Awesome weekend pt. II, the retreat

On Saturday Taylor and I headed to Seoul to meet up with the Pine Tree Club for their mini retreat. We took a bus 1 1/2 hours out to the country somewhere east of Seoul. I snagged the last seat on a bus packed with people, which left Taylor standing in the aisle. This was particularly infuriating because the guy sitting behind me had a seat next to him just full of a big box of soju and snacks.

By the by we arrived to a place with little cottages along a river surrounded by hills. We put our stuff in the cottage and proceeded with team building exercises. We played a game where we divided in teams of 20, formed giant conga lines and chased each other. We had a scavenger hung, a 3-legged type race where there were 3 of us tied together, then a race where there were ten of us tied together. Then we went inside and had some ramen and a samgyeupseul (bacon) and kimchi dish. This is Hyun cooking it up in the main room:



There were charades games and song games, then came the violence games. This one was where you had a balloon tied to your foot and the other people were trying to pop it. This is the all girls' game:




I really didn't want to play but I was forced to. The guys had to play sitting down because the standing up game was way too dangerous, we soon found out. So you're supposed to shuffle around the floor without using your hands and kick and pop the balloons from a sitting position. It was impossible - I lost quickly:





There were many other games, including one where three teammates and I had to get a letter written on our foot, then put on a big woolen sock and then four dudes fought us to get the sock off and see the letter. I fared a bit better at that game, but didn't get any pictures of it. This game next is a two man game. It's called 'shim shim shim'. So you say 'shim shim shim' then one guy with his hand tries to guess if you'll turn your head left, right or not at all. If he guesses right he picks up the big squeaky mallet as fast as he can to whack the other guy in the head, while the other guy tries to grab the tray to defend himself as fast as possible:



After seriously like 6 hours of straight games the drinking finally began. We headed outside and barbequed samgeupseol and drank soju for quite a long time. I didn't take any pictures outside, but snapped a few once we got back inside the big room again. This is Insub, the former president, and I:



Here's Taylor hanging with some folks late night:



A couple random shots:







This girl in the middle was the champion of the party. At like 10 she was complaining of being 'dizzy' and seemed down for the count. This photo is taken at nearly 5 am, right before I went to bed after conceding there was no chance I'll be able to stay up as late as everyone around me:



Then while I slept her, Insub and some others tagged me and many other people. They just laughed and said 'You got tattoo!':




I didn't get it as bad as this guy though:



It was an awesome time. Taylor and I were the only non-Koreans there, so it was a really cool glimpse into the world of Korea without foreigners around. Thanks PTC!