Chris and Jenn go to Prison

On Tuesday we went to a museum prison. It was really cool. It was about the resistance when Japan occupied. The prison was under construction when Japan occupied Korea (late 1800’s), but the Japanese expanded the prison to hold 500 inmates. It became the center of the Japanese effort to stop the Korean resistance to the occupation. Many Koreans were tortured and killed there by the Japanese until the end of WWII, when Korea became independent of Japan. Since then, it has been turned into a museum (almost shrine) to remember the Korean patriots and heroes who fought to free Korea from Japanese aggression. It was pretty neat, although a little eerie, as some of the exhibits were rather realistic, sometimes including sound effects of people being tortured. It was still a neat experience though.

Brief history lesson: when Korea was occupied by the Japanese there was not enough space in the Korean prison system to hold more than about 300 people. This was because the Korean system of justice only used prisons for holding people until sentencing. There was no life imprisonment, or even other periods of imprisonment. My guess (and that is all it is) is that those who were deemed too dangerous to return to society were executed (not a bad idea in my opinion) and those who were able to return were either beaten, fined, or maybe both.

On Saturday we went shopping in Itaewon, so that Jenn could get some clothes that fit. The ones we brought are now too large for her and so she was having difficulty dressing appropriately for work (or other functions too). We were told that this was a good place to get “big size” clothes (by the way in Korea if you are a size 14 or larger you are “big size,” which is ridiculous in our opinion). We searched around and after looking in a few shops found a shop with some good options. The lady there helped out tremendously and helped Jenn pick out good clothes. She was fully honest, even telling Jenn when she did not look good in certain clothes, which we both appreciated. We spent more than I had wanted too, but Jenn really needed some clothes and she needed them now. The clothes were reasonably priced, and she got 4 dresses that fit her well and are quite nice.

While in Itaewon, we also ate at a Subway restaurant. This would not normally be noteworthy, except it was the first one I had seen, and Jenn had been craving a ham sandwich for a while. After the sandwiches we took the subway back towards home. We got off one stop early and went to a theater and saw the new Star Trek movie. It was pretty good, although I had a few complaints about it, but Jenn thought it was great.

Sunday we had an outdoor service at a park somewhere else. I really don’t know where it was. We met at the church around 10:40am and then carpooled to the park from there. We had a great time. After the shorter than normal service, we had a picnic lunch that was quite good, we spent a couple hours fellowshipping with each other and playing simple group games, such as duck, duck, goose. We had a blast getting to know some of the people better. It was a really good time.

At about 2:30-3pm we left the park and were dropped off at home by Pauline, one of our really cool Korean friends here. We rested for an hour and then got on the subway to go to Seoul Tower. Seoul Tower is a tall tower built on top of a tall hill near Seoul. Inside the tower are several restaurants of varying expense and quality. We the subway exit we met a couple (Nikki and R.J.) that Jenn has been corresponding with who live at the exact opposite end of our subway line (there are at least 7 subway lines in the Seoul area). R.J. is in the Army and is posted nearby. We met them through Jenn’s mom, who works with Nikki’s mother (?), who mentioned to Jenn’s mom that her daughter was also in Korea. It’s an interesting way to meet people, but we had a blast together.

After meeting Nikki and R.J. we walked up a rather long hill to the cable car that takes you up to Seoul Tower. This cable car costs a bit of money, but as we looked down from the car we were very glad we had decided to pay for the ride rather than walk that long, uphill or stairs distance. It was probably a good half-mile or more. After going up the cable car we found that we still had around a hundred stairs to go up. We got a good work out tonight:-) When we got to the tower we purchased our tickets to go up to the top of the tower to the restaurant, which conveniently did have space for us. The restaurants are reservation only, but since R.J. had tried to make reservations, but had been hung up on repeatedly by non-English speakers, we did not have any. We resolved that with the help of a Korean who worked at the tower (don’t know what his job proper was) and soon we were on our way.

The restaurant was very nice. The floor revolves slowly (48minutes to revolve) around the tower as you sit, which was a pretty neat experience, and because of the height of the tower (largely due to the height of the hill it is on) we had a spectacular view. We should have pictures later, I rather stupidly forgot to bring the camera, so we don’t have any right now. The dinner was very, very good, although it was very, very expensive. Jenn and I split a plate and it still cost us 90,000Won (approximately $80). This is by far more than we had planned to spend (our companions were also surprised by the prices), but we decided that we would go ahead and eat there anyway as it was a rather unique event and we do not plan on returning to eat there again.

When we finished our meal, we headed down to the observation deck, which wasn’t as exciting since had had a better view during dinner, but was still interesting. Then we headed down to the ground level and looked around. We found an interesting fence decorated with padlocks (some of which were painted and decorated) and bike locks. We also had a nice view of the area and they were having a light show nearby. From a distance we saw a man performing in the center of the lights. We went down from the platform we were on to watch (it was also on the way home) and then noticed that the man was not wearing any clothes, but his boxers. His other clothes were on the ground in the light circle. We were a little concerned, but figured he was a performer (of what we weren’t sure) and that he wouldn’t take off his shorts too. Happily he didn’t. Strangely, we found out that the man was NOT a performer, but actually a random person (probably drunk) dancing and stripping in the light circle. Shortly after this discovery security came and escorted the man (and his clothes) off the property. All in all it was a good experience, but not one we plan on repeating. We may go back to Seoul Tower, but not to eat at the restaurants.