We left Osan on Monday morning from the Osan bus terminal, headed to Daejeon where we could get an express bus straight down to Geoje Island. Originally we had planne
d to go to Busan first but both that and our leaving date changed last minute. The bus to Daejeon took about an hour, buses here are really great, super comfortable and if you get a regional bus then they don’t stop – they go straight to your destination. We got to Daejeon and raced over to the ticketing office to get a ticket for the direct bus to Geoje…only to discover we had missed it by like 5 minutes. Fortunately there was another bus, which only had one stop, leaving about 20 minutes later. The next bus was a couple of hours but the countryside is beautiful and I was lucky enough to have great company and great music! By the time we got to Geoje I was completely lost, the area looked completely different…and compared to the other parts of Korea I have seen it was super quiet! There were still people everywhere but not nearly as many!
First thing we did was to jump in a taxi and head for homeplus to pick up a few things – we weren’t sure of what would be at the accommodation so we thought it was wise to have a few basics. Then we got another taxi to take us to the accommodation… which was spectacular! It was called “Santa Monica” and it was beautiful. The room we had on the first night even had little fairy lights in the painted tree that was set up in the kitchen – the attention to detail was amazing. First thing we did was to head down to the beach at the bottom of the hill… it’s freezing here in Korea at the moment…much warmer in Geoje but still only 9 degrees. So the visit to the beach was more so that we could see “a” beach rather than that we planned to do anything down there (like sunbathing…lol). It was stunning… Looking out from the beach over the South Sea and seeing
the reflections of the other Islands on almost perfectly still water. It was so unbelievably peaceful down there and it made me realize that since I have been in Korea I have never had a moment of complete silence. There have been times when it’s quiet in my apartment because I live on a quiet street, but there is always noise coming from somewhere, which I guess is to be expected in a country this small with such a large population. I sat on a rock for a little while and just listened to the silence thinking about how much has changed in the last 12 months… Melbourne to Perth, Perth to Korea, finishing my teaching qualification… life has changed a bit!
The next da
y the son of the owners of Santa Monica drove us down to the local town to catch the bus, it was a little like stepping back in time. Right in the heart of town was the most beautiful temple, it was constructed in 1470 during a time of “Japanese aggression”, it was set on fire by the Japanese sometime between 1592 and 1598 but parts of it survived and it was rebuilt. Just incredible to me that we could go into a local town, there is no-body there caring for the building, you can just wander round and touch anything you want and yet it has such a massive history. We waited for about 45 minutes for a bus, in the freezing cold, looking at the little street market that was set up around the bus stop and talking about possible historical reasons while all the Korean women older than 50 seem to be so bent over, like they are permanently reaching down to the ground to pick something up. We decided it was likely a result of the
farming and hard work they did as the country was developing, and dealing with times of famine and war, which is really no more than a relatively educated guess! A lot of the older Korean’s in the town also seemed to be wearing more traditional clothing which was kind of neat, definitely added to the surreal feeling of stepping back in time, not sure how warm those puffy pants would be though.
When we eventually caught a bus we headed into the heart of Geoje-si (“si” is pronounced “she” and means city) where we ate a remarkably Korean lunch of McDonalds’… Don’t judge ok…sometimes it’s nice to have western food! The McDonalds was ridiculously busy and there were so many foreigners… apparently the ship building industry in that area is flourishing and the foreigners come to work for the big ship building companies. Anyway I spotted some empty seats and politely said hello in Korean and then spoke English and kind of gestured “is it alright if we sit here?” it is absolutely amazing what you can get across with gestures…but to my surprise the woman responded, “of course”, in the most beautiful English and then spent a good ten minutes encouraging her 2 children to talk to us… I guess it was a free English lesson! It seemed to happen a lot whil
e we were down there…I nearly forgot to mention the girls on the bus. Another common occurrence here is for young girls, boys too but mostly girls, about middle school age to say hello and try and practice all the English words they know…though as my remarkably astute companion suggested the girls who do this are generally the naughty ones who are too busy talking in class to learn English so they don’t know very much!
