from gwangju, we took a bus to mokpo (목포)...after the horrid experience the day before, we were understandably nervous, but this was a direct bus, and went straight to the bus terminal in mokpo...though it was a farther distance, the time involved was only 50 minutes...woo hoo!!! mokpo is a port city, on the southwest coast of the peninsula...there isn't a whole lot else going on there...
from the bus station, we took a taxi to the train station, and booked a train ticket back to gwangju the next day...(despite this bus ride being good, we were still nervous about another bus)...we found a love motel close to the train station (only 25,000 won, or about $22...you can't find anything that cheap in the states!!) and booked in...we used the tourist map, street signs and guidebook to get us to the ferry terminal...we figured there had to be some sort of ferry ride we could take just because...and there was...we didn't understand the information boards we could see, but there was a nice lady at information who told us what we could do...the next boat left almost immediately, but we wanted lunch, and that seemed more important...so we went to find lunch, only having to walk across the street...yay...sometime during lunch kim asked me why i kept eating the same food, she had noticed i ordered the same thing quite a few times during our trip...what can i say, i have no problem with repetitive eating:)
the next fery ride was two hours later, so we had some time to kill...we decided to walk along the coast, enjoying the water view, nice weather, and constant breeze...it was sunny, and there were quite a few men out fishing...the ferry ride itself was nothing spectacular, but it was enjoyable...just being out on a boat for a couple hours in calm water is great:)...some people got off at the islands, they were probably going to visit family...
after the ferry we followed the signs to the "mountain" in the middle of town...yudalsan...(유달산)...it's not really a mountain, more a hill...especially since you can drive right up almost to the top...it isn't a high mountain, but the views over the city are great...(though mokpo isn't particularly scenic)...a lovely place to be with lovely weather...up near the top is a statue of admiral yi sunshin...one of the most important military figures in korean history, it was in this area that he showed how much of a genius he is...a story which is related on information boards in at least three places...lol...we definitely had the idea after that...according to the sign, this was also the most "lively" statue of the guy in korea...i thought it looked just the same as the statue in seoul, but apparently, i'm wrong...on our way down the "mountain" we passed by a building that was eerily empty...it looked like a european building, not a typical korean building...behind the building was a gated tunnel, which seemed even more creepy, especially because we couldn't figure out what it was...a little further down we found a sign that said the building was the former japanese consulate...no wonder it was now totally deserted, with no attention drawn to the site...
in our search for dinner, we opted for a place that served lots of different types of mandu...(dumplings, like the well known polish pierogis)...the sign outside the restaurant said they had pizza mandu, among other options, but when we asked about those inside, we were told they weren't available...we sat and waited for quite a while for someone to come take our order...while waiting we counted at least four employees who looked directly at us, and were clearly aware that we were ready to order, but they seemed scared to come talk to the foreigners...when they did come take our order, we did it quickly, and in korean...
from there it was back to the hotel where i stayed up longer than i should've watching a bad american movie...kim went to sleep waaaay earlier than i did...
the next morning we got on the train back to gwangju...the train took longer than the bus! at the train station in gwangju we stored our bags in the lockers they have available, then got lunch...after lunch we decided to go see the one remaining 5.18 sight we hadn't seen...the 5.18 national cemetary...interestingly enough, the bus we took to get out to the cemetary was bus #518...as we looked at the route, we figured out we could've used this bus quite a bit during our first day in town...oh well...the cemetary was nice and quiet...we saw the old cemetary, as well as the new one...the old one was dug up and partly destroyed in the mid 80s when the military dictatorship running the country decided it wasn't good to have a cemetary devoted to those who had died in an uprising about democracy...i have no idea what happened to the bodies, but in 1994, the new cemetary project was started; it was completed in 1997...national cemetary designation came in 2002...the volunteer information lady told us there are over 600 bodies buried there...some of them died during and soon after the uprising, others who were involved are still alive, and will be buried there after they die...there are also a few graves of unknown folks, and a few graves devoted to those they know died back then, but they don't have the bodies...
we took the bus back into town, then took the ktx (bullet train again, yippee!!) back to seoul, arriving 3 hours later...a great trip!!!!!!!
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