It wasn’t that long ago since my last post, but I’m feeling a sudden urge to improve my documenting skills (I just finished writing in my journal). I especially feel this way since I only tend to blog when I’m really peeved and people seem think that I’m not enjoying my time in Korea (not true, I’ve enjoyed all my time in Korea, ESPECIALLY the hours between 5pm and 9am). So I’ve just prepared a hot chocolate (or “ho cho” as Sam would say) and here we go. Last week I didn’t have anything scheduled except to try to enjoy Mokpo a little more, and that I did. My favourite thing to do is to take my camera and go on walks and one beautiful day last week, I wandered down to the waterfront and over to an area called “Gatbawi”. Now, a few months ago, we did an English broadcast in my school that went a little something like this, “A: Do you know Gatbawi? B: Yes, Gatbawi is two rocks that look like wheeping men. A: Oh, I see.” But further investigation tells me that “Gatbawi” actually refers to a place in Mokpo (where the rocks are, yes, but also the area surrounding it). Wait a minute…I’m gonna Wiki that……Ok, yes, it refers to the rocks and the areas around it. Now that that’s clarified, I’ll tell you about my day. I headed out in the afternoon and stopped and got a snack at the 7/11 then headed down towards the water. I consulted the map before I left to get some bearings, but I had no particular plan for the day. 25 minutes walking in one direction brought me to the waterfront. Once I was there I was surrounded by rental bikes, scooters and weird looking skateboard type things (I thought this place was Peace Park, but I found out that I was also mistaken about that). I snapped some pics then headed in another direction. I’m always surprised by the size of Mokpo, because what looks really far on the map is actually quite close, so I came up to Gatbawi maybe another 10 minutes later. I took a bunch of pics, so check those out rather than listen to me try to explain. There is a little boardwalk surrounding the rocks and I wandered around taking lots of photos and admiring the view (also slipping quite embarrassingly on the boardwalk ramps because my birks have no grip…twice!). When I reached the other end, I explored under the boardwalk where there are lots of rocks and sat down, ate my snack and read a little bit. It was really blissful but after about 20 minutes, Koreans started noticing me and got really shameless about scoping me out. I quickly escaped. From the end of the boardwalk, you can see, what I like to call “Museum Mile” or “Trista’s Dream Come True” and went down there. I had heard good things about the Natural History Museum so I wanted to check that one out. It cost 3, 000 won to get into 3 museums (that’s about $2.50). Yippee! Anyway, the museum was….well….I mean, I’m no expert (although I hope to be one day) but I have been A LOT of museums and this was….uh….interesting. There weren’t any labels in English (fair enough) but the displays didn’t make any sense in terms of chronology or species or anything…I dunno… But the coolest bit was the dinosaur bones. They had complete skeletons of about 4 dinos in one room with dark lighting and the benches looked (to me, anyway) like giant bone ribcages. Quite cool and quite a contrast to the bizarre, taxidermied animals ( I say ‘bizarre’ because they were just so bad) that were in other rooms. Now, I’ve never seen a tiger up close before but I’m pretty sure their eyes aren’t in that location). If I ever go back, I’ll take some photos to show you what I mean. I also thought the “local Mokpo wildlife” taxidermy display was a little misleading. I’ve been here for 6 months and the only “wildlife” I’ve seen has been bugs in my apartment and mangy cats in dumpsters. All in all it was a great day and I recommend that you check out my pictures of Gatbawi rocks and the area. Oh, another worthy story to tell you from the day is that when I wandered into the museum cafeteria, EVERY SINGLE PERSON turned and stared. I wasn’t in a bad mood or anything, but I stopped dead in my tracks and stared back. When no one got the hint, I raised my arms up in the air as if to say “What the Hell!?” They still didn’t get it so I just left. WHATEVER!
Tomorrow I plant to leave to go to Busan for a few nights. I wanted to take time this month to travel around South Korea since I don’t get many more holidays before the end of my contract. I booked a cute little hostel and am really looking forward to a solo trip. My experience in Rome in April 2007 was really awesome and I loved the hostel experience! I was staying in a co-ed dormitory and met some cool English guys who I had some nice chats with and bonded with the hostel worker (a young Italian woman) over boys. I also fondly recall making my own supper in the kitchen then watching Grease with her and singing along to all the songs. (For those of you who don’t know, I went to Rome for 4 days by myself after the school year ended when I was studying in the UK). The reviews for the hostel were very good and I hope to have an equally awesome experience in Busan. That being said, I will sign off now and post a new message next week when I return from my trip!
TL
PS- I have officially finished my university application for the United Kingdom (Strathclyde, Glasgow, Exeter and Canterbury). The program I applied to is called PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education) and will qualify me to be an elementary school teacher in the United Kingdom and Ontario (it is also recognized in many other places in the world). Fingers crossed!
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