Next stop was the Geoje Prisoner of War camp, most of the island was used at that when the war began between the North and the South, and the museum was fantastic. While we were wandering through a couple of tour groups of older Koreans were
wandering through as well and we were a little surprised that they seemed to be having a party and not taking the viewing of this stuff more seriously. We thought that given it was their history and that older Koreans tend to be pretty serious people unless they are drinking that they would have been a little more solemn…who knows…maybe they had soju on the bus! The museum itself was cool though, it was spread out over quite a big space and a lot of it was outdoors so we were happy it was a sunny day, and not as cold as it had been at home. They had a lot of the
original stuff set up like the tents that the prisoners had lived in, one of the hospital tents that looked like it could have been from the set of MASH…lol. Most of the displays and signs were written in both Korean and English which was handy, though there were a few things they hadn’t translated, some of the multimedia based stuff for example. One of the really cool things about Korea is that every business and museum etc, knows how much Korean’s like to take pictures so they have photo areas set up, and fun things you can take photo’s with…like the giant gun…lol.
That night we took all the stuff we would need to try out cooking galbi for ourselves (Korean BBQ) including the onion though we had no idea how to make the sauce that they put the onion in so we were kind of winging it. Karel also braved the freezing cold to cook the meat for which I was certainly grateful! It was quite successful actually and we were rather satisfied with the results! The meal went down nicely with a couple of bottles of good Australian, and South African wine, which are remarkably easy to get here.
The next morning we, sadly, left Santa Monica and caught a bus to Okpo where we were planning to get the ferry across to Busan. We had a bit of a look around Okpo and ha
d an unbelievably good traditional (almost) English breakfast, with bacon and eggs and baked beans etc…sooooo good. Would have killed for a few mushrooms on the side but the meal was still amazing. We raced back to the ferry terminal after breakfast and were just in time to jump on board – there were only about 5 people on the ferry – and I suspect some of them were working on the boat, if not all of them! The ferry took about an hour to get from G
eoje to Busan and the view was stunning… that being said I did take a 15-20 minute powernap, since being in Korea it’s like my body has just decided that it’s sleep time any time I am on transport of any kind. We got off the boat and walked through the terminal which was almost as deserted as the boat had been – it was mid-week so I guess the majority of the Korean’s who may usually do the tourist thing were probably at work. We jumped on a train and headed out to Gwangali Beach which is where we were planning on looking for accommodation since we didn’t have any organized. We wandered down to the beach and found a coffee shop where we could relax for a bit while we planned our next move. We ended up taking a room in the hotel right next to the coffee shop which was super convenient because the coffee there was delicious and it meant we didn’t have to walk to far for it the next morning! (The picture is of the view from our hotel window.)
We dropped our stuff in the room and settled in a bit and then went in search of dinner. We had Budae Jjigae…yum…though not nearly as good as the Budae Jjigae place in
Byeongjeom! After dinner we went for a walk alongside the beach (again freezing cold which is why we weren’t walking on the beach!) and looked at all the art work displayed there. One of the things there was a projector that projected quotes (in English!) on the beach itself in giant letters, then there was the laser light fountain thing, that sprayed water out over the sea and lit the droplets. We wandered down to the end of the strip of beach we were staying on and found, completely by accident, a little amusement park with rides. Why not righ
t? So we bought a ticket for this ride that looked like it just spun around and around because there were no safety bars. Turned out to be the Korean Amusement Park Ride of Death… there was a guy controlling it and talking to everyone on it – and of course as foreigners we were an easy target…it jumped and bounced up and down and spun around and you had to hang on for dear life or end up thrown on top of someone else and risk serious injury. It was crazy and fun, for the most part, but my arms were screaming for days afterwards! After that we wandered back towards the hotel and decided to stop in for a song or two in the No Rae Bang close by (private karaoke rooms)…which was even more fun and a whole lot les painful!
The next day we were up and about early with plans to go and visit all the tourist attractions in Busan that w
e could fit into one day! We started with Busan museum which was interesting enough, normally I am a bit of a freak for museums, so on my rating scale this museum left a little bit to be desired, the building was stunning though. The highlight of the museum visit was watching this little 8 year old kid absolutely fascinated by what one of the museum guides was saying about this par
ticular historical map, the kid was enthralled and asking questions, it was all in Korean but it was still amazing! A little bit later we were in the same part of the museum as them again – 2 mum’s and their sons – and they started talking to us…encouraged by their parents. The boy who had been asking the questions of the museum lady had the most beautiful English including eloquent use of past and present tense which is really impressive from an 8 year old when you consider that the majority of 15 and 16 year olds I teach haven’t mastered that yet! I told him his English was beautiful and loo
ked up at his mum who blushed and started stammering thank you’s, its one of the biggest compliments you can pay someone here, and its regarded as a skill that is gold… most jobs wont promote past a certain point unless the staff member has a certain amount of English. So when you tell someone their child’s English is excellent you are basically saying they are going to get a good job and be able to support you when you are ancient…lol.
After the museum we headed up to Taejongdae which is right on the coast and has some of the most spectacular views… we spent a few minutes debating whether or not we were going to wait in the massive queue to catch the little bus thing that took you up the mountain and then decided we couldn’t be bothered waiting and just hoped it wasn’t going to be a massive walk. It was a fairly massive walk and most of it was up hill, at one point I did consider grabbing onto the back of the little bus thing, or commandeering the Korean army jeep drove past. It was worth it for the view though… truly gorgeous. The colour of the water made it look so inviting, even though I am certain it was freezing, and the sun on the water made me feel a little bit like I was at home.
After our mammoth walk we headed back towards the city, had a bite to eat and then went for a w
ander around Jagalchi Fish Market, which was amazing. For a start the size of the seafood was unbelievable…the biggest scallops I have ever seen, and the majority of the things there were alive and swimming around, just waiting to be selected. Once you have chosen something you could either take it away raw or you could have it sent upstairs to be cooked for you. It was really amazing! There was one guy who worked there who was so lovely, I asked if I could take a picture of his stand and he reached down and pulled out a baby shark for me to take a picture of and then a big flat looking fish that he held in front of Karel. He was super friendly and he didn’t mind that we were only “eye-shopping” (which is Konglish for wi
ndow shopping or only looking). Some of the people working in those kind of stalls in Seoul would get grumpy with you if they did their best sell in English and you said you were only looking… but Busan is a little different…super friendly. After the market we wandered around in the main shopping district for a while – the lights up were so beautiful.
We went back to the hotel after quickly stopping in at Starbucks and then headed for home the next day. It really was the most amazing trip – a massive adventure – with some fantastic company and so many incredible things to do. My first holiday / adventure in Korea…. I hope its like this every time!
We left Osan on Monday morning from the Osan bus terminal, headed to Daejeon where we could get an express bus straight down to Geoje Island. Originally we had planne
d to go to Busan first but both that and our leaving date changed last minute. The bus to Daejeon took about an hour, buses here are really great, super comfortable and if you get a regional bus then they don’t stop – they go straight to your destination. We got to Daejeon and raced over to the ticketing office to get a ticket for the direct bus to Geoje…only to discover we had missed it by like 5 minutes. Fortunately there was another bus, which only had one stop, leaving about 20 minutes later. The next bus was a couple of hours but the countryside is beautiful and I was lucky enough to have great company and great music! By the time we got to Geoje I was completely lost, the area looked completely different…and compared to the other parts of Korea I have seen it was super quiet! There were still people everywhere but not nearly as many!
First thing we did was to jump in a taxi and head for homeplus to pick up a few things – we weren’t sure of what would be at the accommodation so we thought it was wise to have a few basics. Then we got another taxi to take us to the accommodation… which was spectacular! It was called “Santa Monica” and it was beautiful. The room we had on the first night even had little fairy lights in the painted tree that was set up in the kitchen – the attention to detail was amazing. First thing we did was to head down to the beach at the bottom of the hill… it’s freezing here in Korea at the moment…much warmer in Geoje but still only 9 degrees. So the visit to the beach was more so that we could see “a” beach rather than that we planned to do anything down there (like sunbathing…lol). It was stunning… Looking out from the beach over the South Sea and seeing 
the reflections of the other Islands on almost perfectly still water. It was so unbelievably peaceful down there and it made me realize that since I have been in Korea I have never had a moment of complete silence. There have been times when it’s quiet in my apartment because I live on a quiet street, but there is always noise coming from somewhere, which I guess is to be expected in a country this small with such a large population. I sat on a rock for a little while and just listened to the silence thinking about how much has changed in the last 12 months… Melbourne to Perth, Perth to Korea, finishing my teaching qualification… life has changed a bit!
