Odaesan

I just got back from visiting family and friends in Korea, it was pretty relaxing in general but it's funny that Korea didn't really feel like home anymore. Anyway, all four members of my family haven't been on a trip together since, oh, probably at least 5 years ago so it was pretty exciting to go on family weekend trip. We went to Oak Valley, a huge golf/ski resort 2 hours east of Seoul. Oak Valley is pretty strange, it's a large number of fancy buildings in the middle of nowhere, so to speak. Unless you play golf in the warmer months or ski, there isn't a lot to do nearby. It's exceptionally well kept, but probably extremely expensive to be a member (in Korea, such resorts (or "condos") are pretty much exclusively used by members, otherwise it's too expensive). We borrowed someone's timeshare so it was basically free.

Anyway, it was nice, we went on a day trip to Odaesan National Park, about 1 1/2 hours east from the resort. There are two famous buddhist temples within the mountain, Weoljeong-sa and Sangwon-sa, and both are accessible by car. Odaesan and its surroundings in general are beautiful with relatively low rolling ridgelines. I took a few photos with my dad's little Olympus digital camera.

The decorative dancheong in Korean architecture is always fantastic.


The water lily lamps (yeondeung) for Buddha's birthday were still up in Weoljeong-sa.


Sangwon-sa had a very nice little traditional tea room.


After Odaesan, we drove to Hoengseong, famous for its beef. I'm not sure if the fame is a recent development, I certainly wasn't aware of it until this trip. We had a great korean-bbq dinner but it was ridiculously expensive. My parents were not impressed with the fact that the meat wasn't cheaper where it is produced. I have to admit thought that it was the best beef I'd had in a long time.
Overall it was a great success, not too much trouble with traffic (korean highways tend to be very slow-moving on weekends), and a good time connecting with family!

it's been a while...

I haven't done much knitting or spinning, but did recently go on a trip with my parents to Utah. They were visiting for the spring quilt show in Salt Lake City, it was fun getting to sit in on their business transactions. Afterwards, we drove down to Moab and visited Arches and Canyonlands National Parks from there. The weather was perfect and the wildflowers were blooming.

This was called the parade of elephants...

We waited to see the sunset on the first night in Arches...

And the last day drove around in Canyonlands. Canyonlands is amazingly vast, we were only able to see the islands in the sky section.

Now that the semester is over, hopefully vacation time in the summer will bring about more crafty endeavors, fingers crossed. I did make it to NHSW and bought a couple skeins of handdyed silk and petted bunnies. I also tried out a loom, which was really exciting. More photos to come!