Wandering Browns

The place we stayed in Sokcho reminded me of guesthouses that we stayed in while traveling in Italy- homey and simple. I wanted to stay in a place that felt more like a home than a hotel, and I think we accomplished that. The bed was a little hard for Austin's taste, but I actually liked it better than our hard bed in the hotel. Landon had his own sleeping mat and blanket and pillow and did pretty well sleeping there through the night. One night he got cold and ended up in bed with us, but other than that he was great! Our room There were 3 huge paintings decorating the upstairs walls We ordered a smoothie the last morning and Onam brought Landon in and sat him down in her little shop out front and gave him cereal to munch on while she made the smoothie.  For breakfast, we got to make our own in a self-service kitchen! Austin cooked up eggs while I made toast and hot dogs for Landon and I and we feasted on what we had made. Austin reflected that it was the first t...

Despite the gloomy skies we decided to attempt some beach-going while we were near the coast in Sokcho. I had researched beaches with waves, and Naksan showed up as the closest beach to Seoul with waves. We hopped on a bus and remained vigilant of the street signs (some of them are in English and Korean) so we could figure out when to get off (because all the bus announcements are only in Korean). Austin won the game and saw the sign for the Naksan temple so we hopped off the bus and headed for the beach. It was another misty morning with intermittent rainfall, but we decided to at least see the beach before deciding on the rest of our plans. Landon enjoyed walking up and down stairs and ramps near the beach front board walk as we waited out a few little rain storms. We waited for the convenience stores to open (5 7-11s just in Naksan that we counted!) so that I could buy Landon some sand toys. Somehow in our travels from Seoul we lost his sand bucket that he got from Ikea. At least i...

Korea has Smokey the Bear too! Day 2 in Sokcho we woke up to cloudy skies threatening rain. My plan was to go to the beach, but we quickly switched plans to go hiking in the national park that was 15 minutes away from the guesthouse. We hopped on the bus and got off right at the gates for the park. It was misty and drizzling, but we never got soaked in our full day of hiking. We started out going for a waterfall that I had read was a good family hike. Landon alternated between walking and being carried by mom or dad. Most of the time he just doesn't want to stay on the path or go in the direction that we are trying to go. The little waterfall on our waterfall hike Well, about 5 minutes into our hike there was a big sign that said "No hiking! Under construction!" We wondered if there were any waterfalls for us to see before the construction (there were no signs of construction near the sign). Then a group of ladies came down the trail and we decided to ...