Midterms: Complete! Result: Vacation!

So I finished my last midterm on Friday, so I took the opportunity to "treat yo' self" like they say on Parks and Rec. I went to a port town called Mokpo (when "o" is written in the romanization of Korean, it sounds like the "o" in "joke"). It's about an hour away, and the government has tried to pump money into the town to encourage tourism (read: building the F1 track just outside the city). As a result, there's a few pretty cool touristy spots and the newer part of Mokpo actually has streets laid out in a grid!

The leaves are starting to turn!

Anyway, I got on the bus, paid my 5 dollars to travel 96km, and arrived in Mokpo in comfort (I started reading one of the English books I bought from "What the Book" in Itaewon). I took a taxi from the terminal to the Lotte Cinema. At first I was a little nervous the driver was going to try and scam me, which wouldn't be that hard. Thankfully, I memorized the route from the terminal to the theatre, but I didn't know the streets very well!

It looked like we were going the right way, and the road signs confirmed we were heading in the right direction. Oddly, some other taxis would pull up beside this guy (on my side) at a red light and talk to him (more like yell at him, which is Korean volume for normal). He didn't respond to them though, which made it more uncomfortable for me...who were they talking to/about?

Regardless, we arrived at the cinema in time for me to buy a ticket to see Brave!! In English! (with subtitles). Because Disney was paying the money to have the audio recorded in Korean, this movie only came out a few weeks ago here. In Korean, it's called "Meridawa mabeobeui sup" which means Merida and the Magic of the Woods.

Lotte Cinema lobby. PS - It was unnecessarily difficult to find the entrance to this movie theatre....
no main entrance that would make it obvious, and you had to take an elevator
with no English signage to the 4th floor to get to the lobby... I got lost just trying to get in.

My ticket and an almost empty theatre around me. Perfect!

Anyway, the movie was just as good as I expected it to be, which was great :) nice to see a proper movie (and for cheap too, only $8). Also, for those of you who are wondering, yes, Koreans have proper (thankfully) movie theatre popcorn and pop.

In South Korea, movies are still affordable for the family :)

I love that they have two openings on the pop lids, so you can share :)

After the movie, I went to the waterfront. Mokpo has a nice, long waterfront that passes by some interesting landmarks and buildings, like a few hotels that are shaped like sailing ships, some statues, and some sort of eroded rocks that have become local legend (they are called "gatbawi").

The waterfront. You can bike or rollerblade or walk. Some parents
had given their toddlers those child-sized electric cars that drive about
with that high-pitched whirring sound. It would seem bad-driving starts
at an early age here, lol.

Anchor. No boat.

A museum and what I'm assuming is the Spirit of Mokpo.

Sunset over Mokpo bay.

The small mountain you can hike behind gatbawi. The boardwalk around
the place was destroyed, so one has to climb the hill now. Perfect for folks
wanting to show off their expensive, brightly-coloured hiking outfits.

Had to prove I was there. Sorry for my lazy left eye...

I took the boardwalk all the way to the museum area, where located is the museum of natural history, the maritime museum, and another museum dedicated to Mokpo or something.

By this time the sun was setting and the museums were closed, so I sat on the sea wall and ate the banana I brought with me.

Sunset over Mokpo harbour.

Sunset over Mokpo harbour.

Making my way to the Mokpo waterfall, I stopped at another highlight of the trip: QUIZNOS! Surprisingly, small town Mokpo has a Quiznos (Gwangju is in desperate need of quality sandwiches) so I ate there. Mmmmmm ;) Quite pricey in my opinion, I hope they'll be able to do enough business.

A real-live Quizno's in South Korea! Notice the second floor dining room,
complete with smoking section!

The menu. Expensive! Notice how turkey ranch and swiss is more
expensive than tuna ;) I'm surprised they don't have a bulgogi sub.

Anyway, after Quizno's, I continued to the waterfall, but it was turned off today... so no pictures :( maybe another time.

However, I did find Admiral Yi Sun Shin and a model of his
famous turtle ship made out of tires :)

Awaiting one's fate.

Painters! I think they had some sort of platform on the top
of their truck so they didn't need a ladder?

I went back to the waterfront to see the Mokpo Dancing Sea Fountain, which is a fountain, light, and music show they put on every night :) It was pretty cute, I enjoyed it. There is a park behind the viewing area for the fountain show and they were having some sort of obnoxiously loud Chinese karaoke festival, but thankfully I was sitting close enough to the speakers for the fountain show.

If you want to see my 0:50 second clip of the fountain, click here (available in HD): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZJcgt4QQ7I

To wrap up my mini-vacation, I went back to catch the bus to the bus terminal and waited more than 30 minutes for that darn bus >( but eventually it came. I was actually concerned that it had finished its run for the night, since buses here stop running at 10:30pm or earlier (probably under pressure from the taxi cartels), which would mean I would have to cab it back from the terminal in Gwangju....

Surprisingly, the water here is fairly clean.
You can't smell the ocean though, oddly enough.

Regardless, it was a great vacation, I'm glad I went and I'll probably return to Mokpo sometime in the future.

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PS - It was raining, thundering, and lightning...ing today, so I took a video and managed to get a lightning strike on video :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W1ALHkRKx8 it's a 0:31 second clip (available in HD).