we rocked the boat.

Yet another AK trip started with me nearly not getting out of bed. I did kind of leave it to the last minute, as I managed to drag myself up at 6:33 and left my room at about 6:45.  After a quick P-Bag (Paris Baguette… huge chain in Korea) breakfast I met up with the girls and we managed to get to the bus terminal with 5 minutes to spare.

We got to Chungju lake around 10:30 and got on a ferry at 11. On the bus our tour guide told us there was karaoke and dancing on the bottom level of the ferry, but none of us really believed anyone would be dancing on a cold Sunday afternoon. Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into….

Before the craziness...

The ferry ride started off rather calmly. It was fairly cold on the top level so we moved inside and were having a good little chat when an older gentleman (commonly known as an ajusshi) came up to us.

He offered us some soju and tangerines, which a few people accepted. About 2 minutes he came back and noticed that Jess hadn’t finished hers. He starts cheering “one shot” at her and literally forced her the shot down her throat. A few minutes later he comes back with friends and sits right down with us and gets his friends to take pictures!! One woman actually fell on Jess and then pretended she was just posing for the picture… it was pretty much the highlight of the trip, seeing as she was about 50 and wearing huge circular sunglasses and a neon green top.

Jess, Chelsa and Reb

As if the ferry ride was not weird enough… we go down to the bottom level and the dance floor is WILD! There is loud techno music and about 40 people on a tiny dance floor just breaking it down. Some of these people were with our tour group, but the majority of them were ajummas and ajusshis (middle-aged men and women) loaded on soju.

After about 20 mins of the very intense dance party, we ventured back upstairs where we were again accosted with soju-drinking ajusshis, but still had an enjoyable trip to the other end of the lake.

When we got off the ferry we took some pictures of the beautiful view and gardens, and hopped back on the bus to go to Kosu cave.

Helen (Aus), me, Rebecca (Can) and Emiko (NZ) at Chungju lake!

The cave was one of the coolest things I have seen in Korea! The rock formations were all so different and so intricate it really made you wonder how it’s natural!

Inside the cave!

 

More cave... my pics didn't turn out great but this one is kinda cool!!

After the cave we had one more stop on our trip. We went to this area with some small islands that weren’t that cool. We also climbed up a hill to what our guide called the “stone gates”. I was expecting an actual gate, but it was basically a giant stone that looked kind of like a gate. It was still really neat!

The Stone Gate... really a gate-ish stone.

Overall it was a fabulous way to spend a Sunday and definitely a dance party that I will never forget!!