A history lesson then on to Jeju

Yesterday, Tuesday here, was our travel day; however, our flight didn't leave Seoul

until 3 pm, so we visited the Korean War Memorial in the morning.

We arrived before the museum opened, but the outside exhibits of numerous airplanes, helicopters, and tanks were accessible for viewing. Phillip, being former Air Force, really enjoyed walking thru and telling me about the planes.

As we walked thru the equipment exhibits, we noticed soldiers in formation marching toward the entrance to the museum, so we went to see if there was a ceremony. A man announced in Korean and in English that the soldiers were the Honor Guard who were practicing today for a ceremony on April 20th.

I'm sure they did not intend it, but we got some chuckles as we watched them try to get their formation right and their lines straight. It took about ten minutes after they got on the steps to get everyone in place. We understood why the officials are having a few weeks of practice! This is probably a newly assigned Honor Guard. 

We watched the soldiers for a few minutes, but it really was a practice, so we went on inside the museum. I didn't take a lot of pictures as we stayed busy reading the English signs and flash photography is frowned upon in museums. However, I did take the above picture (no flash) because this first exhibit/video was the most chilling. Upon entering the exhibit hall, we went into a room for a short overview video that was projected on the entire wall of the room. The video spoke of the losses of life during the war and the terrible toll it took on the Korean people and their allies. At the end of the video, the room stayed dark, then the floor panels lit up to the above scene, a battlefield aftermath of bones and guns in the dirt. The phrase "Freedom is not free" came across the wall. For a short history lesson, Korea had been occupied by the Japanese thru WW II. With Japan's surrender, the major world players, the USA and the Soviet Union, divided Korea into two protectorates, North Korea and South Korea, at the 38th parallel. South Korea, with US help, created a democracy, but North Korea leveraged its Soviet help against help from Communist China, and decided to invade the South, which it did in 1950. It swept thru the South until the United Nations forces were able to get there and push them back under General MacArthur. They actually pushed the Northern forces all the way to the Chinese border. China, however, didn't like that one bit and sent hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers to Korea and pushed the UN and South Korean forces back south. This back and forth battling went on until 1953 when an armistice was signed, setting the border back at the 38th parallel. This war memorial is dedicated to the 415,000 South Koreans, over 36,000 Americans, and about 40,000 soldiers from other countries who died during the three years of fighting. 

I'm not sure what the ceremonial significance is of April 20 as the war started on June 25, 1950 and the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953, but the officials at the Memorial are apparently expecting families that day. The mascots were also at the practice! Eight of them, people in costumes, including this guy who represented the Navy. 

I planned to get a picture of Phillip with the traditionally dressed mascot, but I ended up next to two of them, representing a man and a woman in the traditional Korean dress called a hanbuk.

We left the museum, collected our luggage and headed for the airport for our flight to Jeju. I was a bit apprehensive when we didn't load from the terminal, but were bussed to the plane. The plane, however, was a Boeing 737, albeit probably an older 737, but it was airworthy (we did make it to Jeju) and there simply might not have been enough gates at the airport to accomodate all the flights. 

This is our hotel room for the next week. That is not a bed on the right. It is a folded yo, which is a padded mat; a comfortor; and a pillow. No bed. No chairs either, I sit on the floor to type this.

And here you have the yo laid out for sleeping. This is called an ondol room, as the floor is heated during the night. The warm floor made up for the lack of padding. We did sleep pretty well as it was like sleeping on a really firm mattress. 

Today, we walked to the tourism office to get an island map and a bus route map. No subways here, but we can use the Seoul T-money subway card to pay for our bus rides. The tourism lady said they work all across South Korea for any kind of mass transit. After the toursim office, we walked along the seawall boardwalk. Yes, it has been an overcast, drizzly day, but that didn't stop us from exploring. 

On our way to another sight, we walked across this pedestrian suspension bridge, flanked by blooming cherry trees and a picturesque pagoda. Beauty is everwhere here.

Our destination was this: Dragon Head Rock. Jeju Island was created from black lava erupting from volcanoes eons ago. This lava rock formation juts from the land like the head of a dragon. After this visit, we wandered back toward our hotel, finding yet another underground mall and visiting the market near our hotel again. It's raining enough now to need an umbrella, so I decided to catch up on this blog.

Tomorrow, we have an all-day tour of some of the major island attractions. The rain is predicted to stop by noon, so we should be fine on the tour.