Field Trip!

This past Tuesday I went on a field trip with all the teachers from my school. We went to Sang Neem Forest in Hamyan. It took roughly two hours to get there -- well worth the crazy bus trip. Our first stop brought us to a garden filled with lotus flowers as far as the eye could see. I really wish the pictures did more justice to how breath-takingly beautiful it was. There were big ones, tiny ones, red ones, white ones, and pink ones, it was all just absolutely lovely.
We went into the forest, after we were done walking through the lotus flower garden. I came across a random resting place, where people were eating their meal.
Our meal was waiting for us at a restaurant not to far from the forest. They served us four different grains of rice. The rice was prepared using the big leaves from the lotus flower garden. They wrap the rice in leaves and steam it.

Above is a picture of my co-teacher Soon-Young, taking a sip of whatever is in that cup -- probably tea. This meal was probably the best meal I've had in Korea thus far. Our table was covered with food, the main dish was a spicy soup concoction with a bunch of seafood. The side dishes were great too, my favorite is this thing called paa-jhong. It's like pan fried potatoes with vegetables mixed in, kind of looks like a pancake. I got the recipe from a Korean coworker of mine, and this weekend I'm going to try my hand at making paa-jhong.

We headed up to the mountains after our huge lunch. And yet another site, where the pictures just don't seem to capture it all.

This was actually a rice patty that was on our way to the restaurant.
These kids looked like they were having a blast. The one that is trying to get back on the raft kept falling off.

Okay, so this last picture is to show how serious Koreans really are about their Karaoke. After dinner and a good bit of soju our bus was turned into a Noraebong -- with colorful lights, a big screen up front, and a mic. Some of the teachers got up and started dancing. I was just so surprised at how even the older teachers were really into putting on their best performance. Just to reiterate, this all happened on a bus! Yeah the kind you're supposed to sit and travel in from one destination to another.