Life Beckons

After a few months of neglect and half-hearted attempts at writing something to put here I have decided to discard a few of my previous drafts that had begun to look like spectacular monoliths of beige verbose-ness. I want this to be a light and fluffy croissant, I say this as much of America is dreaming away a Tryptophan induced Thanksgiving coma.

For a while I have wanted to see a sunrise on a mountain top.  While the instructions to do so are both simple and short (be at the top of a mountain in the morning), the logistics are more difficult.  I had thought about camping out near a peak, but plans to do so never came to fruition, autumn came and is basically on the way out and winter in Korea is no time to be hanging out at 3000ft all night.
I was invited to do a late fall road trip to Jirisan, or Jiri mountain with some friends, so I thought this would be a nice change of pace from what a normal weekend might be, and it was probably the last time I could do a hike this year.
Public transportation, while amazing and affordable, has a few drawbacks... mostly when traveling to more rural areas.  To get to Jirisan, our group would have had to take 3 buses to and 3 buses to get back.  For a 2 day weekend that is a lot of time of buses and lot a lot of time in nature.  So the planners decided to rent a car for the weekend.  Wow great!  ...but who will drive?
I had gotten my International Driving Permit in August, and, was therefore selected to be driver....
Now, I had had limited driving experience in Korea prior to this, but as different as things might seem between driving in SE Michigan and Korea a lot of things are similar and just a few differences.

Pushing the "go faster" pedal in Korea

Similarities:
     -Drive on the right side of the road
     -People generally drive with very little perception of anything happening around them
     -4-wheels, gas, brake, steering wheel
     -Green=go
     -Red=stop

Differences
     -kph
     -what is a kilometer, anyway?
     -Ajjumas entitlement complex

I now know how my Dad felt on road trips...

That being said, the driving was without incident, and traffic was manageable with the exception of a bit of a backup on the way back.  Gas is more expensive here, than in the US, but because we drove an LPG car and nobody knows what a "gallon" is here (crazy, logical metric system) I can't know how much more for sure.
I love nature, and the convenience of being on my own time schedule put this idea of getting a car here had put a thought-bug in my head.  We'll see where this goes... Gangwon-do beckons.

Whatever reservations and uncertainties I had had about the trip before the weekend were wiped out because we had a blast.  It was really a great time, and so beautiful.  We stayed in a big log cabin type of lodge that looked like a big tree house bunk bed room.  From there it was about 25-30 min to the peak.  Would recommend to a friend.
But don't take my word for it, look at the pictures...

Our room for the night.

Day 1 afternoon light. 

Two 7th gens... and one guy we just met. 

Early morning on day 2

Some snow, but mostly heavy frost. 

Beautiful

So windy, but so worth it. 

This isn't really a formal announcement, and it might come as little surprise to some... I am switching teaching programs in March, to a full time position and will be on a year contract.  Some things will change, and others will stay the same.  I am excited to continue down the road towards becoming a Master Teacher, something that I must always strive for and work towards everyday.

"Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death."  A. Einstein