Geoje City.

I absoultely love the area we are living in. When Mia our recruiter told us Geoje Island was very beautiful, I had no idea. It is such a mix of so many different things. The picture below is a part of the main street we walk almost everyday on our way to school or to Home Plus or to really any other part of the Island. I am constantly amazed at the simplicity amid the ever present push toward complexity.

This is actually just outside the bus station but it is a block of farmers ladies who sell their vegetables right off the sidewalk. Cars whizz by them, but these "Ajumas" ( Korean for elderly ladies!!!) sell their kimchi and HUGE squash, tomatos, spices and fruits like it is 30 years ago. Korea is at such odds trying to advance with technology, but it is the beauty of farmers who make their living selling you delicious apples on the corner for 1000 won ( less than a dollar, mind you) that are what make living in Korea so different and exciting. We walk down the street and see squid in plastic tupperware flipping about ( I almost got squirted with water one day!). It is always a suprise...

Korea is also quite random, as we are finding out, this picture above was taken of a Giant Roman statue with the head of a pig and eyes that light up. Joseph thought it was hilarious, and I am sure we take it out of context, but it was outside a seafood restaurant... not sure why.

One of our tours of the city lead us up this street of many restaurants, and modern clothing stores, but this botique on the corner caught my eye. This dress in the window is traditional Korean outfits... the dress is called a Hanbok... and is worn on holidays and for weddings... they come in so many colors and can be custom made to fit anyone's taste... they are very beautiful, but very expensive.

The wild life, and the abundance of it is always apparent. We say this one lady bug, which was HUGE... we finally figured out why the call them "ladybirds" here... the bugs (aka small ones) are in America, and the HUGE ones ( as seen above) are in Korea... so Birds are bigger than bugs... hence "Lady Birds"... we are holding up a 100 won piece, which is about the size of a quarter.... yikes!!!!

Geoje Island is also a mix of Big city and mountain town. We are constantly saying, "Ohhh this looks like Boone" and "wow, this must be what it is like in NYC"... The mountain landscape always feels like it is surrounding us, and has a homey feel to it. It reminds me of some of my time back at Appstate! Living in a valley with mountains any which way you looked.... it is just weird now that there is also an ocean too. We found a Big bridge in our exploration, so we took a few shots to show how big the city truly can be!

I am standing on the other side of the bridge, you can see it behind me but there is a huge side of a mountain filled with 30-40 apartment buildings. Since space is so limited, up is the only way to go. These huge High rise buildings litter the city, but they can be very pretty all lit up at night.

This picture above is a zoomed photo of what was behind me... See all those buildings... This river that we took the bridge over runs right next to the city, so we usually find that on a map and try to plot a path for that days adventure!
You don't have to use a bridge though, you can also cross the river other ways... we didn't go this way, because it had rained a bit and Flip flops + wet rocks = Ali falls down alot!

They have a Huge Samsung port in the harbor and they build these carrier ships... This is just part of the normal background, although we don't hear much from the harbor... I am sure there are times when it can get noisy!

This was just one picture of the Fish market.... I wanted to take more, but as you can see it is always very busy... when walking around, it is hard to even stop and look, because so many people are pushing through trying to get the best deal on fish or trying to purchase some rice cakes or Kimchi.... ( actually right after I took this picture a guy on a scooter drove out of that sidewalk... I have No idea how he managed that without hitting at least fifty people) The fish market has different stalls, about four or five square blocks of just market. People ( mostly fisherman) bring their catch here to sell each day (although many farmers with vegetables and women who sell beautiful handmade rice cakes also. ) Many store and restaurant owners come out to buy fresh fish to serve for the day. Joseph and I didn't plan on running into about 3000 people so we hurried through,but we will go back and take more pictures one saturday since it was really very cool!

One thing Joseph and I have not done yet is leave the island, but we did find the ferry dock... yes... very high tech, and safe! ( we were kinda shocked there were no railings!) But if little kids can do it without falling in, so can we. ( and falling in would be scary, because this port leads right out to the ocean, and we actually can see fish swimming around in it, and occasionally jelly fish...ew!)

These two guys are the symbols of Geoje, they have names, but they are in Korean, ( and we have trouble with 1-10 so I am not even going to attempt to teach you how to say them) but we refer to them lovingly and our Jelly bean friends!

Another fun thing about living here, is the focus on health, Koreans feel that living a healthy lifestyle is very important, so we went for a walk through the park, and instead of slides and see-saws... they have WORK OUT EQUIPMENT... just in case you have like 20 spare minutes before going to work! You can get your workout on!

And one more of Joseph "feeling the burn!"

Whew.... was that fun or what!