The next da
y the son of the owners of Santa Monica drove us down to the local town to catch the bus, it was a little like stepping back in time. Right in the heart of town was the most beautiful temple, it was constructed in 1470 during a time of “Japanese aggression”, it was set on fire by the Japanese sometime between 1592 and 1598 but parts of it survived and it was rebuilt. Just incredible to me that we could go into a local town, there is no-body there caring for the building, you can just wander round and touch anything you want and yet it has such a massive history. We waited for about 45 minutes for a bus, in the freezing cold, looking at the little street market that was set up around the bus stop and talking about possible historical reasons while all the Korean women older than 50 seem to be so bent over, like they are permanently reaching down to the ground to pick something up. We decided it was likely a result of the
farming and hard work they did as the country was developing, and dealing with times of famine and war, which is really no more than a relatively educated guess! A lot of the older Korean’s in the town also seemed to be wearing more traditional clothing which was kind of neat, definitely added to the surreal feeling of stepping back in time, not sure how warm those puffy pants would be though.
When we eventually caught a bus we headed into the heart of Geoje-si (“si” is pronounced “she” and means city) where we ate a remarkably Korean lunch of McDonalds’… Don’t judge ok…sometimes it’s nice to have western food! The McDonalds was ridiculously busy and there were so many foreigners… apparently the ship building industry in that area is flourishing and the foreigners come to work for the big ship building companies. Anyway I spotted some empty seats and politely said hello in Korean and then spoke English and kind of gestured “is it alright if we sit here?” it is absolutely amazing what you can get across with gestures…but to my surprise the woman responded, “of course”, in the most beautiful English and then spent a good ten minutes encouraging her 2 children to talk to us… I guess it was a free English lesson! It seemed to happen a lot whil
e we were down there…I nearly forgot to mention the girls on the bus. Another common occurrence here is for young girls, boys too but mostly girls, about middle school age to say hello and try and practice all the English words they know…though as my remarkably astute companion suggested the girls who do this are generally the naughty ones who are too busy talking in class to learn English so they don’t know very much!
Next stop was the Geoje Prisoner of War camp, most of the island was used at that when the war began between the North and the South, and the museum was fantastic. While we were wandering through a couple of tour groups of older Koreans were 
wandering through as well and we were a little surprised that they seemed to be having a party and not taking the viewing of this stuff more seriously. We thought that given it was their history and that older Koreans tend to be pretty serious people unless they are drinking that they would have been a little more solemn…who knows…maybe they had soju on the bus! The museum itself was cool though, it was spread out over quite a big space and a lot of it was outdoors so we were happy it was a sunny day, and not as cold as it had been at home. They had a lot of the 
original stuff set up like the tents that the prisoners had lived in, one of the hospital tents that looked like it could have been from the set of MASH…lol. Most of the displays and signs were written in both Korean and English which was handy, though there were a few things they hadn’t translated, some of the multimedia based stuff for example. One of the really cool things about Korea is that every business and museum etc, knows how much Korean’s like to take pictures so they have photo areas set up, and fun things you can take photo’s with…like the giant gun…lol.
That night we took all the stuff we would need to try out cooking galbi for ourselves (Korean BBQ) including the onion though we had no idea how to make the sauce that they put the onion in so we were kind of winging it. Karel also braved the freezing cold to cook the meat for which I was certainly grateful! It was quite successful actually and we were rather satisfied with the results! The meal went down nicely with a couple of bottles of good Australian, and South African wine, which are remarkably easy to get here.
The next morning we, sadly, left Santa Monica and caught a bus to Okpo where we were planning to get the ferry across to Busan. We had a bit of a look around Okpo and ha
d an unbelievably good traditional (almost) English breakfast, with bacon and eggs and baked beans etc…sooooo good. Would have killed for a few mushrooms on the side but the meal was still amazing. We raced back to the ferry terminal after breakfast and were just in time to jump on board – there were only about 5 people on the ferry – and I suspect some of them were working on the boat, if not all of them! The ferry took about an hour to get from G
eoje to Busan and the view was stunning… that being said I did take a 15-20 minute powernap, since being in Korea it’s like my body has just decided that it’s sleep time any time I am on transport of any kind. We got off the boat and walked through the terminal which was almost as deserted as the boat had been – it was mid-week so I guess the majority of the Korean’s who may usually do the tourist thing were probably at work. We jumped on a train and headed out to Gwangali Beach which is where we were planning on looking for accommodation since we didn’t have any organized. We wandered down to the beach and found a coffee shop where we could relax for a bit while we planned our next move. We ended up taking a room in the hotel right next to the coffee shop which was super convenient because the coffee there was delicious and it meant we didn’t have to walk to far for it the next morning! (The picture is of the view from our hotel window.)
