Somewhere in the mountains of Gangwon-do, July 8th

Julian and a couple of the parents planned an outing into the mountains on Saturday afternoon and invited us teachers along. Liz and I went. The dad drove, Liz sat in the front seat, and I crammed myself into the backseat with the four boys who just floated around with no seatbelts. After forty or so minutes of driving on a very bumpy dirt road into the mountains, we reached a little riverside restaurant. There was a main preparation building surrounded by little gazebos hung with mosquito netting. Inside the gazebos were stumps for seats and handcrafted mud stoves topped with flat, smooth stones for cooking. We cooked large slabs of pork and ate it with the typical relishes and side dishes--garlic, lettuce, bean paste, kimchi, Korean pancake, radish...It was delicious and picturesque and I ate way too much.