Pohang Visit

I'm behind, as usual, so here's a post about last weekend's trip to Pohang. I went there with my friends, Sandy and Geoff. We went to visit some other friends who are teaching in Pohang, namely, Sam, Courtney, and Daniel. There are quite a few people in Pohang, actually, as it's one of the larger cities in Gyeongbuk, but we kept our party small. The weather was humid and rainy, a lovely combination, but the trip was still a lot of fun. This is another picture-heavy post, so I'll just put most of it under the link. But first:

It turned out that the day of our trip was also the day of some sort of festival in Yeongcheon. I felt a little bad missing it, but what can you do? I did manage to snap a few pictures of the cloth figures dressed in traditional clothing that were all over the park.

Another cute pair.

Their sign reads:

건강하세요!

Which, I believe, means:

Be healthy!

This area is known for its herbal medicines, and I'm pretty sure that's what this pair represents.



Ok, now "read more."

In Pohang, we ate at a great Japanese restaurant. It was very delicious.

Like I said, it was rainy, so we all walked along with our umbrellas. The umbrellas made the streets rather colorful, but also a little hard to move around in. The streets here are already crowded and dangerous enough already.

We visited a famous maket in Pohang, where they sell raw fish, among other things. Miss Oh told me to try some raw fish, but after the lunch, no one was thinking about eating. Since Pohang is on the coast, they do have some great seafood, though.

The market had lots of stuff besides fish, like these wooden stools and chests. Really pretty stuff.

Also, these worms. Which were for eating...

And there was also lots of other food.

That evening we went to the beach. It wasn't a very nice beach, as the big Posco plant is just a little further down the coast, and the water is kind of grimy and polluted. We didn't go in.

This picture's kinda blurry, but I wrote 안녕하세요 (hello) in the sand. Some Korean lady who was observing us found it humorous enough that she agreed to take our picture.

She also took a close-up one. From left to right:
Courtney, Daniel, Sandy, Geoff, me, and Sam.

A shot of Pohang at night, taken from the beach.

And finally, "love motels" are very popular in Korea. In fact, you're more likely to find a love motel than a normal one. The name seems pretty self-explanatory, but suffice it to say that you can rent these rooms at an hourly rate and they come fully stocked with, well, anything you'd need to have a good time. This motel, however, definitely has my favorite name so far. In fact, I think "joytel" is my new favorite word. Actually, it's a little hard to see, but if you rotate the picture (or your head) you can see those photos of some of the rooms. Yeah, they're pretty nice. Better than any hotel I've ever stayed at!

This isn't a picture of Pohang, but I really like it anyway. At the train station, this sign is on the floor leading to the platforms. There isn't any ticket-checking to enforce the "paid customers only" policy, and you could easily abuse it. The "We Trust You" mentatlity is just so uplifting. It made my day. We also didn't have our tickets checked on the train, but I don't know if that's normal or not.