Aquaponics System

On the bottom is the fish tank.  There is a pump in the right rear that pumps water from the tank up to the first grow bed.

The water flows in at the right rear.  The plants are in 2" cups that hang just low enough that they barely touch the water.  There are 3 strawberry plants, 2 lettuce plants, a couple Swiss chards and a cucumber plant in here.  I think eventually this will be half strawberries and half leafy greens such as lettuce, Swiss chard or spinach. 

From the first grow bed water is gravity fed down to the second grow bed.  I had been using this grow bed to start seeds but I think I am gonna take the lid off of this one and just grow some duckweed in here for the 2 Fantail Goldfish.

From there, water is gravity fed to the largest container.  This is where I will be growing much larger plants with deeper roots that will not fit in the smaller grow beds.

Here is a tomato plant in the back.  In front of that is a basil plant.  The back right is a week old cucumber plant.  Directly behind the basil, is another basil plant that is growing in soil.  Both plants were the same size when I removed one from the soil and put it into the aquaponics system.

Here is a better view to compare the 2 basil plants.  Click on the picture to make it big.  In the foreground of the picture is a lettuce plant.  I don't know why it doesn't like to grow normally in this system.  I may have to just grow spinach and chard and quit messing around with this lettuce.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOGGdf8n8_g&feature=youtu.be  Click on the link to see a video tour of the whole system.  It is much more informative than this blog post.

Chuncheon Dakgalbi Festival

This is Dakgalbi St. in Chuncheon.  Almost every restaurant on this Street sells Dakgalbi.

They bring the food out as a pile of white cabbage under a pile of rice noodles under a pile of spicy chicken that has been cut into bit size pieces.  You can put it on a leaf or just eat it straight from the pan. 

Conrad says "Dakgalbi is number 1!".

Isaac seems to like it.

Delainey liked it.

Todd and I liked it.  We had both eaten here before many times.  Just not in the last 9 years for me and 11 for Todd.

Mark trying to talk John and Arely through the alleys to the restaurant where we were eating.

The road to the right used to be the front gate to Cp. Page last time I was here.  They pretty much leveled the entire base.

John buying coconuts for everyone.

You can get other food here also.  Not just dakgalbi.

The festival was a little disappointing.  Mostly just some booths selling different trinkets and odd food.  John ate a silkworm and I sucked a snail through its shell. 

John likes to sample everything.  Here he was buying some juiced sugar cane.  It pretty much tastes like sugar and water with a little bit of nature mixed in.

This guy makes the rice cakes that you can see Arely holding.  He was very camera shy and actually ran away when I took the camera out.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-_3aqUKjKg&feature=youtu.be Click the link for a video of the rice cake machine in action.

It was super hot and super humid.  Delainey, Jacqui, Isaac, and Arely taking a break from the sun for a bit.

Any good festival has singing Indians.  We were hoping these guys could make it rain.

We went to the Chuncheon Hotel to cool off for a bit.  The A/C doesn't work unless your key is in the room so it wasn't really that cool but it was better than walking around in the sun.

Going back for more Dakgalbi.  This place hasn't seen this many white people at one time since 2004.

This guy is almost full grown.  He is not looking forward to the upcoming Doggalbi festival in the fall.

BearTree Park

We went to BearTree park south of Cheonan today with some friends from our bldg.



From that bridge you could feed the Koi. As soon as we walked onto the bridge, they started coming from all over the pond.



They just kept on coming.

It got pretty ridiculous!

 

They were pushing each other out of the water.

 

Isaac thought it was funny.  He got his hair cut today.

 

Conrad needs a haircut.

 

If you count Delainey's doll, we had 4 people looking at the same time for this pic.

The whole park was trimmed up nicer than Disney.

It was like Alice in Wonderland.

It was the perfect day.  Rain was on the forecast so we pretty much had the park to ourselves.  It rained a bit off and on but nothing too bad.

Delainey leading the way.

Isaac stopped to smell the roses.
 

They had bears there too.

And you could get REALLY close to them. 

 

These unidentified birds must be super rare.  I have never seen them in any zoo in America.

One of the Gardens.  We had some really good pizza here.  The toppings were pepperoni, bacon, French fries, onions, olives, and pineapple.  It was the only choice of pizza and if you ever try it you will realize there is no reason for any other combination of pizza toppings.

Korea has a lot of hills.

Did I mention you can get really close to the animals?  I could've done this with the bears also.  In fact, I almost did but they use their claws a lot and whenever they reached at my hand with their paws I kept chickening out.

I think Delainey is in this picture somewhere.

They kept the big bears in this pit.  You could buy animal crackers to feed them.

Mostly they sat nicely like this waiting for you to toss them a biscuit.  Not always though.  At one point 2 bears started fighting and my initial reaction to run away slowed me down too much to get it on video.  This was the second time today I missed a good picture/video opportunity cause I was too much of a sissy.

This bear seemed to really be hungry but when I hit him in the face with a biscuit he barely moved.  Watch the video at the end and you can see us feeding the cool bears.



Like this one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHzNkx8wvZE Here is a link to a video of us feeding the koi and the bears.

On the way out of the park, I took a picture of this tree.  It looks like ajima's fingers.

 

 

Yeounginsan Forest

Near where we parked, there were some giant mushrooms that you can rent to stay in.  

After a short walk up a steep hill there was a waterfall and the  path forked.  Delainey decided we should take the steep path.

Jacqui, Delainey, and Conrad taking a break.

The top of that path opened up to a big field.  The hilltop in the background was our destination after leaving the field area.

We thought it looked like a nice place to take a picture.

The 2 big kids thought it was funny how I was trying to get Conrad to look at the camera.

Then Conrad farted.  It looks like Delainey thinks it was hilarious and  Isaac is congratulating him on a job well done.

The building in this picture is a place where you can zipline to the further mountain with the weird monument on top.

This is the top of the hilltop that you could see in the pic of the field. 

You can see the field behind us where we took the other pictures.

One with less kids.

This is Dalainey's new BFF Arley.

There was a rock on top of the furthest peak.  I was gonna stand up on it but John said  I was crazy.  Since he REALLY IS crazy, I heeded his advice and just sat on it once I was on top.

After leaving the mountain top, we were walking through a swampy area and John caught a tadpole. 

Delainey loves tadpoles.

Isaac caught this one by himself.

After the swamp we went up another hill.  Delainey had more energy than our sherpa Jordan (Not Pictured).

Isaac also had tons of energy.  Here he is completely unfazed by  the climb. 

Me, John, and Arely waiting for Jacqui and the kids. 

After I got the camera back I walked up ahead and took this picture of the group on the trail.  The hilltop to the left is the one we were on previously.  The field is where we took the pictures where Conrad farted.

Similar picture.  This time from defilade. 

Once at the peak, this sign proved very helpful to get us back headed towards the car. 

The walk back to the parking lot. 

We sat down in the shade of this beautiful marijuana tree. 

Conrad was wore out after all the walking. 

The kids loved hanging out with John and Arely all day.

We will return to Yeounginsan Forest.  Next time we will probably hike to the zipline place and then climb up to the big monument.