Gwangju

This past weekend Laura and I went to Gwangju. It is notable because it was the heart of the democracy movement in Korea. The first place we went was the May 18th Memorial Park - which was the setting for the 1980 student protest that ended in several civilians being killed. In my mind this is the closest Korea has to its own Tienanmen Square, so I had been wanting to see it. Gwangju is also notable for me because had I not signed my contract with St. Louis, I would have been living here instead.

This is a huge monument, these children are young and unsupervised. It isn't really surprising, in Korea, but I thought it was notable because they were climbing so high and were adorable.

Under the giant triangle the kids are climbing on, there is a list of names, which I am not sure if these are people involved in the democracy movement, or if they were those killed during the protests.

This was a stone carved mural on one wall, and in the middle was a statue of a mother carrying her son, killed by the soldiers in the movement.

This is Laura. These giant metal poles are surrounding the giant triangle.

I am becoming a more and more capable tourist. Lonely Planet is extremely helpful in this endeavor.

Next we went to the Gwangju National Museum. It was a beautiful building.

The most interesting thing to me was the capsule style coffins. The captions were only in Korean, but from the photographs, like the one in the background, I think they tuck one jar's lip inside the other, to create a seal.

Gwangju is also famous for "Art Street." We went pretty late, so some stores were closed, but its all art galleries and stores, selling supplies, original art and pottery. Everything was beautiful and so well done. I was a little sad, because Daegu doesn't have much of an art scene, there isn't a museum or galleries really. This is one thing that has depressed me a bit, and Art Street was a wonderful treat for me.

We stayed in Gwangju, and the following day we went to Damyang.

First, we went to a bamboo forest. It was really beautiful, and it was great to see things so lush and green in fall, where most trees' leaves have already changed colors and fallen off.

When we finished exploring the forest, Laura and I tried to get a cab to a bamboo museum. We realized pretty quickly that Damyang is not Daegu - there were absolutely no cabs. Our only option was to call one, which was difficult given our limited knowledge of Korean. So we stood at the road and looked around contemplating our next move. Luckily, we were in Korea - within a few minutes, we were stopped by a random Korean man, who looked at our map and gathered where we were trying to go. Turns out, he was a tour guide leading a bus around Damyang full of older Korean couples from Seoul. He invited us to join them - for free- and took us on a pretty awesome tour of the city.

Metasequoia Avenue has been voted the most beautiful road in Korea. I can see why.

These little guys were all over Damyang's tourist locations, which I thought were the cutest things ever.

Soswaewon was made in 1520 and it was great to see the traditional architecture.

I'm excited for our tour. The guide communicated what he could in English, and one of the other tourists spoke a little English, and would translate a little more. We got the jist of most of it, and my guidebook helped, too.

In Korea, Autumn lasts months. Its wonderful, the leaves are still changing and colorful. I'm happy to have nice weather still. Of course Thanksgiving isn't exactly a holiday here, we still have to work.

As for the concern about the artillery fire earlier this week... I am not to worried, and don't think you should be either. Life is continuing on as normal here. I am registered with the US Embassy, and if there is an evacuation, I will be the first to know. Yes, it is the most serious threat since the Korean War, but I believe all parties involved will be rational and show restraint. My plan is to be in Korea until next August, and as of now, that is not changing. Obviously, if the situation becomes untenable, I will put my safety first. As of now, thats all I know. Keep Korea in your thoughts, watch the news, and eat some mashed potatoes for me on Thanksgiving!

DMZ in Seoul

Last weekend I went to Seoul for the first time. Corinne and I were going primarily to see the DMZ, or Demilitarized Zone. You must be on a tour to see it, so we got up at 6 am and got a bus. It was quite the experience.

This year marks the 60 year anniversary of the end of the Korean War, and so there were a lot of events around the area - a concert set up, some sort of march with people with little numbers pinned to their chest, and this carnival.

This is one of the trains that traveled through the DMZ to connect North and South, it is no longer in use (though there is now a modern train, you'll see the station at the end of this post)

I found this very interesting, it is in the only place I have seen so far where the US and Korean flags were not posted right next to each other.

