Monday, July 18, 2011

July 18, 2011 : 2011년 7월 18일

Well, it's going to take a few days to tell the vacation story.  아마 2-3일간 이야기 할거걔요. 
Today, I will try to give you a sense of where we went, and tomorrow (hopefully), I can tell you in the kids' words.
오늘은 우리 휴가가는곳가각 얘기 해 드릴까고 내일 얘들 말씀으로 휴가 이야기 드릴까요.

We went to Tongyeong, which is where Sunshin Yi fought and won a great sea battle against Japan in 1598.  There is a cool article on him in Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yi_Sun-sin.  One of his big deals was resurrecting use of the turtle boats. Here is a clip from a Korean drama about his final battle:



Here are some of the things we saw related to that:

Front of a reconstructed turtle boat.

Turtle boat from the side (sorry... best I could do in a moving car)

On Sunday, we went up Mount Mireuk where you could see the countryside as well as the battle area.


My picture of this map didn't come out so well, but essentially, if I read the map correctly, three of Yi Sunshin's ships were shoehorned into that little triangular harbor on the right and managed to come out and defeat several approaching Japanese warships during the final battle of Hansan.  Yi Sunshin died during the battle but gave the order to continue beating his drums, and the Koreans overpowered the Japanese to withstand that invasion.

Tongyeong is also a busy harbor.

Here are a bunch of fishing boats tied up.  We also saw squid boats with their special lights and hooks, but again, I was in a moving car and didn't get them this time.

Tongyeong also has access to the South Sea, which is very busy this time of year as its water is much warmer than the East and West Seas.  Yesterday, the South Sea's temperature was 24 C, which is roughly 75 F. 


We found a small beach that was not very busy Saturday.  The bigger beaches on the South Sea were packed and made the news.  After all the rains in Korea, this was the first nice weekend in a month at approximately 35 C in the south (about 95 F).

We had gone to a "pension" (I have NO idea why it has that name.  There is nothing to do with retirement, money, or any other type of allowance that I can make out), which is essentially a condo.

Boys playing loudly in one room.  It's amazing how much noise a beach ball can make when you slam it against the wall.

Minji watching TV (she's not technically allowed to do that at home.)

The outdoor eating area (they bring a grill to the table.)


Harbor lighthouse (with a green light).

Submarine in the harbor that we saw on our night time stroll.

Okay, you need a lot of imagination here, but this is a jangseung (or traditional Korean totem pole) welcoming visitors to the playground (behind) where BJ wanted desperately to lay LIKE THIS AT NIGHT but Grandpa said no because of the sand.  BJ was so upset the rest of the stroll and announced VERY loudly after we got to the lighthouse that this was NOT FUN AT ALL that Grandpa reneged, and the kids got to play for about 15 minutes in the dark.

Here are some of the mountains around...

And part of the town...

Then we left Tongyeong and headed for Geojae where they build LOTS of ships.  Alas, I couldn't get a good picture of the ships, but I did get a picture of these waving things that look like beans but say "marine police."

The beach at Geojae...

Pictures of people and tales from the boys coming tomorrow!

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