Dragon Mountain

This past week has been pretty amazing! On Sunday Kendall and I got lost in some tiny town for three hours in the middle of no where. It was pretty cool. I don't have any pictures from it but I will try to tell the story on here some other time.

Two weeks ago I went into town on a Sunday and the sea was full of ships coming in or leaving the port. I told Kendall I thought we should go to this big cliff we passed and watch the sun rise over the sea with all of the ships out there. It never really worked out.

Well last Sunday I talked a few people into going for a bike ride to watch the Sunrise. The plan was to leave Sunday morning at 6:15 A.M. and ride for 30 minutes to a place called "Dragon Mountain." We woke up on Sunday Morning an it was raining! We all went back to bed.

On Monday morning we didn't start work until 11:00 A.M. so we decided to try it again. This time only one other person wanted to join us. We set are alarms and forced ourselves out of bed at 6:00 A.M. Kendall, Ian and I meet in the lobby and decided we were really going to do this. The biggest problem was that none of us had bikes. But we were told that we could just "borrow" some bikes from the bike rack in front of our building. So at 6:15 we were test-riding what bikes we would steal! We found the correct bikes and headed out for "Dragon Mountain." The first section of the trail is about 25 minutes through a rice patty! It was amazing. It was pitch black outside and we are on a tiny trail in the middle of a field. We had no clue where we were going only that we wewre heading for Dragon Mountain!

We left the field and ended up on a small road leading into a town. When we reached the town the sea appeared on our right. We rode for the remainder of the trip all along the cost! It was beautiful. We rode, and rode, and rode for a while. After about 1 and a half hours we were exhausted and decided to just stop. We had obviously missed Dragon Mountain. But we did find one of the most beautiful places I've been to in Korea. We were on top of a large hill and decide to climb down to the sea coast.

When we reached the bottom the sun was just starting to rise above the water and the mountains in the distance. It was beautiful. The colors were vived and bright! The location we watched from was covered in massive rocks. We spent time jumping around on the rocks out to the sea!

After the sunrise we left the beach to head home. The ride back was even more beautiful with the sun actuly in the sky. We could see where we were going and the beautiful coast.

We also had our eyes open for Dragon Mountain. By chance we stopped at a bridge looked to the right and saw this temple on the side of a mountain! It was Dragon Mountain. We approaced the Mountain and discovered that there was indeed a giant dragon on the side of this mountain. It was a large tunnel that went up the side of this mountain and ended on the ground in a giant dragon head! We were examining things when out of no where a Buddhist monk appeared and told us to go inside the dragon. We followed him and were greated by this sight:



It was amazing! The monk left us and we were inside of the dragon alone. We followed the tunnel all the way to the top. All of the walls were lined with pictures and statues and at the end there was a large statue of Buddah with a prayer mat. We spent some time there and left.

As we were getting on our bikes another monk appeared and motioned to us to follow him. He took us into a private building and offered us coffe. He couldn't speak any English! We figured out he was the dish washer for the monks! We spent a little time with him and then went to leave. He bowed and told us good bye. As we were getting on our bikes he again called ups back and this time invited us into a different buiilding. This time he gave us each a calander!

We finally got on our bikes and finished the rest of the ride back to school!

Well I need to run. I'm leaving for china in about 2 hours! I'll be in Hong Kong Tomorrow! I miss everyone back home! See you soon!

Love, Joy & Peace!

Temple: