Trip to Gwangju

September 3, 2005

Was woken up at 6:30 a.m. by someone who decided they wanted to play their music loudly. I was not amused!! Then at 7:00 a.m. the superintendent of the building (or whoever) came over the loudspeaker with a lengthy blaw, blaw, blaw as he does many mornings. I have no idea what he is saying so the building could be burning or being fumigated or terrorists could be attacking and I wouldn't have a clue because it's ALL IN KOREAN!! Fantastic!! Could they not do this at a reasonable time on a Saturday? I guess they figure if we Koreans have to work on Saturday, then everybody should be up and at 'em! Give me a break.

Alright then, now that I got that out of my system.........where was I? Oh, yes, my trip to Gwangju.

We got on the bus about Noon and it is an hour or so from Yeonggwang to Gwangju. Sheilagh needed to get an international calling card which we had to get at the bus station there. After that we had a very important stop - to get ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Yes, even in Korea they have such stores - Starbucks too! Not that I care about coffee but ice cream is always good!

We then went into a beautiful department store called Shin sae ghae (spelling??) and looked around for a bit and then took a taxi "downtown". Thank goodness Sheilagh knows where she is going. We walked around all these little streets and stores. Bought something for Timmy's birthday and had lunch at a Japanese restaurant. It was very good! Then we sat in a coffee shop for a while and chatted and then took a taxi to Emart (kind of like WalMart). We bought some groceries and a few other odds and sods. Then another taxi to where we picked up the bus (in front of a little store) to go back home to Yeonggwang. Taxis are really cheap here. So are buses.

We had several children (and a couple of adults) say "hello" to us because we are foreigners. As per usual, when you say "hello" back, they giggle and run away. The kids are so cute especially the little ones.

It was a little cooler today but still overcast (pretty much every day has been overcast since I got here).

When we got back to Yeonggwang, the town was having a festival so there were roads closed and people were all over the place. Lots of activity going on. Sheilagh and I had groceries so we each took a cab and went our separate ways. We live about 12 minutes (walking) apart. We decided that we might go for a hike up the mountain tomorrow. There are mountains all around in Korea. It is really quite beautiful!! The autumn should be gorgeous!

That's it for today.