We dropped our stuff in the room and settled in a bit and then went in search of dinner. We had Budae Jjigae…yum…though not nearly as good as the Budae Jjigae place in
Byeongjeom! After dinner we went for a walk alongside the beach (again freezing cold which is why we weren’t walking on the beach!) and looked at all the art work displayed there. One of the things there was a projector that projected quotes (in English!) on the beach itself in giant letters, then there was the laser light fountain thing, that sprayed water out over the sea and lit the droplets. We wandered down to the end of the strip of beach we were staying on and found, completely by accident, a little amusement park with rides. Why not righ
t? So we bought a ticket for this ride that looked like it just spun around and around because there were no safety bars. Turned out to be the Korean Amusement Park Ride of Death… there was a guy controlling it and talking to everyone on it – and of course as foreigners we were an easy target…it jumped and bounced up and down and spun around and you had to hang on for dear life or end up thrown on top of someone else and risk serious injury. It was crazy and fun, for the most part, but my arms were screaming for days afterwards! After that we wandered back towards the hotel and decided to stop in for a song or two in the No Rae Bang close by (private karaoke rooms)…which was even more fun and a whole lot les painful!
The next day we were up and about early with plans to go and visit all the tourist attractions in Busan that w
e could fit into one day! We started with Busan museum which was interesting enough, normally I am a bit of a freak for museums, so on my rating scale this museum left a little bit to be desired, the building was stunning though. The highlight of the museum visit was watching this little 8 year old kid absolutely fascinated by what one of the museum guides was saying about this par
ticular historical map, the kid was enthralled and asking questions, it was all in Korean but it was still amazing! A little bit later we were in the same part of the museum as them again – 2 mum’s and their sons – and they started talking to us…encouraged by their parents. The boy who had been asking the questions of the museum lady had the most beautiful English including eloquent use of past and present tense which is really impressive from an 8 year old when you consider that the majority of 15 and 16 year olds I teach haven’t mastered that yet! I told him his English was beautiful and loo
ked up at his mum who blushed and started stammering thank you’s, its one of the biggest compliments you can pay someone here, and its regarded as a skill that is gold… most jobs wont promote past a certain point unless the staff member has a certain amount of English. So when you tell someone their child’s English is excellent you are basically saying they are going to get a good job and be able to support you when you are ancient…lol.
After the museum we headed up to Taejongdae which is right on the coast and has some of the most spectacular views… we spent a few minutes debating whether or not we were going to wait in the massive queue to catch the little bus thing that took you up the mountain and then decided we couldn’t be bothered waiting and just hoped it wasn’t going to be a massive walk. It was a fairly massive walk and most of it was up hill, at one point I did consider grabbing onto the back of the little bus thing, or commandeering the Korean army jeep drove past. It was worth it for the view though… truly gorgeous. The colour of the water made it look so inviting, even though I am certain it was freezing, and the sun on the water made me feel a little bit like I was at home.
After our mammoth walk we headed back towards the city, had a bite to eat and then went for a w
ander around Jagalchi Fish Market, which was amazing. For a start the size of the seafood was unbelievable…the biggest scallops I have ever seen, and the majority of the things there were alive and swimming around, just waiting to be selected. Once you have chosen something you could either take it away raw or you could have it sent upstairs to be cooked for you. It was really amazing! There was one guy who worked there who was so lovely, I asked if I could take a picture of his stand and he reached down and pulled out a baby shark for me to take a picture of and then a big flat looking fish that he held in front of Karel. He was super friendly and he didn’t mind that we were only “eye-shopping” (which is Konglish for wi
ndow shopping or only looking). Some of the people working in those kind of stalls in Seoul would get grumpy with you if they did their best sell in English and you said you were only looking… but Busan is a little different…super friendly. After the market we wandered around in the main shopping district for a while – the lights up were so beautiful.
We went back to the hotel after quickly stopping in at Starbucks and then headed for home the next day. It really was the most amazing trip – a massive adventure – with some fantastic company and so many incredible things to do. My first holiday / adventure in Korea…. I hope its like this every time! 
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