Exploring Geoje

Jin, Morgan and I

 The more I see of Geoje Island the luckier I feel to have been randomly placed in such a beautiful spot. Summer is ending soon, so to enjoy some of the last nice weather Injun, a Korean teacher I work with, brought Morgan and I to a local beach last weekend. For 1,500 won (about a buck fifty) we took an hour long bus ride that dropped us off a short distance from a beach in an area of Geoje called Okpo. Okpo is host to Daewoo Shipyards, which is even larger than the Samsung one in Gohyeon (the area of Geoje I live in).

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It was a beautiful day and while the water was a little too cold to swim, it still felt so nice to be on a white sandy beach and get some sun! I am glad I found these beaches now so next year when it gets unbearably hot again I will know where to go.

Afterwards we decided to explore the town a little. Okpo has over 50 "westerner only" bars as well as a lot of western themed restaurants. We thought the "only foreigners" signs seemed just a tad racist but soon learned they were really more of a warning-  most of the bars labeled as such usually contained more Vietnamese hookers than drinks. Luckily someone let us in on this little fact before we decided to check one out!

Samsung

Elisti and I overlooking Samsung Shipyards

 The next weekend Elisti and I decided to conquer a hike we had been hearing about a lot. It started basically right out the back door of our apartment building and went straight up the mountain side- and I mean literally straight up. Apparently Korean's aren't too into the whole switch-back idea. The two hour hike alternated between a vertical climb and long flat stretches. The best part was a viewpoint towards the beginning where you could overlook almost the entire Samsung Shipyard. It is insane how large it really is in relation to everything else on the island!

A temple in the town where the hike ended

Randomly along the hike we would come across these little 'outdoor gym' areas where excersize equipment had was being used by Korean hikers. During the two hours we were on the mountain we stumbled upon at least three of these clearings. What a great way to workout- outdoors mid-hike! The walk ended after basically sliding down another vertical path into a small town a few minutes walk down the highway from Gohyeon.

Outdoor excersize area

Hiking seems to be a pretty popular thing to do, at least on Geoje. I am constantly seeing locals covered head to toe (literally- they wear gloves, arm guards, and facemasks no matter how warm the weather) in sun protective hiking gear carrying walking sticks headed up the mountain. There are many more trails all over the Island that I want to check out as the year goes on.