Corinne inspires me to eat street food, this is spicy chicken (maybe?) on a stick.

These are bridges, which were used to exchange POWs between the North and South. The one that is on the left in the picture is called the "Bridge to Freedom," and the one on the right is falling apart, and is no longer used.

You can walk partway up the "Bridge of Freedom." The ribbons are hooked up to the fences and were beautiful. I just wish I could read Korean so that I could tell what they said.

Corinne took these two. We went to an observatory where you could see the North Korean Propaganda Village.

You couldn't take pictures right up at the viewfinders, so this is the best picture I could get. The village has the world's highest flagpole. There are giant speakers that play propaganda recordings, but I didn't hear any.

North Korean forces have dug four tunnels under the DMZ towards Seoul, and the third one is open for tourists to walk down it. We walked down until we were about 120 m from the Military Demarcation Line (Armistice Line), which is the actual border between North and South.

You cannot take pictures in the tunnel, which I think is mostly for security reasons. This is a picture of a picture from when they discovered the tunnel, to give you an idea of the size. They told us that 30,000 troops plus artillery could travel through this tunnel each hour.

This is the new train station to North Korea.

Really, it looks a lot like every other train station I've been to in Korea.

Overall, I would recommend anyone going to Korea to take the time to see it. It really was enlightening to see all of the things you study about in person. Pictures cannot do something like the DMZ justice. As for Seoul, it was really overwhelming. I knew it was the fourth biggest city in the world, but I have gotten so used to Daegu, where you can get around on the subway easily, people don't walk smack into you, and generally you can walk next to your friends.. Seoul was a bit of a shock. I left feeling glad to be heading home, and really think I made the right decision choosing to live in Daegu. I'll be heading back to Seoul maybe next month, they have a ton of cultural sites and museums, temples and palaces.

My cat's really weird. This is how Trenton likes to relax. Her front legs are sprawled out on each side of my leg. She also sleeps on top of me - I lay on my side and she likes to lay down on my waist or thighs. This is problematic because I move around a lot in my sleep, so she gets mad and meows until I wake up. But, she is cute and sweet and I am happy to have her.

Most of the family probably already knows, but if you haven't heard, Tricia (my sister) has a blog about her experiences in China. The website is http://triciareneem.wordpress.com/

I took lots of cute pictures of the kindergarten students dressed up for our Halloween party, so expect that post to be up soon!

Daegu's Photo Biennale

Daegu's Photo Biennale was held this month, which is basically a huge photography exhibit. I ended up going twice, as it was a big exhibit and I wanted to spend some more time with the photos. Part of this was because of an exhibit called "Speaking Out Peace." This was featured as it is the 60th anniversary of the Korean War. It had one room of Robert Capa's war photography, including the Korean War, and another of various Korean War photographers. The name Robert Capa is probably familiar, he is famous for the quote "If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough" (refering to war photography) and being one of the only photographers at D-day (Omaha Beach in Normandy, France).

If you were wondering, the photo above was taken in Daegu before they changed the spelling. (you can click on the pictures to enlarge them, just click the "back" button when you want to return to the blog)

This is an American soldier being carried by the South Korean peasants that were used as artillery carriers during the war.

North Korean POWs

Military trials for the POW's

This is an American soldier accepting surrendered North Korean citizens. Look closely, you can see the soldier giving him a thumbs up.

This is a line of POW's walking on a landing strip.

This is one of my absolute favorites of the collection.

This was taken in Daegu, these are all of the taxi drivers celebrating after a victory.

This is Robert Capa's last photograph - he died shortly after taking it, because he stepped on a landmine in Vietnam.

The whole thing really was amazing. There were tons of other photographs that were not related to the war at all, but I decided not to post any because it really didn't touch me as much as these did. I don't want to distract you from the main attraction here, which is my cultural and historical education. Expect another post very soon about my trip to Seoul and the DMZ this past weekend!

To see more photos of the exhibit (with the names of all of the photographers), and of the Busan War Memorial (that I went to last month) click here to go to my Flickr page.