Okpo...More like Borophyl

Geoje Island (the largest island in Korea) is somewhat of an anomaly.  It is beautiful and looks very Korean.  It has thousands of Koreans living on it.  However, it's practically like being in a different, much less homogenous country.  There are a few reasons for this.  First, which is mostly conveyed visually but does have a story, is Okpo Land.  Okpo Land was an amusement park that operated in the 90s.  The story goes that more than one person died on the rides.  The final one, in 1999, was a girl who fell off the birdie kid ride (pictured later).  Her family received no compensation, no apology, and the park shut down immediately and the owner vanished.  

As he didn't have time to sell off the rides, they just stayed there in the same condition they were in the day the park closed down.  Since then, nature has since reclaimed most of it.  Because of its ease of access and the non-confrontational attitude of most Koreans, it has become somewhat of a cult tourist site for the intrepid urban explorer.  You can find several internet pages devoted to it and a myriad of pictures of the various rusting attractions.  Here are more:

 

The open gate (notice the razor wire that serves no purpose).

Rides and the like.

 

The straw that broke the camel's back, asitwere.

This place was Scooby Doo creepy.  And, family, I'm not going to lie, it was also dangerous.  Rusting things on the top of a mountain with minimal precautions are not the smartest things to be climbing all over but, as you can tell, the pictures are worth it.  What a gem.  To spoil the fun a bit, according to Wikipedia, Okpo Land lies in its abandoned state because the land has been zoned for environmentally low-impact projects.  I think we can both agree that the first story is much better.

Now for the other reason why Geoje Island is a world far removed from the rest of Korea.  Okpo is also home to one of the largest shipyards in the world: The Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) shipyard.

 As such, Okpo has a large revolving international population.  This creates a strange atmosphere in such a homogenous society.  On one hand, we were able to have authentic Thai food from a restaurant run by Thai people.  We could have also chosen from Pakistani, Vietnamese, Turkish or Indian food.  This is something rarely accomplished outside of Seoul.

On the other hand, there are literally dozens of "Foreigner Clubs" littered around the downtown area.  What is a foreigner club?  Well, essentially, this is an establishment wherein overweight, middle aged white guys pay to keep the company (in whatever sense of the word) of imported Filipino women.  I swear it's a coincidence that my travels of late seem to contain a lot of prostitutes.  It was very much like Southeast Asia and both revolting and entertaining to watch, and I suppose you can't have an international population in Asia without Filipino prostitutes.  

Despite seeing maybe two Korean people the entire night, we still had a good time and met some pleasant young men from Angola who, according to them, make seven thousand dollars a month.  As of next week, I will be moving to Okpo to get a job at the shipyard.