Fall colors and snowy trees

So why a whole post dedicated to fall? Well let's be real, fall is beautiful in Korea (summer is too humid and too hot and winter is too snowy and cold!)

The first snow of the season. The first snow is beautiful - it's the 32nd snow that starts to really suck!

..... Notice anything different about the photos? Notice how the focus is very specialized to one specific area of the photo and the rest is blurred out. This is a characteristic of my new lens - called the Lensbaby! And it will be the only 'baby' I have for a long long while :) The lens bends and moves to create these images and it is all manual focus, so it's no easy task but who doesn't love a good challenge every now and again?!

I learned about the Lensbaby from a photographer friend and Cheongju-eon, Ilze Louw Photography. She creates absolutely breath taking images!! ... so I decided I'd give the Lensbaby a shot! I'm no pro, but it's fun and has more of an artistic feel to the images!

What better way than with a cool, brisk, sunny day to take a walk around Cheongju and just 'be' and photograph. 

So here's a bit of my photographic art from the beauty that I was surrounded by the whole time I was in Korea and didn't realize it until it was time for me to leave. Sad. But hey, better late then never!!

I realized on this long wondering walk how we can easily live somewhere for a year and a half and still not know about or see things that were right around the corner from us. It's sad really, but a pleasant surprise when you find a hidden gem or 2. One hidden gem for me was a few resale shops just down the road from me. I came out of there with a purse, coat, pants, shirts for 20 bucks! It was a steal!

I can't harp on myself too much about not seeing or knowing about things in Korea because to be fair... sometimes places literally didn't exist the day before. Building, restaurants and shops were gutted and rebuilt in a matter of minutes, I swear!

Can you tell what these are (below)?

Yup, leaves shot in my apartment using natural light and my Lensbaby! :)

Cheongpung Land - TaLK

The trip where we get to miss a day of school, hang out with our friends all for free. Huzzah, yes please.

We boarded a boat and headed off. We were on the lake for about an hour, getting to our destination, so it must be a pretty big lake!

First stop was a historic village place. It was beautiful - filled with colored trees and colorful buildings.

There was a fountain on the lake. Across the way is where the bungee jumping took place!

This was a little illegal.. we weren't supposed to take the paddle out of the guys' hands, but we did anyway. Oops.

But at least we didn't break it. One of the other guys in our group broke it over someones butt. He was trying to pretend (super realistically that he was going to hit the guy hard). I guess his force and stopping action, snapped the stick and then landed on the guys butt with a WHACK. haha

First was a big lunch. I mean huge. It was amazing. Soup, meat, sides, apples soaked it awesome white sauce, mayonnaise type stuff that I ended up stealing from all the other tables who weren't eating it. Actually the kid sitting next to me took it upon himself to find ALL the apples and bring them my way. I think we might just be besties now.

So, we usually get an over night trip but this time it was just a day trip, lunch and bungee jumping. Which I guess it made sense on their part, don't book an overnight gig, because you might not have anyone left after they all jump off a ledge.

So, did I do it? Did I bungee jump? NO. I won't even keep that as a surprise. Me jumping - Nope. Not happening. I will jump off mountains, I will swim with sharks, I would sky dive (yeah, I think I do that), but there is something about jumping off of a platform or a bridge with some shackles on your ankles to keep you alive that doesn't appeal to me. My stomach seriously turns and jumps just me thinking about it and watching other people do it. However this one was much less scary than the one in Africa I went to (the highest commercial jump). I seriously thought, hmm this doesn't seem too high, maybe I could do it.

But I didn't. Nope. Instead I did 'the big swing'. It seemed funner, since I do love swinging. Also, I had done it and survived at the Royal Gorge with my siblings. So, I figured I could handle it!

This time I went with two of my friends, Peter and Nicole. We linked arms, laid down in the harness and they pulled us back (to almost as high as the bungee jump), blew a whistle, Peter said 'ready?' -- and the screaming started.

The cord was hard to pull, so it took him a couple of time, horrible I tell you. Horrible. I hated the extra suspense. I seriously screamed soooo loud. I was terrified. It was a straight drop for what seemed like ages (maybe a second) and then we swung way out, back and forth back and forth. At some point I somehow ended up much higher than the other two. Almost like I was standing up. So of course I did the titanic pose and had some fun looking down on my friends.

We watched some other bungee jump for a bit. They had people bungee over a man mad little thing of water. There was a man with a little blow up boat on the water, that they would lower the jumper in to when they were finished bouncing around. We watched people lose some things, that was kind of fun. Peter lost his wallet but luckily it floated and was retrieved by the man in the boat. Another guy lost his shoes. Yes, it was all guys who lost things, go figure!

When we got tired of watching people jump, we decided to do a photo shoot with the colored leaves. Fall is absolutely gorgeous in Korea, so many colors and the weather is quite wonderful.

We loaded back up, yes everyone survived and headed home. It was a quick trip and as I was sad to not get to hang out overnight with all my friends, it was kind of nice to not have to pack and get to sleep in my own bed :)