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Here are a few more shots of various Yeosu scenes. I suppose this post’s theme could be buildings and construction. There’s quite a lot of construction in the area as Yeosu prepares for the 2012 Expo. Naturally, most of the construction is centered around the Expo site, but there are other areas experiencing hotel and apartment building projects.
One of these is the Ocean Park Resort, out near the Soho Yacht Marina. The hotel being built on the property was originally supposed to be about 660 feet tall, which would have made it the tallest in Yeosu. I think that it’s been downgraded due to construction costs beyond the original estimate. You can see the original design and some early photos of its construction at the Skyscraper City website. Originally schedule to be open this year, it now appears that it won’t be finished until 2014. Here’s the most recent photo I took.
Here’s another shot from the Soho Yacht Marina.
Farther left in the photo above, out of the shot, is the Ocean Park Waterslide area. Unfortunately, it was closed on the day I rode my bicycle there. It’s fairly large and I’m told that it gets a lot of use. Here’s just a small section of it.
Back down the shoreline a bit is another hotel under construction. This one’s kind of isolated with not too much going on around it and it’s more than a few kilometers from the Expo site. Still, if it’s finished in time, it’ll probably get a fair amount of business.
And another view.
This apartment building near Lotte Mart and the Dolsan Bridge has been under construction ever since I arrived in Yeosu three years ago, and very little construction has been done on it. Recently, though, things have been picking up. I think the original outfit that was building it went under and a new owner took over. The original artist’s rendering of the complex has changed, as well as the complex name. Maybe it’ll be finished soon, but who knows?
And, just a few more shots taken on a walking trip. The first one is a view of the harbor where many of the fishing boats are docked.
Finally, there’s no sense wasting roof space above your house. While your laundry is drying, you can also dry a few crops up there, too. More later.
I have a lot of Yeosu photos that I haven’t posted yet, so I’ll start a new theme, so to speak, of Out and About in Yeosu, scenes from around the area, taken in August and September. I’ll try to get a new post up every 3 or 4 days (yeah, right) . . . OK, as often as I can.
First up, I thought I’d do something a little different. Rather than just put up the complete photo, I thought I’d show some close ups, some snippets of larger shots, kind of an abstract thing. First, I’ll show the small shots, followed by the overall scene. Let’s see how this works.
So here are the details. What are they? Shouldn’t be too hard to guess. Please click on each photo to get a larger view. Here’s Number One.
Number Two
Number Three
Number Four
Number Five
Now, so that you don’t see the main photos right off the bat, a little interlude.
Speaking of right off the bat, the first day of the MLB playoffs weren’t exactly heart-wrenching. The over-achieving Rays slaughtered the Texas Strangers 9-0 and the Tigers-Yanks game was rained out.
Looks like the Yanks game will be resumed tomorrow (Saturday in the ‘States) at the point where it was halted, bottom of the 2nd, tied at 1. Detroit scored with a cheapo  home run and the Yanks scored without the benefit of a hit. That’s one thing about the New York Nine this season–they can win with speed and savvy baserunning. They were 3rd in the American League with 147 stolen bases (Tampa was first with 155), their most since 2001. Jeter actually struck out in the bottom of the first, but still scored the Yanks run, hustling to first base on a third strike wild pitch, one of those baseball oddities. He subsequently advanced to second on a walk to Granderson (former Tiger) and went to third on a groundout to second. He then scored on a grounder to third. Hopefully, the game can be completed tomorrow, though Weather Underground is showing a 40% chance of rain in The City tomorrow night.
The two teams will probably play another game on Sunday, which is Monday morning in Korea, but that’s OK with me, since we have Monday off because of a national holiday. It’s Korea Foundation Day, a celebration of the (mythical) founding of the country, both North and South. Check out a description here.
All right, enough of an interlude; back to the photos. Here are the main shots.
Number One. This one is part of the steeple of a church down by the harbor. Here’s the original shot, which I took from the Jongpo Ocean Park Walkway.
Number Two. There were several boats lined up along the dock at the Jongpo harbor near the walkway and this is a close up of one of them. Here’s the complete shot.
Number Three. These orange balloon-like things appear to be buoys that might be put in the water as warning signals. You certainly couldn’t miss their colorful presence atop the murky water.
Number Four. Seriously, I don’t have any idea of the purpose of these things. They were lined up across the harbor from the walkway. Very odd looking, yes? If anyone knows what purpose they serve, let me know in the comments, please.
Number Five. I must admit I cheated a little on this one. I rotated the original photo a bit in order to cut out the bottom part of the building. Anyway, they’re part of a building housing, I think, a maritime organization, like a fisherman’s hall or something along that line. Again, if anyone from Yeosu is looking, let me know what you think.
