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Continuing from the previous post, I walked down out of the park and toward the harbor, to the new Jongpo Ocean Park Walkway, also being built for Expo 2012. At the far end of the walkway stands one of the massive towers of the new Dolsan Bridge.
Here’s another shot of the other part of the bridge under construction, reaching out from Dolsan Island.
Have you ever heard of the 17th century Dutch explorer Hendrick Hamel? Neither had I. In this area is a small red lighthouse named, appropriately, Hamel Light.
Walking a bit further, you can see this statue of Hamel.
Engraved on a marble memorial near the statue is Hamel’s story. It reads:
Hamel and Yeosu
In January 1653, a Netherlands merchant ship, De Sperwer, set out from Texel and headed for its final destination of Nagasaki, Japan, after passing Batavia (Jakarta) in July. However, on August 16, 1653, they encountered a storm off Jeju Island and arrived on the shore of Jeju.
There were 36 survivors out of 64 crew members after the storm, and one of them was Hendrick Hamel. In May, 1654, the survivors were sent to Seoul for custody under the royal decree of the king (King HyoJong). In 1656 they were sent to the barracks of Gangjin, Jeonnam Province, and they spent seven years in captivity. Due to a food shortage caused by draught (sic), in February, 1663, 22 survivors were separately placed under custody: 12 people to Yeosu, 5 people to Suncheon, and 5 people to Namwon.
Among the 12 men sent to Yeosu, Hamel was one of the men. And they were given the duty of gate guards for Yeosu Jeolla Fortress. In early 1664, a commanding officer, Lee Do-bin, of the naval forces, was inaugurated, and he was a man of generosity. He allowed Hamel and others to live comfortably with limited freedom, and the survivors earned money by selling wool in the market to buy a ship to escape from Korea. However, in 1666, the successor of Lee, Jeong Yeong, came to command the fortress and he made it hard for the survivors to live, so the survivors decided to escape.
On September 4, 1666, they mingled with the inhabitants as every thing was going as usual. At night, they made their escape by crawling over the wall of the fortress and went to the pier. They gathered drinking water and ran toward the southern tip after passing the military vessel as the low tide started. Around the next evening, the saw the tip of Busan and finally escaped from the territory of Korea.
This is the starting place of Hamel and others for navigating toward their freedom.
An interesting story, and Hamel pops up in other sites in Korea. If you do a Google search, you can find out more about him. Here’s a close up of the light.
Next post: Jongpo Ocean Park Walkway.
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To continue, somewhat belatedly, from my prior post, I was at the top of the hill where Jasan Park is situated, near Odong Island. Here’s a view of one of Yeosu’s residential areas. Notice the odd-looking structure, the white building, in the upper left.
Here’s a cropped, zoomed-in shot.
I’d seen this building before, but I’d never gotten close enough to find out what it’s function might be. Is it a convention center or a post-modern art gallery? We’ll find out later, because I was determined to walk to it.
In the meantime, I walked to the other side of the park, which overlooks the construction site of the new bridge from Dolson Island to this section of Yeosu.
It should be an impressive addition to the Yeosu transportation system when it’s finished in time for Expo 2012.
Continuing down from the bridge overlook, I stumbled across this small (one building) temple near the bottom of the hill. Below is a shot of the building and a few close-ups of some details.
If I thought that Hyangiram had a sea motif, I would probably say that this small out-of-the-way temple has a tiger guardian theme.
I’ve got a lot more to post about this walk of a few weekends past, but there’s too much to put into one entry, so I’ll spread the whole thing over several posts. Stay tuned for the New Dolsan Bridge, Hamel Light, Jongpo Ocean Park and the Mystery Building.
P.S. Weather today in Yeosu–2 inches of rain, according to the Korean Meteorological website, with just as much forecast for tomorrow.
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- Settling In and Hurricanes No, I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth–just busy settling in at Yeosu and teaching classes at the university. This weekend and Monday is the Korean holiday of...
I’ve been walking quite a bit on weekends around the city and have taken some more photos, a few of which are shown below for your perusal. The nights have become rather chilly, but daytime is still pleasantly mild. Early morning jogging requires at least half an hour before I can work up a sweat. Winter is just around the corner, but luckily, this area receives no snow, I’m told.
