Where in Korea??? Ha! If you haven’t noticed, that was a take-off on Michelle Malkin’s blog “Where in the World” to tell readers where and when she will appear on radio and television.
My trip to
Yeosu was great! Julie had gone down to her home town to spend time with her parents and I went down to visit her for the weekend. It started out with an early bus ride that started at 6:00 a.m. at the Central City Express Bus Terminal and ended five hours later in downtown Yeosu. After a couple of hours on the road the bus stopped at a rest stop unlike any other rest stop found in California. This rest stop has restroom facilities that can service 40 men at once, in other words 20 urinals and 20 toilets, no idea what’s in the ladies restroom, probably 40 toilets. There was a small convenience store, several food vendors, a large family restaurant, and a large gasoline station. I napped most of the way to the rest stop but stayed awake after that.
The countryside of Korea is all green. There were large farms with little villages, clusters of houses grouped together, separated by small mountains. I also saw small “cities” with tall apartment buildings and small industrial areas separated by large areas of farm land and mountains. I didn’t pay attention to the road signs but was just in awe of the greenery of the landscape.
Let me just say that the bus companies in Korea, especially the deluxe buses do it right. First class seats, those seats that look and feel like the ones found in the first 6-10 rows of an airplane, are in these deluxe buses. So there’s lots of elbow room and leg room. Only three seats can fit in each row. No toilets on the bus like those nasty Greyhounds, so yes, no odor of that blue porta-john fluid in the bus at all. Plus air conditioner that work like the airplanes, and
SkyLife satellite TV!!!
Julie came and got me at the bus stop. She had omma’s car. We went directly to a quaint Italian restaurant downtown. We were one of two couples in the restaurant for lunch. The other was a couple of women hanging out for lunch after doing some morning shopping. I presumed they were heading out in the afternoon to do more shopping, spending their appa’s or oppa’s money.
Yeosu has a large population (325,000) but the land area was comparable to Hau’ula-Temple Valley-Kaneohe-Kailua-Enchanted Lakes-Kaneohe MCB-Waimanalo. Whoa, almost listed the whole Windward side! It is located on the south shore of the Korean peninsula and has its own airport for domestic flights. There are three industrial complexes and 2 ports.
After lunch we went to
Odongdo Island. Odongdo is a very small island with a 500 meter causeway linking it to the mainland. Yeosu City is declaring itself, specifically the Odongdo area, a candidate for the 2012 World Expo. There was this walkway going up to the top of the highest peak that had various smooth stones, small wood stumps, concrete ridges and larger smooth stones for people to walk on barefooted. The concept was to give walkers a therapeutic exercise while walking up or down the short trail to the peak. Odongdo Island had a tower that over-looks the entire bay area. Great views from all angles. It was air-conditioned to give us tourists a respite from the stifling heat and humidity.
The next thing on the agenda was a boat ride around the Yeosu harbor and surrounding islands. The boat could hold up to 60 people. There were tourists from nearby cities and some with that familiar accent from Pusan. I was the only Miguk Saram on the boat. The boat took us under the
Dolsan Bridge. It's a uniquely designed bridge linking Yeosu with one of the islands.
We also visited the Yeosu Fisheries Exhibition. It was a small aquarium with the typical display of all the species of fish and sea creatures found in the surrounding waters. Behind the YFE was a beach that had grey sand that reminded me of California beaches. There were many families out on the beach. The most peculiar thing I saw: The women, young and old, were all wearing bikinis, but they had shorts and very opaque tanks or t-shirts over the bikinis. Julie explained that it would be a rare sight for a woman to be out with just a bikini on the beach. Very modest women out on Yeosu beaches. The surf wasn’t really happening, but there were a few shore breaks that threw a lot of people around in their tubes and inflatables. If I had my Churchill fins I would have held a body surfing clinic.
Later that afternoon I checked into the Yeosu Beach Hotel, but wait, this hotel wasn’t anywhere near the beach. It was in the city far from the beach. It looked nice so I got a room, dropped off my stuff then went to downtown to walk around before dinner. Julie took me to a seafood restaurant, one of those sit on the floor types that had a gas grill in the center of the table. She ordered the seafood smorgasbord. The first course was lots of sashimi of all types. Then the main entrée was the soup, large clams, crab, shrimp, langostinos, sea sprites, and other stuff I couldn’t identify. Was broke-da-mout-ono!!! It took us while to eat all of the food. We gave away almost half of the food to her friends sitting at the table next to us. We were so full that the only thing left to do at 10:30 p.m. was to just kick back and watch the rest of the Saturday night TV drama.
The next day I woke up thinking that this hotel was classy and I was anticipating having breakfast in the restaurant that I saw in the directory. Ha! This hotel wasn’t operating at its full capabilities. I took the elevator down to the second floor where the restaurant was. The door opened to a darkened hall and the only light I could see was the sunlight coming through the windows of the restaurant and the business center. “What the…”
There was a young lady at the front desk so I asked where the restaurant was and she said, “No restaurant.” It was almost 9:00 a.m. and I was getting crazy hungry. I knew there was a Family Mart around the corner but I wanted to investigate a little further, so I walked toward the main boulevard. To my surprise the street was bustling with activity on this Sunday. Merchants were setting up their carts and store fronts with fresh fruit and vegetables. Grabbed a couple of nectarines from an ajuma, paid W1,000 for both. I stopped by a bakery and got a crème filled sweat bun and a carton of milk from the Family Mart. I was set.
Julie picked me up from the hotel, took me to purchase my bus ticket back to Seoul, and then took me to lunch. My bus wasn’t leaving for another couple of hours so we had some time to hang out. Lunch was at another sit on the floor restaurant. This time we had the marinated pork to grill on our table. Oh man, broke-da-mout again!
This by far was my best trip outside of Seoul metro. I owe Julie big time. I’ll take her out to a nice restaurant when she returns to Seoul…