Number Six. Finally, the front of the building that kind of resembles a face, I think, is actually a school. Cute, if you ask me.
OK, that’s it for now. I’ll try to get some more Out and About shots up in a few days (giggle, snort, guffaw–c’mon, Ron, get serious), so stay tuned for more later.
There hasn’t been a whole lot going on around here lately, but we have had some gorgeous late summer/early fall weather; deep blue skies, plenty of sunshine, moderate temperatures and lower humidity have chased away the mostly oppressive summer days. This time of year and the middle of spring feature the best weather in Yeosu, in my opinion. I’ve been out and about, hiking, bicycling, walking and taking plenty of photos. Rather than making one or two huge posts, I think I’ll dole out a few photos at a time, hoping that y’all will keep coming back for more. (Plus, I get pretty lazy, at times, about processing all my shots.  ) Some of these might be interesting, some not. Enjoy, or not. Let me know what you think.
This is from earlier in the summer when the mist/fog lent an air of mystery to things. The humid conditions didn’t stop the local golfers, however, as the lights were on for the night owls.
On one of my walkabouts, I spotted these bright red flowers in a small garden plot on a small side street next to a small house. I think they’re pretty. Anyone know what kind of flowers they are? (I’m definitely not a flower guy, but I was, and am, a proponent of Flower Power).
Finally, it seems that we just don’t get that many good sunrises and ‘sets in Yeosu, at least from my vantage point, especially compared to those I had the pleasure to see in the Dominican Republic and Morocco. Lately, though, we’ve had a few nice sunsets. Here’s one. (Sorry, there ain’t nuthin’ I can do about the power transmission towers and lines in the photo–it was taken from the balcony outside my dormitory apartment.)
I’ll definitely try to get some more photos posted in a more timely manner, probably 3 or 4 shots per post, mostly just random stuff from around Yeosu, so stay tuned for more later.
These photos were taken on August 24th, so they’re only about 3 weeks old. I’m sure of the names of some of the venues, but for others, the names on the map that I refer to don’t match up with the names on the official website, so there’s a bit of confusion. At any rate, things seem to be progressing well, and I haven’t heard any reports that anything was behind schedule.
First is a shot of the Korean Pavilion, which I’m reasonably sure is the correct name for the building.
Next up is the Marine City and Conservation Pavilion (not sure about this one).
Here’s the aquarium, with the hotel under construction in the background. (100% sure)
Here’s the aquarium by itself from a bit closer.
And a closer view of the hotel.
This one could be the Marine Industrial and Technology Pavilion or the Climate and Environment Pavilion or the previously mentioned Marine City and Civilization Pavilion. Which one is it? I guess I’ll have to make a trip to the Expo Visitor Center and look at their 3-D model to find out.
Next, the Expo Town–pretty sure of this one.
The Local Government Pavilion (reasonably sure).
A general view of part of the construction area. The two cylindrical buildings to the right will comprise the sky tower.
Finally, there’s a new addition to the visitor center. I’ve no idea if it has a name other than, perhaps, “Crabby.”
That’s it for now. I’ll keep checking the site every once in a while and post more photos as progress dictates. Hope to see you at the Expo in 2012!
Finally, we’re getting some gorgeous weather. For the last week and a half or so, clear blue skies have banished the overcast conditions that we were experiencing, though it’s still quite humid at times. I got sunburned riding my bicycle last Sunday and while walking around town in the middle of last week. Marvelous!
Before the great weather, I went down to the Expo 2012 site to see how things had progressed since May, the last time I’d been down there. I got a lot of shots of the ongoing construction, but I also took some more photos of the wall murals that I mentioned in a previous post.
Here are a half dozen or so of the paintings. Peruse at your pleasure and, as always, click on ‘em for a larger version.
Sadly, some of the paintings that I photographed in May are no longer there. In this area of town, crews are widening the road in preparation for the Expo. Walking a bit down the hill, I saw that the mural wall came to an abrupt end where it had been demolished by the “improvement.” Here’s what I saw at the end of the wall.
Yikes! Well, I suppose it’ll look better once they finish the construction. This area will lead into the international village where all the foreign workers at their various pavilions will be living while they’re in Yeosu.
Construction is ongoing at the Expo site; here’s a brief preview of the new hotel being put up. I’ll have more Expo photos in a few days.
The rainy, gray days continue, so I still haven’t been out with the camera lately. This seems like the worst summer of the three that I’ve spent here in Yeosu. I think I can count on one hand the number of sunny days in July and August. It was supposed to rain all afternoon today, but checking the weather radar, it appears that no rain is heading our way. (Typical bad forecast by the KMA.) Despite overcast skies, I think I’ll go down to the Expo 2012 site later this afternoon and take a few shots.
