Geojedo P.O.W. Memorial, Goeje Island, Oedo Island

Hoorah for free travel! This past weekend, TaLK funded the first cultural excursion trip for our province, which turned out to be a visit to the coast. On Saturday, we were all supposed to meet at Daegok subway station at 8 a.m. to load on to a charter bus for a 3 hour ride to some obscure coastal town. However, we were stuck waiting there for 45 minutes all because 1 girl came in late after drinking. The trip was mandatory so we couldn't leave anyone behind and since it was a Saturday morning, it looked more like a bus full of drunks than tourists because Friday night is when all the bars and clubs offer no-cover entrance.

Once we finally had all 34 people, we left. They served Subway BLT sandwiches for breakfast, which was the start to a terrible day of nausea for many people. Halfway to our first stop, a few people started to get very ill on the bus, which you can imagine made the trip unpleasant for the rest of us. Our first stop was a memorial to Korean P.O.W.s and was a strange combination of theme park and museum. There were emaciated, filthy plastic life-sized P.O.W.s that you could take a photo with. There were life-sized bombs, tanks, planes and even a fully functional P.O.W. camp replete with barbed wire, barking dogs and a fairly impressive attempt at reconstructing the squalor of prisoner life. A little depressed, we left after 45 minutes of halfheartedly exploring.

Inside the tank, you rode an escalator up and a Korean woman's voice rattled off the names of people involved in the Korean War.
This is how graphic this "memorial" was...
Holy crap- Canada actually fought?
Luxembourg, what the Hell gives?

Another fine example of Konglish.
SJ! And down low is Shaina's co-teacher Sol.

The mood picked up when we stopped for a sashimi lunch at a restaurant situated right on the water. The fish was excellent, especially slathered in the red chili sauce that is a Korean staple at every meal. I intend on buying several tubs of this sauce and bringing it home so if you'd like to try some serious spicy goodness, let me know to bring you some. About an hour later, we all piled into a small, enclosed boat that would take us to see a string of islands a half-hour's ride into the water. People were fine for the trip out to the islands, but once the boats puttered up to the rocky cliffs for everyone to get some pictures, they cut the engines. The waves were rocking the boat so intensely that water was lapping in through the windows. That's when the Exorcist, projectile-vomiting began. Dodging puke streams, I scampered out of the enclosed portion of the boat to the railing along the sides to get some fresh air and better photos. Something bobbed up to the surface in the water right below me, and when I looked I realized it was a gargantuan, beach ball-sized jellyfish! In fact, these jellyfish seemed to be everywhere, bumping into the cliffs, the boat, each other...wait a minute.... I was in the middle of a jellyfish orgy! A tour guide later explained that we happened to be at Goeje Island the one time of the year that these particular jellyfish like to mate, so it was quite the spectacle.
Right after lunch, we all went to hand our legs off the end of the dock. Those buildings are about the extent of the town (I think we ate at the only restaurant around.)
Our view from the dock.
Isn't this impressive? I got serious air!
All of the Daegu crew, pictured in front of our trusty vessel.
This is how windy it was- it gave me Medusa bangs.
Taking off.
Maybe it's the Placebo Effect, but I believe I avoided getting ill because I took anti-nausea medicine. In Korea, they give you this little glass bottle of mystery ingredients that you are supposed to down in one gulp. It tastes identical to very flat Coke and doesn't leave you groggy like Drammamine- genius.
Goeje Island
If I had taken this photo a fraction of a second later, you would see this girl violently throwing up. I came out to the railing just to escape the din of screaming babies and retching noises and actually ended up with the best photos because I was literally dangling over the water to get the best shot.We were up next to go inside this hidden crevice in the cliffs.

The first jellyfish!
I waived at these fisherman just to see if boating etiquette was the same everywhere in the world. Turns it, it is :)
These things are tricky to get a decent shot of.

Oedo Island was similar to the first island we visited, but with one key difference: it was some one's property. Yes, some bajillionaire apparently owns the island and charges admission for people to come and walk through the gardens. It was beautiful with the entire ocean spanning across the horizon dotted by fisherman's boats and a few barges that were just specks. There were lush gardens covering every inch of the island and all the hedges were trimmed in strange, spherical shapes. That's what started the perversion. Several gardeners were out trimming the hedges and the "trimming the bush" jokes began to fly. I don't even really have to comment much, you can see from the pictures that we were in hysterics over bush jokes by the end of the trip.


Eunice was molesting the statuary.
I won!

These ships were very far away; I had to use my zoom lens to get this close.
To add to my earlier post called "Weird Korea", here is something strange: couples wear matching outfits. This is not even a good example of how terrible the outfits usually are! I have seen Disney pairings (a guy was Mickey Mouse and the girl was Minnie, both with matching ears, clothes and face paint) animal duos, attempts to look like celebrities...everything.
Can you tell which portions of the statue are touched the most? ;)

Indeed, I wrestled a bear on Oedo.

The closer it got to nightfall, the colder it became. We were all shivering and ready to leave by the time we made it back to shore, and it was a quiet ride back to Daegu. TaLK will be taking us out on another excursion in October. For now though, I am looking forward to this coming weekend because it is the Korean holiday Chuseok (their version of Thanksgiving). I am in the midst of planning a weekend of scandalous good times, so I am sorry this post is not longer. Juggling lesson plans, traveling and blogging can be tedious, but I promise to always keep everyone updated.