Jukjeon Juggernaut: The amazingly strange...

“Some are born weird, some achieve it, others have weirdness thrust upon them.”

Let me just start by saying Korea is a weird place. Most of the time this weirdness is endearing. On Saturday; Beth, Alex, and I had the epitome of a weird Korea experience. Which was perfect as it was our send off to Alex. My group of 6 is now down to 2.5. I give Sally a .5 since she is unfortunately very very busy with her work. Its sad but I'm hopefully building a new group with my new coworkers. Anyway back to the weirdness of Korea. Weeks ago Alex asked if Beth and I would like to go on a hike with him his last weekend here. Since it was his last weekend I could hardly say no.

The hike was lovely until halfway up the mountain it began to snow. It was beautiful but I was terrified of falling and the snow kept sticking to my hair, melting, and dripping down my face.

Is it sacrilegious to imitate the pose of your zodiac animal?

The snow was beautiful and actually warmed up the temperature so the hike was quite pleasant!

This mountain is known for having the longest suspension bridge in Korea.

Alex actually enjoys hiking and takes a picture with the height marker of every mountain he hikes.

I stole these last two pictures of the mountain from Beth. I only had my phone to take pictures. She brought her nice camera and got some beautiful shots.

And now we get to the amazing weirdness. After the hike we went to Herb Island. There are not words to describe this place. The first building we went into was pretty normal it sold candles, herbs, soap, and tea. But right outside the weirdness began, with a creepy Cinderella and pumpkin carriage.

Who thought this was a good enough statue to put up? SO CREEPY!

Why just why?

We went through this maze of a greenhouse and emerged in Santa land.

Why must Santa statues be so creepy?

Is this a normal shed used for storing gardening tools?

Oh no of course not, it is part of a nativity. Hopefully they add the rest of the members before Christmas.

Then suddenly there was light!

And weird Tinker Bell statues.

These beautiful multicolored rows are the remnants of the islands lavender plants.

Again why must Santa statues be so creepy?

Then we came across the weird workshop photo booths. The first one was a seamstress workshop. I'm not really sure why there was a dinosaur in this workshop.

Then we had a garden shop and woodworking shop. Unfortunately all the tools in these shops were glued down.

Why was this the only place to not have the props glued down? These are things you can actually hurt yourself with! Also why do you need a lighter in a jewelry shop?

Beth wanted to recreate the pottery scene from "Ghost"

Then we came across a safari/farm animal garden.

You could buy carrots to feed to the donkeys. It was so weird seeing the kids stab a carrot with the stick then stand 5 feet away from the fence waiting for the donkey to bit the carrot off the stick.

I usually don't feel bad for farm animals but these poor babies and mama were shaking in the cold.

Who doesn't love a wizard with sunglasses?

And a mini Venice?

Complete with gondolas!

and pirates?

Who doesn't need a Trevi fountain replica?

Then we came to the best part of the entire day, a dinosaur garden. This part had animatronic dinosaurs that moved and growled.

These were ride-able dinosaurs!!!! How cool is that?

This is what Alex and I imagined what we would look like hatching from eggs.

The next photo opportunity came in the form of army jackets, helmets, and bedding. It makes perfect sense to glue down the backpacks but allow you to use the mattress and blankets.