In the meantime, here are some more photos from last May. Some of these I’ve played around with in Photoshop, so click for a larger version to see how I’ve enhanced them (or screwed them up).
The western part of the peninsula is quite beautiful, but I don’t get out there that often; I don’t ride my motorbike around in town (too dangerous, I think) and it’s kind of far out for much more than the very occasional bicycle ride. Here are a couple shots of the area.
This one was taken a bit closer to the city, near the Soho Yacht Marina.
The tall ship trainer heads out to sea with a boat load of passengers to take in the yacht regatta that’s occurring farther out. Check out the guy up on the mast. All of the photos in this post were taken with my compact camera, so I didn’t have the Canon DSLR with it’s long telephoto lens. If you look closely, you can barely make out the small boats in the distance.
Here’s a different kind of ship, unladen, perhaps going across the bay to Gwang-yang to pick up a load of steel.
Finally, the cherry blossoms were in full bloom then, so here’s another one that I “photoshopped,” pink cherry blossoms in all their glory. As always, click on any of the photos for a large version. More later.
It’s another oppressive, humid gray day here, just like yesterday and the day before and . . . Yesterday was a bit exciting, I guess–after my 3 p.m. class, I walked down to one of the local markets to buy a few groceries. Although it was overcast, as usual, there was no rain in the forecast, so I didn’t take an umbrella. Well, on the way back, the skies opened up and I got thoroughly drenched in what was quite a gully washer. It only lasted about 20 minutes, but I was soaked from head to toe.
In lieu of any recent photos, here are a few more shots of the Expo 2012 site under construction. These are from May, so they’re a bit old. Starting Saturday, we have a 12-day break until the fall semester begins, so I hope to get down to the construction area and get some updated shots.
This first one is a shot of a portion of the site, from Dolsan Island. There’s more construction off to the left, including the new hotel, which I featured here. As usual, click on the photo a couple of times to get a large version.
In the middle of the above shot, you can kind of make out the buildings of Expo Town going up. One of my adult students told me he had entered a lottery drawing for one of the apartments. Apparently, after the Expo, these buildings will be used as apartments for Yeosu citizens. Potential renters got in the lottery to draw for specific apartments, which they can either reserve or turn down, depending on the location. This student told me that he had drawn a 10th floor residence, thus assuring him and his family a great view of the harbor. He was, of course, quite happy. He said if he had drawn anything below the sixth floor, he would have turned it down. The following shot is a close-up of that area, taken from the train station.
Oh, heck, might as well throw in a shot of the station, while I’m at it.
Also from Dolsan Island is a shot of the new red lighthouse, right across from the new white lighthouse. The two strange-looking ovals in the upper right are highway tunnels.
Finally, here’s one of the new tourist hotels, just down from the big hotel on the Expo site. I don’t know about this one–it’s located right by the new highway, so I kinda wonder about how quiet it’s gonna be.
That’s it for today; I’ll get some more photos up soon that I took on one of my bicycle rides earlier in the year.
The weather has been a real downer lately, with usually overcast skies, rain or mist and high humidity. Just walking around campus leaves me drenched in sweat. If we have had any sunny days, they’ve been on work days, so I just haven’t been out and about to take any photos lately. This seems to be the normal scene lately.
However, I have a backlog of photos I took earlier in May that I’ve been meaning to show, so, until I decide to do some wandering around to take some new shots, I’ll post these older ones over the next few days.
Progress continues to be made on next year’s big event, the 2012 Yeosu World Expo, and, in addition to the construction at the Expo site, roads are being widened, new hotels are being built, and a general sprucing up around the city is being undertaken. There’s a long section of wall, about head-high, near the Expo site. Previously, it was just a dull gray block of concrete, but last May, high school and university students set about painting some murals on it. Here are some of the results.
Of course, all the animals and mythical creatures do have meanings associated with them. Here’s a sign that explains what they mean. You’ll definitely have to click on the image a time or two to be able to read it.
There are several more paintings that I didn’t get shots of that day, so I’ll have to go back and nab the rest of them. When the weather is nicer.
I’ll get some more shots up later or in the next few days.
Before it gets to be too far past the fact, I’d better do a post on Children’s Day, which was on Thursday, May 5th. There’s really no equivalent holiday in the U.S., particularly since it’s an official national holiday, an off day for government workers (and English teachers ). That should tell you something about how most Koreans feel about their kids. That week was also the Turtle Ship Festival, which is held in conjunction with the holiday. The festival celebrates legendary Korean naval commander Admiral Yi Sun-shin, inventor of the turtle ship. I posted last year about Children’s Day and the Turtle Ship Festival.
