Fact of the day

"One survey by the Korea Youth Counseling Institute suggested that up to 48 percent of students have contemplated suicide" ....High School in Korea is WAY too intense.

Yang Yang Zoro International Surfing Festival

One word....

EPIC

Only 5 days before November 12th the news came on facebook that the Yang Yang Surfing Festival had a possibility of happening after being postponed twice due to bad weather(no waves). Now I know what most of you are thinking..."What the hell are you thinking going surfing in the winter?" Well it just so happens that some of the best waves in Korea come during the winter and I am not about to wait another 8 months just for a chance to go surfing when it is warm out! Plus, the whole idea of surfing with a wetsuit in the winter seemed so cool to me that there was no way I could miss the trip.

So...the weekend began on a chilly Friday evening after a long week of school. I made it over to the Suwon bus terminal and then Nate and I took two buses all the way to Yang Yang city, where we thought the surf festival was taking place. It turned out the surf festival was actually 30 minutes from where the bus dropped us off so we decided to grab a bite to eat and just crash at a hotel somewhere nearby. Anyways, we go eat our go-to late night meal, Kimchi Jjigae, pictured below.

It is basically a spicy soup with vegetables and some pork and tastes amazing when you mix it with rice. I am sure all you soup lovers at home would go crazy for it. So as we are enjoying our delicious soup when a crazy drunk old man comes up to us and tries to speak english to us. At this point in our trip we are very used to this type of occurrence happening on a regular basis so we make his day by exchanging a few words of english. Next thing we knew, this guy invited us to stay at his motel! It turns out he had a great motel just a block away and he gave Nate and I keys to our own room! This guy made our night, and saved us a bunch of money! Check out the awesome room below. 

The room included a kitchen, nice bathroom, TONS of blankets and pillows, and a nice flatscreen TV. After getting settled in our buddies Quinn and Greg both called letting us know that they were dropped of in the wrong city too and they were very happy to know that we had found ourselves a free place to sleep for the night. After spending the night in Yang Yang City we hopped in a cab and drove off to the surfing festival first thing in the morning. We paid our $40 fee and got some sweet hats, towels, rooms to stay in for the night, and wristbands that allowed us to drink free beer and enjoy free food. Not to mention that the wetsuits and surfboards were both free to use. What a great deal. We started the day off with a tasty Korean lunch and then thought we would warm up by enjoying some tasty Korean traditional beverages...

So after feeling great and ready to go we grabbed some wetsuits and got all ready to go surfing. The first day the waves were just ok but apparently a few days earlier there were huge 12 foot waves that came in from the north. After shredding some gnar in the ocean I had an incredible shower and then we all went down for the beach for some great korean bbq and partying.

The surfing the next day was awesome. It was a little wild at times but we all got up a bunch and had some pretty solid rides. I don't think the waves compared to some of the better days in Australia but it was definitely surf-able and occasionally even a little intense. The rest of the weekend was awesome. We made a bunch of great friends and added another exciting adventure to our life in Korea. Before heading out I had to make sure to say goodbye to the cutest puppy in all of Korea who happened to be one of the staff members at the festival. Sorry if the last part of this blog entry got short and less detailed but I have to wake up early tomorrow to teach...

Until next time, 또봐요...