Hey, Ho, the Wind and the Rain

I was excited that we managed to sign up for the best CAC trip I have seen so far. This was a day trip to Geoje and Oedo islands, two beautiful islands on the south end of Korea. When we left at 6:45 am, it was overcast and a little threatening, but the bottom didn't drop out until we arrived at our destination 3 hours later. I remember that I mentioned monsoon season starting in July. Well, these past couple of weeks, we have seen some serious weather worthy of the moniker. There have been torrential rains, high winds, and lots of flooding. Nonetheless, the weather was lovely for some mandatory staff fun on Friday, so I was hopeful about Saturday. It was not to be! (Of course, the whole time I was thinking, “why couldn't it have rained out the mandatory fun?” Which was, I begrudgingly admit, better than working.)

So we did manage to go to the POW camp, but the rest of the trip was cancelled. Oh well. As many experienced travelers will tell you, you win some, you lose some.

The POW camp was pretty cool. Geoje Island was where UN forces kept North Korean prisoners. It was a huge camp, with thousands of prisoners. The designers made an effort to bring the camp's history alive for us, complete with life sized dioramas with moving pieces, special effects, and video footage. There were a few sentences in bad English for tourists, though I was sorry (like I am at least 5 times a day) that I don't understand Korean better. This was no whitewashed kid-friendly version of history, either. There were bloody prisoners and naked prisoners. (People brought their kids. I'm certainly not implying that kids shouldn't see history as it really happened.) There was an outdoor area with a reconstructed kitchen, lots of tanks, guns, and helicopters, and the ruins of an American PX and chapel.  Bobby was especially fond of the machines and explored them all while I stood there and complained.    We were soaked to the skin, but we did get a nice Korean lunch afterwards.

I like the statue.  I'm sure it means something.

POW latrines

I really like how this was designed.  It was a huge camp.

An uprising of communist sympathizers.

Bobby took lots of pictures of the equipment.

Our PX doesn't look like this one.

Me in the kitchen, very wet.

Yeah, it rained pretty hard.