Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

Up at 5:30 am.. sat outside of our room terrace facing the East Sea and watched the sun breaking through the clouds.. beautiful morning!

Melissa came over around 6:30, and Kelly, Melissa, and I walked a short distance from our Pension to the beach shore.

We were amazed to see many starfish "stranded" on the cement walk near the water's edge. A gentleman who was born in Korea but spoke excellent English, said he lives in the USA but was visiting friends. He told us of a lovely pagota a short distance from where we were standing.  His daughter and son were living in the Virginia area with government jobs. So we checked it out!

Kelly and Melissa walked a short distance through the woods to check out the oldest tree in the area!
We returned to our room where we washed up and got ready for breakfast.  Jeong Mi's mom used our stove to cook some of the meat for our breakfast.. she brought Kelly and I some hot potatoes to eat! Yummy!
We all went down to a separate room where the food was placed out in abundance!  Grapes, scrambled eggs, meat, lettuce - all good stuff!

                                            Picture above of our stove located in our room!

                                                      Banquet of breakfast foods!  Yummy!

                                                Aaron, how do we say "delicious" in Korean??!!
Then after saying goodbye to the dog, we climbed back into the limo van and headed down the road to the DMZ observation point and Korean War Exhibit.

                                                                  Next Stop: Tongil Security Park

                                                  What a view and what a climb!  hahaha

From the observatory we could see where S Korea ended and N Korea began.  A very sad state of affairs. The mountains in the background belong to N Korea.

                            We explored the museum and checked out the displays and monuments.

We left the exhibits with heavy hearts for a people who continue to fight wars to this day with their "family" to the north.  They talk of a Unificated Korea but we don't think we will see it in our lifetime.  Maybe in Jeong Mi's time...

We enjoyed the sights of the corn and rice fields and mountains and green land.  We traveled next to a Buddist Temple which we enjoyed a bowl of free noodles and enjoyed the temple architecture and scenery.

The walking of steps of various grades continued as our journey continued!  Back onto the bus where we ordered pizza to go -  then  the van continued on the roads toward the Sorak Cable Car ride!

There was a mountain view once we landed on solid ground but Kelly and I chose to stay and observe the beautiful scenery from that level!

When the group never arrived, we wondered if Mr. Park was not sure what we meant when we told him we would wait for the group and not walk up to the top.  So Kelly said he would go up to see if they were still up on the trail.. not having a phone to call to check on Aaron's location did prove to be a disadvantage this one time. We were really wondering what we should do.. but fortunately Kelly connected with the group as they were traveling down the trail and we all rode the cable car from the top of the mountain back to the beginning!

We walked back to the van and began the trip home.. Mrs. Park had watermelon cut up for us and after another rest stop we were Incheon bound.  Mr. Park and Aaron came back to where Kelly and I were seated on the bus and we had a wonderful conversation. Aaron did a wonderful job translating. Then Mrs. Park came back and we were able to visit with her as well..  Kelly and I are happy to know that Aaron is in good hands and that Jeong Mi has such caring parents.  They were certainly generous in all they did to try to show us the East coast of Korea and sites that will remain with us always.  We pulled into our apartment around 11:00 pm.. a bunch of tired travelers.. but so grateful for what Aaron and Jeong Mi and her parents have done for us so far...  the experiences continue... check out all our picassa pics from this day..
https://picasaweb.google.com/embruckart/Korean2011_6282011#5623262018876281618