Cultural Field Trip

"Bloom where you are planted." -- Mary Engelbreit

As I mentioned, this past week I was able to join about 170ish other EPIK teachers for a cultural field trip the province below us. We all live in Gyeongsangbuk-do, in which "buk" means northern, and we went to Gyeongsangnam-do, in which "nam" means southern. The technical name of the trip was "Tongyeong Culture Trip" but we realized afterwards that we really only slept in Tongyeong, lol.


Thursday morning brought me awake bright and early at 5:45am. I had to catch the only available train that would get me to Daegu on time, which was 6:38am. Turns out all my fellow Gumi people were on the same train. We all grabbed a cup of coffee from the train station & headed to our meeting spot to load the buses and start our adventure.


After finally getting on the correct bus (I forgot to write down the color of bus I was assigned to, lol) I settled in to what would unknowingly be my "home" for two days. A better name for this trip may have been "Social Bus Ride across Gyeongsangnam" seeing as we spent the majority of the time in travel to our destinations. But, since we were given two days off of work for this, we couldn't complain TOO much! :) Plus our driver let us watch around 5 movies on the TV in the bus throughout the trip. So between napping and watching movies, the bus ride was bearable.


Our first stop of the first day was to Geoje to see how they constructed a bridge to connect Geoje to Busan. In the past you had to drive or take a bus for 2 hours to get to Busan. Before the bridge was built the people tried using stepping stones that they placed in the water & then walked across. Seeing as this was a long labor-some process & they couldn't carry their crops that they were trying to sell in Busan, they needed something better. Eventually they constructed the bridge that only takes 15 minutes driving in a car versus a 2 hour drive to get to Busan. This cut down on travel costs and increased their income because they could get to Busan quickly & sell more goods/crops. By the by, this is my summary of what happened, don't hold me to this story, lol. They showed us a video on why and how the bridge was made, but we were too distracted by the robot-style voice that was telling the story in English to actually pay attention. The video kept emphasizing that the bridge "brought loved ones together." Since it was super foggy that morning I was unable to take any picture of decent quality of the bridge. They also created an underwater tunnel road when they built the bridge. So here's what I got...a picture of a picture of the bridge & what is supposedly under the water around the tunnel. 

INSIDE THE MUSEUM 

After visiting the museum about the bridge we were able to ride on the bus through the underwater tunnel road, as well as across the bridge. Then we headed towards the next stop, which was lunch. I was actually excited because they told us that our lunch would offer both Korean & Western style food. Turns out it was basically a meat buffet that you can cook yourself at the table. Before we ate we were told that there would be a fine for any meat left on the table, so as to prevent wasting it. Well, our table didn't come up with a plan before getting in line for food, so we ended up with way too much food & forced ourselves to try to finish it to avoid a fine. Needless to say we were so full we did not want to move. But, we loaded up on the bus to be taken to our next destination. This stop was called "Windy Hill". It involved quite a walk to get there, and an uphill walk back. I guess that was our exercise for the day! The only thing on Windy Hill of interest was a wind mill, a family of goats, and a path down to the rocks near the water.

WINDMILL ACTION

WINDY HILL

After "windy hill" we loaded the bus and traveled for an hour or more to what they referred to as "pebble beach." Before getting off the bus to see the beach of pebbles, we were told not to take any rocks with us. Well, this of course made us want to do JUST THAT! Lol. I don't think anyone really took any, but it was an on-going joke. Most of the people just skipped rocks into the ocean until they told us to get back on the bus. 

A KOREAN COUPLE "RELAXING?" ON THE PEBBLES

 BOYS WILL BE BOYS...SKIPPING ROCKS

After pebble beach we drove another hour or so until we reached our destination, "Tongyeong Bay" hotel. The sleeping accommodations were more than satisfactory. Not only did we have a bed, we also had a tv, computer with internet, a bathtub, and a nice size balcony! 

 BALCONY MORNING VIEW

While this may seem standard to my American friends back home, in Korea this is luxury. You are normally provided with a room, no bed, just blankets, MAYBE a pillow, and a floor which may or not have heating that works. AND you share it with about 7 other people. We were told before the trip that we would have uncomfortable, cramped accommodations. But, surprise! We only had to share with one other person and it was rather nice! 

The rest of the evening consisted of us eating a buffet style dinner, but this time we didn't have to cook it ourselves. Plus, I think most of us were still full from lunch, lol. After dinner a big group of people bought some drinks from the Family Mart beside the hotel and headed to the dock to hang out most of the night. Some people took a taxi downtown to check out the bars, but most people just stayed there and went to sleep at a decent time. We were scheduled for a ferry ride the next morning, so I felt sorry for the people who chose to drink too much the night before, lol. 

Day 2

Breakfast was served at 7am and we loaded the buses to the ferry around 8:30am. Of course we were on the bus for quite sometime, so we started watching the movie "Taken". Now I can finally say I've seen the movie that people were telling me to watch before I traveled abroad. And to those people who thought that would happen to me, I'm not a dumb 17 year old, lol, but thanks for the warning! Was a good movie though!

The ferry ride to the island was about 45 minutes because they went slowly and let people hang out on the decks. They also told us the history of the islands we were passing by. I chose to be lazy and take pictures from my seat inside the ferry. Seeing the people get splashed by waves confirmed that I had made a good decision! 

MORE ISLANDS

 OUR CHARIOT :)

The island we were brought to is known as Oedo Botania. It is basically an island turned into a gigantic botanical garden. It was beautiful! We of course had to hike a bit to get to the top for the best view, but it was worth it! I fell in love with all the many different types of flowers I discovered. The first picture in this blog is one of my favorite flower pictures that I took. Here are the other pics I loved:

KINDA LIKE A "GREEK" GARDEN

 SO MUCH GREENERY & FLOWERS!

 LOVED THE MULTIPLE COLORS

 NATURE :)

 ONE OF THE MANY PATHS

 AT THE VERY TOP

The ferry ride back was much faster because we skipped the touristy stuff and they just drove straight back. A few people got "sea sick" but I think most people were okay with the ferry rides. I've always loved riding on boats, so it didn't phase me at all. Back on the bus we finished the movie we had started and headed back the the same restaurant we had eaten at the day before for lunch. We knew better than to get too much food this time! Lol. 

After lunch we started our trek back towards Daegu. We were supposed to stop at some "swamp" on the way back, but they said we didn't have time for it. Honestly I don't think many people cared, they just wanted off the bus!! I felt sorry for the people who had to travel further to their hometowns by more bus or train once we got back to Daegu. I chose to stay in Daegu and went out with a group of friends. Yes, my home is only 30 minutes from there, but as usual I never stay in Gumi....unless it's to be lazy & sleep. Which is exactly what I did Saturday to Sunday...slept!! My schedule was so thrown off by the trip during the work week, but I'm glad I woke up early Sunday. I got alot of stuff done before noon! The downfall was that I had trouble going to sleep last night, resulting in me not wanting to wake up this morning!

Alright, that's all for now! I'm proud of myself for updating so quickly for once! I'm hoping I can copy and paste most of this blog for my 2 page essay that I have to write in return for the two days off work!

XOXO,

Amanda