Day 17 (again!): Hallyeohaesang National Park - This one's mostly pictures :)

Weekend!!

After a long first week, it was wonderful to do some relaxing and some exploring this weekend! On Saturday, we went for an epic run up and over a mountain. We climbed about 1000 feet up, went back down the other side, and then back up and back down. It was really hard!! But so beautiful. As a reward, we had some shrimp burgers from McDonald's.

Today, we decided to figure out the bus system and explore the southern part of the island a little bit. The whole southern coast of Geoje is a National Park. It reminded me a lot of Acadia, with lots of great rocky cliffs and piney mountains. At our first bus transfer, there was a store with huge aquariums outside full of all different fish, eels, clams, crabs, and even sea urchins. The bus drive was beautiful, but I got a bit carsick on all the twisty mountain roads (Sarah). Pictures really tell this story better than words do.

We live in the green circle; we took the bus down to the peninsula in the orange circle - it took just over an hour.

This "Windy Hill" with a windmill was absolutely crawling with tourists, though it wasn't even close to the coolest place on the peninsula.

Steven in danger of Falling! down the path.

This place was called Sinseondae, and it was on the other side of the peninsula from Windy Hill (about a 3 minute walk). It had these cool purple rocks and way fewer people! (The 3 pictures before and one after this are also from Sinseondae.)

A corn dog - double deep fried and coated in french fries. You can see the layers.

This one and the next 3 are from Ujebong, a 100m mountain on a sub-peninsula of the one we were on all day. It was really steep on both sides--two of these pictures are looking one way, and the other two are looking the other.

The island on the right is Haegumgang. It has really cool rock cliffs and there are sightseeing ferry boats that go right around it. Since this place is only an hour from our apartment, we might come some other time and do the ferry.

Geoje is beautiful, but it is odd as well. There is an abandoned amusement park (where two children died falling out of a duck-themed ride), a POW camp turned theme park, an area of the peninsula *right* next to the crowded touristy area that was completely desolate, with a cracked and abandoned parking lot and amphitheater, goats grazing nearby, and then this sign outside a Buddhist temple: