This is the last really-late, super-catch up post... And it's only for the first half of the day. We went to Geoje Island in the morning/afternoon and then flew to Busan to visit the orphanage (that's the next post). That part of the trip was so important that I wrote my blog entry for that immediately afterward, and continued to keep almost all of my blog entries current after that, so from here out, the rest of the entries will have been 'fresh' from the moment.
Well... Here's the morning on Jiri-san.
Ehm, wallpaper? :)
We all got together at the pastor's place to drink some tea. This was made from a special flower that only grows on Jiri-san. It's a health-drink, and actually pretty tasty, unlike the Chinese version that Chinese mothers all force their kids to drink. :P
Can you see the birdy?
The pastor's house.
It was a long drive... Drove from Jiri-san to Geoje Island. We dropped by a rest stop for some lunch-e.
Had 'ramen with herbs'... And a red ginseng drink. Yummmmmmm... Mr. Ahn treated all of us. :)
Just arrived... We were here to visit the POW Camp Museum.
There was a big rally just outside... Vets had gathered to protest the government destruction of some monument.
We didn't really have a guide for this section... Most everything was pretty self-explanatory and in English.
Flags of the 16 UN countries that helped South Korea in the Korean War.
The entrance to the museum...
Good guys right, bad guys left.
The first display thinger was kinda vague on what exactly was going on, but this was kind of a summary. The rest of the exhibits would be on the specifics for each 'scene' shown here.
Honestly, I didn't know much about the Korean War at all.
South Korea was almost gone!
...And then South Korea almost had North Korea back...
South Korea is extremely proud of how well they treated their North Korean POWs.
Pictures of this view at three different times after the war...
...And my picture of the same thing.
Geoje Island was always a prisoner-exile-kind of place, but now people actually live here normally, though still pretty few. About 10K residents.
Konglish... That should be 'Clash'...
Happy ending?
Now, to see the remnants of the actual camp itself...
All those ribbons have hand-written messages from visitors. Not sure what they say...
Yep, that guy is totally taking a dump. They had several scenes of that, for some reason. :P
...And that's about it. Not really too much to say about this stuff... I mean, it's good to know that South Korea treated the North Koreans well. But, it's kinda hard to bring this all back around to me, personally. I guess it could go to show that Koreans are proud to be Korean, and will always welcome Koreans, even if they are the enemy for the moment... Or adoptees.
This was all nice to see... But, I think one of the most meaningful parts of the trip was next...
It must be really cool to be up and close to those military equipment and stuff... And was that guy really holding a old-school rifle? Haha... You should read and learn about the Korean War.. Very sad...
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