Korea hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics (Seoul) and will host
the 2018 Winter Olympics (Pyeongchang). She's come a long way from the cease fire in 1953 to proudly being able to host not just one but soon two Olympics. Why not a third? Why not in Busan? Why not put in a bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics?
People either love or hate Busan. We lean toward heavily dislike. Young
people enjoy the night life and the beautiful beaches. The older folks enjoy the wealth that came with the skyrocketing real estate prices, thanks to the wildly successful port business. Depending on what site you visit, the Port of Busan ranks
3rd in the word in port traffic (Busan News 2013), 5th (Wikipedia
2011) or 10th (Marine Insight 2011).
Whatever the ranking, it translates into a lot of people and
traffic. Hence our lack of love for the city. Too many people, too much traffic, and never
ending road construction. The 1-1/2 hour
drive south to Busan often ends up being 2-1/2 hours.
All Busan photos are stock photos from the internet.
In order to increase their chances of winning the 2020 games,
Busan sought to solve the population and traffic problems by taking advantage of the available land nearby in Goeje. The problem is,
Goeje is an island.
Their answer was to build an underwater (on the ocean floor)
tunnel combined with two suspension bridges. Since Korea had no experience in building underwater tunnels, they sought
help from Denmark and together, they successfully built and opened the tunnel in December of 2010. The 2020 Summer Olympics, however, was awarded to Tokyo. Busan plans to bid again
for the 2032 games.
Jackson (our Cambodian “son”), the kids and I recently went on a
field trip to Busan, Goeje Island and Oedo Island. Oedo (pronounced Whe-Do), a private island
purchased in 1969 by Mr. & Mrs. Lee Chang Ho, is now a magical botanical wonderland. The 10 minute ride took 40 minutes as we detoured to visit some fun little island(ettes) to ooh and aah before
we land on Oedo.
New Busan port.
Goega bridges 1 & 2 (stock)
http://nw.newsworld.co.kr
Our GPS shows us driving in the ocean.
(For Korean history buffs, U.S/Korea had a POW camp at Goeje during the Korean War.)
Goeje POW Camp
POW Robert
Robert and Jackson helping the POWs during their bath time.
It was fun walking behind this group of halmonies (grandmothers) and harabujis (grandfathers) and eavesdrop on their war time reminiscence.
Until I saw this women's dorm, I never gave much thought to women prisoners of war, of any war.
Drying fish in the sun.
The kids passed on the fresh fish and opted for a picnic lunch on top of the Windy Hill.
Windy Hill.
We topped off the day with dinner at a restaurant overlooking part of Jagalchi Market (Korea’s largest
seafood market).
The following photos are from the internet (Jagalchi Market).
There are well over 4,000 islands in Korea. CNN Travel states 3,358 are officially named. Below is a link with fun info on 33 islands worth visiting in Korea.
