Hammy's 2005 Trip To Korea And Japan - Nov 19th

Up early for a walk in Shinhyeon, Geojedo (Geoje Island). Spotted on the map opposite the ferry terminal - "Confusion Temple". Couple of funny shops - "Buy The Way" and "왼자Cafe" (translates as "Whinger" but they named it "Windsor").

Whinger Cafe, er, Windsor Cafe.

The shops don't open until at least 9:30 to 10:30. No-one seems to have an adapter for my battery charger. My early morning walk took me to the bus terminal and along the harbour side. Quite a chilly morning. We had breakfast at a 24 hr place. Mandoo soup and kim chee chigae (soup). Lots of lovely side dishes - egg, kimchee, maelchee (dried fish), squash, 감자(potato), etc. Wandered around the markets afterwards looking for an adapter.

Our favourite breakfast place.

Yu-Jin is sick. Bloody kid.

Another funny shop - "Hyman Wedding"

Hyman Wedding - for virgins only?

Yu-Jin and I went to the POW Museum today [Editor's Note - sorry, no pics available currently as I had to use a non-digital camera and nothing has been developed yet]. On the bus on the way there I saw one of his friends from taekwondo - it's a small world. Short walk up the hill and then we found the museum. Yu-Jin knew all about the exhibition as he has been there before. The guy in the ticketing office spoke to me in English - "How many people?". Entry was 3000 Won (A$4). Quite impressive to see all the video footage and artifacts. I learnt so much about the Korean War. Up to 173000 PoW's were on Geojedo at one time. Only 340 soldiers from Australia were killed during the war. Two of the 89 soldiers from Luxembourg that fought were killed. Colombia even sent soldiers. Spent a couple of hours at the museum.

Afterwards we waited for ages for a taxi, almost none available or had passengers already. Two young men spoke to us in Korean and said to walk 500m to City Hall. I carried Yu-Jin. Still no taxis, even on the other side of the road. Carried Yu-Jin again until he flagged down a taxi for us. Got dropped off at Popeyes where Yu-Jin had a bulgogi burger combo set.

Miky, now joined by her sister, wondered why we were so late. I rang an Aussie acquaintence, Ralph, again after ringing him at lunchtime and having the phone drop out and got connected this time. We agreed to meet at Daewoo Shipyards - 대우조선. I walked straight onto the right bus as it was about to leave and asked the driver if he was going there, thinking that he would let me know where to get off. He didn't. I went much further than I needed to. There were a lot of workers from a company called DMSE, which happened to be Daewoo Shipyards as it turned out, and they let me know that we had already passed it.

I got off at the next stop and tried to call Ralph to tell him that I would be a bit late but the Miky's sister's mobile phone battery was flat. And so was the spare battery. Jumped on the next bus heading in the return direction. Alighted at the East Gate of DMSE as there was a shop opposite - easy to park and easy to find a phone. Or so I thought. Had to convince the kid in the shop that I would pay to use his phone when I discovered that there wasn't a public telephone. Luckily I had Ralph's phone number in my passport or I would have really been stuffed. Ralph picked me up soon afterwards and we went back to his A$2500/mth Woodside-sponsored apartment. Got talking about some personal stuff. We then went for a drive around Okpo before he drove me home. After 10 mins of driving around the only parking spot we could find was a paid one. He asked "How muchie?" and the woman was very puzzled at this until I asked "을마이아에요?" Only 1000 Won to park the car.

We went out for a snack and a drink, after I had surprised my wife in the shower with my return with a visitor, at a chicken place across the road from where we had breakfast this morning. I ordered some rice cakes with chili as I'd had them before and some chicken with chili and mustard. Geoje people eat very spicy food and the waitress warned us that even Geoje people find that food to be spicy. Undaunted, I still ordered it. Needless to say the food was extremely spicy and I had so much wate to drink because my mouth was on fire. I thought that it must be called the "Fire House" and Miky looked at the name and it was something like "Spicy House". Big mistake. Ralph was ok and he paid. He even gave me an Australian 3-pin female plug for my battery charger. What a lifesaver.

The Spicy House.