The week after Jeju

After Jeju and Busan, mom came back and stayed at my place until Friday evening (after work) when we left for Seoul. Seoul will be another post (or 2), but I can do the rest of the week in this one.

We got back here Tuesday afternoon. We ran a grabbed a sandwich or something from Paris baguette and then I left for school. Mom walked down by the river and met a croquet golfer. Then she did some work. Tuesday night mom went to the grocery store and got veggies and some other essentials. She made a stir fry (sort of) with peppers and greens and rice. I didn't have good enough oil for her though, but it ended up ok.

Lady playing golf croquet

Flowers near the bike path next to the river

On Wednesday we decided to find the lake near my house. We took a bus up the hill and ended up near the lake. We walked up a hill and some stairs trying to find a real entrance to the lake, or the zoo, or one of the other attractions near the lake. We found a pavilion that over looks the lake, but there are lots of trees around, so you really can't see the lake well through a camera. Then we walked up a steep hill to the zoo. The zoo is pretty small and had lots of kids that day. It's kind of sad because the cages are small, but you can get close to the animals. We saw lots of birds and random animals. We also saw a tiny baby monkey being breastfeed by its mom, which then indirectly peed on me. Here's the video of that.

Brown bear

Domestic Ass. He followed us around for a bit.

School kids at lunch.

Uyak-jeong pavilion above Jinyang lake

Jinyang Lake from above

Mom and some azealas on the road to the zoo

After the zoo, we went home and had a quick sandwich and then I went to work and mom got annoyed because people in the US were sleeping and not responding to her emails. She made a salad (leftovers from the night before) and picked up a veggie pizza from Pizza Bingo. I gave her my card before I left for work so I could get another punch (9 away from a free one!). We were supposed to go out that night and meet up with some friends of mine for "Cinqo de drinko" (or cinqo de mayo except it was on the 4th), but I was really tired and we were planning on getting up early the next day. Mom thought I was embarrassed of her, but I wasn't - I was really tired.

On Thursday it was Childrens' day, so I didn't have school. We went to Geoje island. Liezle's friend Vera lives there, so that's how we decided to go. It's an island 2 hours south of Jinju, but is now connected by a bridge. There are ferry boats that will take you around to various small rock islands, but we didn't do that. Instead, we went to the POW camp. It was a very beautiful park with lots of monuments and a surprisingly good amount of English translations.

Chinese dragons used for prayer by Chinese POWs

The date of the first invasion by North Korea into South Korea. Some people here call it the 6-25 war.

The park had flowers all around it. And tanks.

Memorial to nations who provided support during the war

The main compound at the camp

Sign posts to various US cities located in the camp

A diarama of daily camp life. There were about 15 different models and pictures of people pooping.

We stayed at the park for about 2 hours then walked around for another 45 minutes because we were trying to find a place that would have food mom liked. We ended up at a KFC where she got 2 pieces of chicken. I got a sandwich that was a chicken breast, with cheese and a hasbrown and shredded cabbage and honey mustard. It was pretty good. We left at that point and walked back to the bus station because I wanted to make sure we didn't miss the last bus because I needed to work on Friday. We got some of the last seats on that bus (although I think there was 1 more after ours), but the ride home was only an hour long. We decided to get Pizza Bingo and make salad again that night and we just relaxed at home.

On Friday it was raining so we really didn't do anything that I can remember other than going to the gimbap shop for lunch because mom wanted to try bibimbap. It has a spicy sauce in the middle of it, and without the sauce it tastes like nothing. So, she didn't really like it. I also order mandu (which she didn't really like) and gimbap. She wouldn't even try the gimbap, which is the only thing that made me mad about her food issues. The not eating spicy stuff was annoying, but I understand it. Not eating this because it tastes fishy when I am eating it is not an excuse. Then we went back to my house and watched some Dancing with the Stars. This is why I like to do posts soon after things happen - I forget. I had work that afternoon and we walked around the farmers' market for a bit before I had to leave. Then when I got home, we hopped in a cab to the bus station and grabbed a bus to Seoul. The bus is 4 hours long and we got there around midnight. More to come about Seoul in future posts!