One of the perks of having the most desirable placement of Fulbright is that people want to visit. A few weeks ago my friends Erin and David came and visited me over their three day weekend. The first day they spent on the other side of the island with some of the other fulbrighters but I met up with them saturday morning to hike hallasan. Mt Halla (do volcano's get called Mt.??) is the volcano at the center of the island and although I pass it all the time this is first time I have attempted to go up it. We must've picked the perfect time because all the fall colors were gorgeous. In Seogwipo it doesn't really fall like fall or winter because a lot of the trees stay green but up there it was perfect fall viewing time. Korean actually has a word for viewing leaves in the fall and I think that's really sweet. We ended up not making it to the top because we started so late in the morning but it was a lovely hike nonetheless.
That night we went out for some really good samgyupsal and called it a day. We met up the next morning to odeolgae (the single rock) and do some light trekking. They were supposed to head home Sunday early afternoon but we got news early Saturday that a typhoon was coming and they might get stuck on the island. This seemed like good news (how can you argue with a typhoon?) but it turned out to be rather stressful and made saturday sort of sad as they scrambled to figure out plans. However with the typhoon approaching (in wind only, the real part of the typhoon was headed towards Japan) we got some pretty epic pictures on David's new selfie stick. It was so nice to see friends and hangout. I hope to return the favor and visit Mokpo, where Erin and David live, but we shall see.