Wandering and Wondering

I spent a few hours wandering the Chonnam University Campus in Gwangju last weekend during Alden's GRE exam. It's a beautiful campus - rolling hills with notable architecture, impressive fountains and deciduous trees in full colour.

It was a Saturday morning, but there were still plenty of people on campus. There was some sort of communal fair/garage sale happening on the track, and there were people milling about the dorm areas and around the covered seated areas. I also came across an older guy with white hair and a big bushy white beard waiting around the outside of the dinosaur museum (http://www.dinosaur.co.kr - it's in Korean, but if you click around, there are some good pics). We started talking, and it turned out he was an Aussie professor, who was here to work on a project for a few months. They were busily trying to complete the UNESCO paperwork to try to have the dinosaur nests and footprints in the area declared UNESCO heritage sites (the deadline was in January, and I can certainly believe that there would be that much paperwork). He let me into to the museum, and showed me around. There was also a video playing, discussing the sites and comparing them to other sites around the world. There were even some interviews with scientists working at the Royal Tyrell Museum, so that was a nice touch of home.

I also came across several reminders of the May 18th, 1980 uprising that took place in Gwangju. It is to Korea what the Tiananmen Square Massacre is to China. In response to the martial law imposed by the military government, thousands of democratic protesters took to the streets (some sources say over 100,000 people). Over 200 protesters were massacred during the uprising, which lasted until May 27th. There is a touching write-up in the lonely planet which I will post here when I get the chance. It really affected me... and reminded me of seeing the monument to the desaparecidos in the cemetery in Santiago, Chile.

After this, I went to meet up with Alden. It sounds like the test went well, so now we just have to wait the six weeks until the he gets the results. Here's to hoping!


P.S. For those of you who wanted to see the love motel, here is a picture. The was the inside of the room!