Here’s a photo of a church just outside of campus, nestled in the trees below a mountain. As far as I can tell, Korea’s Christian population is split between Catholics and Evangelicals, and, of course, there are the occasional Mormon missionaries bicycling around town. Hopefully, I’ll get to some of the Buddhist temples soon.
Here’s a shot of some of the fall foliage spicing up the campus. This was taken just up the hill from the dormitory where I live.
I hiked down to one of the harbors a few weekends ago and caught these scenes. The first one is of the famous Dolsan bridge, leading to the island of Dolsan. There are many nighttime photos of it, when it’s structure is highlighted by multi-colored lighting. That’s one of my assignments–getting some night shots of the area. That might have to wait until the weather gets warm again.
This is a view of the harbor looking away from the bridge.
Though there doesn’t seem to be much cargo ship traffic in this section of Yeosu, there is plenty of activity, including tour boats, ferries, fishing boats and this ship-building yard.
Nai tells me that Laos is getting hit hard by the weather systems that have {{link http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-36293520081103 inundated Vietnam}}, with heavy rains and thunderstorms dominating their weather the last several days. I doubt, however, it is enough to cause the Mekong to flood again. More later.
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As promised, I’m finally posting some photos and comments about my recent trip to Laos and Thailand. Some of the comments I made in earlier posts, so if I duplicate myself, forgive me. I’ll post these over a period of days (hopefully), so hang in there.
Here’s a photo of my former Andong University colleague, Tyra, with whom I rendezvoused in Bangkok. She’s a Canadian and is now basking in the sun on the beaches of Bali. We also hooked up with Eugene, another former colleague (American), but for some odd reason I didn’t get any photos of him nor did he get any of me. Strange. Perhaps we were focused in on the lovely Tyra. You can see more photos of her at the Photo Gallery. This is at Wat Pho in Bangkok, site of the Reclining Buddha.
So, it was up to Laos after the short stay in Bangkok. I met Nai at the train station in Nong Khai, Thailand, and we crossed the border into communist Laos. Believe me, unless you have to deal with the bureaucracy, you wouldn’t know it was a communist state. The people, for the most part, are not political. Many of them dislike the system, but they accept it with a nonchalance that reflects their easy-going lifestyle, or so it seems to me. If another system were in place, they would probably feel the same way.
Anyway, we hung out at Nai’s house and in Vientiane for several days before heading up to Vang Vieng. Before leaving, Nai introduce me to his wonderful friends, Say (pronounced “sigh”) and his wife Joi (“joy”). Great people, who welcomed me into their home like I was a long-lost brother. I would see more of them when we returned to Vientiane later. Here are Say and Joi sharing a tender moment.
Then it was off to Vang Vieng, about which I have written. Like I stated in an earlier post, the weather was beautiful. Compare the following picture with the one I took last June.
Dry Season
Monsoon Season
Here are some photos from the river float. I’m not sure I’d want to try this during the rainy part of the year when the river is high. Here are Nai, a lady whose name I forget, and Guy (the friend of the woman) putting in at the start point.
Here’s Nai in a death defying slide at one of the many stops along the river.
And here is Robert, a fellow who was along with Guy and his girlfriend and who works in Vientiane, and Nai with a cool Beer Lao at one of the many beverage stations lining the river. Actually, it looks like they’ve had more than a couple.
There’s not a whole lot to do in Vang Vieng besides float the river. You can explore some caves or do a little hiking in the mountains. Here, Nai sits on a quaint, little, orange suspension bridge that leads to one of the caves. (Notice the Morocco cap he’s wearing.)
After a busy day on the river, though, you can visit, if that’s your thing, one of the many bars along the main tourist drag where seemingly bored tourists lay on futons watching reruns of “Friends,” something I just don’t understand. Why come all the way to Laos and then lay around like zombies entranced by the boob tube? And that seems to be all that these bars show, and there are plenty of them, at least half a dozen, all showing “Friends” reruns, speakers turned up to the max. Idiotic. Vang Vieng is infamous, though, for catering to the “pot head” tourist, so maybe the folks watching TV are actually pretty much “zoned out,” unable to do much of anything else. Just my opinion. I won’t patronize these places; the gal who came tubing with us suggested that we go to one to eat before we went out to the river, but I refused.
Or, you can walk along some of the side streets and try out some of the local food at one of the numerous vendors. Here we found some delicious chicken, broiled over the standard charcoal fire.
Ok, that’s enough for now. I’ll continue the journey to Luang Prabang the next post. More later.
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