an amusement park in Daegu called Woobangland. It wasn't particularly big, but it had a Halloween theme going on for the holiday weekend, so we wanted to check it out. One ride in particular gave everyone bruises and sore muscles. The idea of the ride is that you try to hold on and it tries to knock you off. No seat belts, no safety harnesses, no cushions. You just sit on these unpadded seats and hold on to the handrails for dear life. In America, that'd be a lawsuit waiting to happen. But here, it's super popular with the teenagers.

On Halloween itself, Sandy, Geoff, and I went hiking at Eunhesa again. I recommended it since I thought it was so beautiful before. This time it was fall, so we went to see the changing leaves. I think the temple is more beautiful in the summer but it was nice in the fall too, and the weather was really good. We had a picnic along one of the trails and it was a really pleasant time. Trying to get back from the temple, we couldn't figure out the bus situation. A bus came, which I still think was the right one, but the driver told us no and drove away, stranding us for who knows how long until another bus came. Fortuantely, some middle-aged guys coming back from the temple gave us a lift. I actually got to use one of my few Korean phrases, which was awesome. It was, "우리 집이 삼산Apartments 옆에 있어요." It means, "Our house is next to Samsan Apartments." Straight out of the old textbook.

Check out the pictures and stuff under the "read more" link.

The entrace to Woobangland.

A view of part of the park from the cable car you have to ride to get there. The park is built on top of a large hill in the city.

Another shot, this time of a roller coaster.

We all liked this sign, which ended up sounding much brusquer than it meant to, I'm sure. A better translation would've been "Exit."

Everyone also liked this sign. Not only does it advertise a Sky Toilet, but it goes on to announce this as Hero space. Sounds like a place I wanna be.

Some stairs leading down from the cable car to the park itself.

 We went on the saddest flume ride ever. People who know me know that I don't like water rides because you get wet on them. Let's just say that with this ride, there was no danger of that.

Ashli, Courtney, Sam, and Ashi's friend waiting for another ride to start.

A cute (and non-living) turtle in a decorative pond.

A decorative pond.

Sam, Courtney, and I went to the petting zoo to pet donkeys, sheep, dogs, and other typical petting zoo creatures. Sadly, there was nothing out of the ordinary here, but they were still cute.

From here on are the Sunday pictures from the Eunhe Temple picnic trip. This is that woodsy graveyard again.

And again, with an awesome turtle.

The bridge leading to the temple.

Now the trees are changing colors, and the river has a lovely border of multi-colored trees. It's very popular for "old people," as my co-workers put it, to visit temples or mountains to look at the leaves in fall.

Sandy and me on the bridge.

A small shrine behind one of the temple buildings.

Our picnic lunch. All of the credit goes to Sandy and Geoff. I just brought the blanket. It includes kimbap, sandwiches, juice, chocolate milk, cookie, pastries, apples, and chocolate cake.

 Sandy and me lounging on the picnic blanket.

Some more color-changing leaves along the river. Autumn is quite nice here.