Gwangyang City, May 21-22, 2007

On May 21, we arrived at Gwangyang City. Gwang stands for sun and Yang stands for light. So Gwangyang is said to be the "Sunshine" city. The name derives from the fact that Gwangyang winter months are mild and sunny most of the time.

We visited Gwangyang Municipal Library. There are two libraries in the city, the Municipal library being the main library. The library has a cultural center attached to it. The library building has three floors. The first floor is the Children's area. The Children’s area has three separate areas. The main area is where the collection is housed, then there is an area designated to Toddlers where the board books are located. Right next to this room, there is a corner room that has a changing bed and an area for parent and baby. I thought this was pretty cool. Children’s programming is held on Saturday’s and authors/illustrators visit the library for special type programs. The library gets the children involved in NIE (Newspaper in Education), drama and has the children create a neat area called the “Tree House”. This area is designated for reports of books kids have read that they’ve written on a cut-out leaf that has been posted on a cut-out tree. The main children’s area has a catalog computer and two self check-out machines. The staff there demonstrated how it works and it’s pretty much the same as the self check out we have in LOPL system.

The second floor has the adult collection and the Acquisition’s department and the third floor is the audio/visual and computer room. There is another room that houses computers that is designated to training. There is an area designated for break and food. Items can be checked out for a period of (14 days) two weeks. There is a limit of five items per checkout period. The library is a funded by the government. There is a bookmobile that travels to areas where the community doesn’t have access to library. Oh and the library is Wi-Fi. The most significant thing about this library system is that one can get a library card anywhere in the Country of S. Korea and be able to use any library in the entire country.

After lunch we went to Baegunsan Natural Resort Forest where we took a short nap in a log cabin and took a walk afterwards on a yellow soiled path. The yellow path is a red clay pathway that is laid out with bricks that pricks the feet when you walk on it. We walked on these bricks barefooted. The rest of the path was hard clay, mixed with small pebbles here and there. The thirty minute walk was said to refresh us and make us feel healthier the following day.

That evening we went separately to our host families homes. My host mom, Mrs. Kang, though spoke no English, made me feel so much at home. She made the traditional Korean tea for us, in which we enjoyed and shared together. The following morning we went walking and shared in yet another time together.

The morning of May 22 was spent at the Knife Museum. We saw many Jandos (traditional knives of Korea). Some replicas of those used in film such as Braveheart. We saw beautiful knife cases shaped in trees and others made from gold, silver, bamboo and paper. We saw some stone knives and some that is used by Kings. The walking stick that is also a knife when it’s opened was interesting. There were some knives that we saw that are used by women for self-defense and knives for all other occasions.

We met with the Vice Mayor and met Chairman (equivalent to City Manager) of the City and told them about our city and area. We went to Pizza Hut for lunch and stuffed ourselves silly (well, I did anyway). After lunch we made our way to the Gwangyang Container Terminal Authority Port. It’s said to become the Northeast Asian logistics Hub port for the 21st century in International trade. After the port, we went to POSCOS Steelworks. Now this was the most impressive. POSCOS has the up-to-date facilities and cutting-edge steel technologies in everything you can think of that’s made from steel. It is one of the largest area attractions in Korea. Most of what used to be handled by people is now being done with computers. The steel making process is amazing. We watched but since we couldn’t take pictures, we’re not able to share them with you. More stories to come…