It was a gorgeous day–warm, with brilliant sunshine and blue skies (no yellow dust blanketing the area). The festival area is located at the Jongpo Ocean Park Walkway, from where I’ve taken a number of photos, such as this one.
Last year’s festival was a bit on the small side, but this year’s was much, much larger, due to the upcoming 2012 Expo (May-Aug 2012), so one of my former advanced level English students informed me.
Naturally, there were kids with their parents everywhere you turned, playing games, having fun, enjoying the beautiful weather.
There were dozens of tents set up for food, cultural exhibits and local organizations, with a few surprises along the way.
Here’s a fellow demonstrating kitchen knives.
This guy was doing something with these hamsters (gerbils?); I’m not sure what, but they were rather indifferent to his efforts. They lay there, not moving, either tired or drugged. If the latter, the guy should be taken to the woodshed for mistreatment of animals.
Wanna buy a sword?
Small turtle ship replicas.
Korean junk food, with french fried sweet potatoes in the lower right corner.
This food vendor was pretty good at tossing and stretching his noodle dough.
You could also buy paintings depicting the defeat of the Japanese naval forces when they tried to invade Korea way back in the late 16th century.
And continuing to walk along, I ran into surprise #1–MontanaRon is shocked to see a Montana Native American!
Ok, not really. It was a Korean dressed in Native American garb, selling flutes. Pretty cool, though.
Just a few tents down from him, I stumbled onto surprise #2–schawarmas! A couple of Turkish fellows were selling lamb or chicken schawarmas (They had a couple of Turkish flags hanging in their tent, so I assume they’re from that country.)
Unfortunately, I had just eaten and wasn’t hungry at all. They were doing a booming business. It’s coincidental that a reader left a comment on the blog about schawarmas. (Alan, are you reading this?) And, while I’m at it, let me give a BIG SHOUT OUT to his website, which features tons of recipes for this fantastic mid-Eastern food. Check it out at ShawarmaRecipe.com I hope the Turkish guys are here to set up a schawarma restaurant–I’ll be one of their best customers. (Yeosu has very few options if you’re hungry for something other than Korean food.)
There were also a couple of stages set up for performances, but my timing was bad–nothing much going on in that respect, though this small group was hamming it up and playing music for the crowd. Check out the older Korean on the far right and the man kicking up his heels to the left of him.
This wasn’t too far from the new bridge, which still isn’t open.
Overall, it was a great afternoon out. I can hardly wait for the Expo next year when there will be dozens of international booths (along with their respective foods). Gotta go–gettin’ hungry for breakfast and gotta work soon. More later.
It’s kind of holiday “season” here in Yeosu. From May 5th through June 9th, there are four holidays, all of them on weekdays, so no work on those days. Unfortunately, we have to make up the classes that we miss because of those days off, a demand by the university that irks me to no end, as I’ve mentioned before. Some of the new teachers this semester said that it’s the first education institution that they’ve worked at in Korea that demands that holiday classes be made up. Our contracts state that we get all national and university holidays off, but that’s a bit of a half-truth if we have to do the classes at another time. It’s kind of like your boss telling you “No, you don’t have to work on Thanksgiving Day, but you have to come in on Sunday to make up for it.” Sheesh. Not much I can do about it though–grin and bear it.
May 5th was Children’s Day, today is the celebration of Buddha’s Birthday, and June 6th is Memorial Day. In addition, June 9th is the Founding Day of the university, so classes are also called off for that event. Buddha’s Birthday is celebrated on the 10th in many East Asian countries and it’s celebrated on the 17th in some others, to coincide with the full moon.
For the last two or three weeks, all of the temples here have been gaily decorated with colorful paper lanterns. If you didn’t know where the temples were located, you’d know their presence by the lanterns.
It’s been overcast and a bit rainy today, but between the sprinkles, I took a short walk down the road below the dormitories to a small temple, about 15 minutes away. I assumed there would be some events and ceremonies going on, and there were. Lots of people were present in the main temple–gentlemen dressed in suits and sporting flowers in their lapels, ladies wearing their finery and suited ushers showing people in. I would like to have shot some photos of the temple, but it would have been totally inappropriate for me to try to do so. Therefore, I contented myself with taking a few shots of the small grounds outside the temple.
There either was already or there was going to be a parade, and this dragon float looked ready to roll.
He had a friend to accompany him, in the form of this tiger.
Here’s a shot of the outside of the main temple, where the ceremony was being held. I could hear the chanting of the monks and the clanging of gongs, and I really wanted to go in. Not this time, though.
The paper lanterns are quite beautiful and I love the details on some of them. Here are four for your viewing pleasure.
I was also out and about on Children’s Day and got a number of photos of the Turtle Ship Festival that is always held at the same time. I’ll put some of those up in the next post. More later.
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