birthday adventures

Happy birthday to me! I am truly an adventurous Aquarius with an urge for experience. So today, a fellow teacher, Hannah, and I went to Geoje Island. From 1950-1953, the island was used as a POW camp to hold North Korean and Chinese communists during the war. We went to a portion of the camp - which has turned into a tourist attraction. I learned so much and I loved it. The entire topic of North Korea and it's communist country is so interesting to me. I just can't believe a place like that exists. Hannah wasn't really interested and didn't go into any of the exhibits. When I asked her why she said that she doesn't want to see a bad side of South Korea. She told me (south) Koreans have a lot of pride for their country and the whole separation thing is a touchy subject because they feel like other countries judge them for it. Anyways, I learned that the prisoners were treated well and fed well. They were able to engage in activities, which I thought was strange. The exhibits were great and really informative - and in English! The camp ended with a "Peace Park," which I thought was a good way to end such a sad topic. There was an exhibit with really awesome photos expressing peace. One was a little boy holding a sign saying "Stop Terrorism." And then there were sections for people who have impacted the world in a positive way - Gandhi, Mother Teresa, MLK Jr. It was fantastic.

After, we had lunch. Lunch today was skeptical. Some kind of raw fish but it wasn't like sushi and it had red parts on it. I tried it but it had a weird texture. Hannah noticed the disinterest on my face. Ehh, oh well. Koreans always give you tons and tons of side dishes when you go out to eat.. so I focused on those. After, we went to "Windy Hill" which provided great views of the island. It was cloudy today and in the winter the land looked dull and barren.. but the ocean is always beautiful. It was spectacular. There was this really cool looking windmill on the hill. Everything was just
wonderful. After this we went to a stone beach. The beaches here weren't your typical beautiful beaches.. which I found surprising because we were on an island. There were a bunch of pebble beaches - filled with stones instead of sand. However, it was really really cool. Why? Because when the waves hit the stones and drifted back into the ocean, it made this really awesome sound. It was so peaceful and soothing. The roads were scenic and I really did feel like I was back on highway 1 in California. Granted, it was nowhere near as awesome as Big Sur was however, we were on an island and driving on hills and the ocean was right at my side. I loved it. It was a great way to spend my birthday.

Oh yeah, to get the island we got to drive through an underwater tunnel. You couldn't tell you were underwater like you can when going through the English Channel, but still very cool nonetheless. They also built three bridges to connect the island to the mainland of Busan. Pretty neat.