Mungyeong...

Ben and I had a 3 day weekend and we decided to go to Mungyeong and go paragliding and explore the area. This weekend was supposed to be a very chill time. We were booked to paraglide on Saturday at noon, but we decided to head up to the area on Friday in a very relaxed way. We went there from Bukbu Terminal and bought a ticket. We boarded a bus and noticed it was completely full and we would not be able to sit down. Because of this we decided to wait for the next bus which was in an hour.

To waste time, we decided to eat. We went to an Indian place near the station that we had walked by before. No one was there since it was a weird time. We got our food, and it tasted really good. We finished our food and went to wait in line for the new bus, so we could guarantee that we would get seats. We got seats easily and all was great until about 20 minutes left in our 2 hour journey..... That was when it hit me. At first I thought that is was just motion sickness, but it started to feel much worse. I made it to the bus station, but as soon as I saw a toilet, I lost all of my Indian food. I mean ALL! 

As I am walking out of the bathroom, I recieved a text that said that we would not be able to go paragliding the following day because of the "typhoon" that was coming. We were really upset because we had just gotten there, and I had made it there and was sick. I called the place and asked the lady if we could make it to the place today, could we fly? She said yes. We had 30 minutes to get there. We were supposed to take another bus, but instead we took a taxi to get there in time. As soon as we got there we were suited up and headed for the top of the mountain.

There was a long winding road to the top in the companies jeep. Keep in mind that I was sick.... I was trying not to think about how I was feeling and ignore it. It didn't get bad again, until I was up in the air. I told the man with me that I was sick and I needed to go down early. He kept trying to distract me. I think that for normal motion sickness this is a perfect way to get rid of it, but I was not motion sick. I had food poisoning. Eventually he figured out that I was serious. Hopefully he figured this out without seeing me dry heaving....ahahah! I think that we cut it short, but I still feel like I got to see a very beautiful side of Korea. It was close to sunset, so it was a beautiful time to go! Ben did good for most of it, but he did a corkscrew down very fast and he said he was feeling sick when he landed as well! It was just not our day!

I was able to take my small camera up and take a few pictures of Ben when he was close to me!

That night after the paragliding, I was worthless. I couldn't move! The woman from the paragliding was so kind. She offered to help us find a place to stay. I think it was obvious that I was not well. I couldn't even move to be honest. I left all decisions up to Ben. I just told him, find me a room with a bed...

We found a hotel that wasn't bad. It had a bathtub, and that is always a win. I spend the night taking a bath, vomiting and sleeping. It was horrible... this was the first time I remember having food poisoning.

The next morning I was very weak from not eating, but I still wanted to be able to do something. We ended up going and riding the rail bike. The rail bike in Mungyeong is part of the railroad track that is no longer functioning. They have put petal bikes on this section, and you can ride for a couple of kilometers enjoying the Korean countryside. I had heard that this was a popular thing for the elementary school kids to do. We enjoyed it and I was happy that we were motor assisted, so I didn't have to do much work! 

After the bikes we went to a film set outside of Mungyeong. It just so happened that they were having a festival at the place. It was an "omija" festival. Omija is a really delicious red berry, that the Koreans describe as a red grape. We had to walk around with our backpacks, and since I was quite weak, it was a very long afternoon. That being said, it was very cool to walk around in. There were a few vendors that were selling different things, and we bought some different wooden coasters, and some strange wooden men.

At this festival while walking around we found a place to play dress up! We got to put on some traditional Korean clothes and take a picture. It only cost us 1,000 won to do this!
The wig head piece was very very heavy, but it was fun to dress up...

We tried the omija tea. It was really good. It just tasted like very sweet juice. They sold these large containers that had the fruit and sugar in it. This is the way that they made the concentrate that they would use for the tea. Looking back, I wish that we would have boughten one of the containers...

I will say, it was a rough weekend. We ended up heading back on Saturday night so that we could rest on the Sunday, which was necessary as I pushed through the day, but felt awful again by the time we were home.