Trip to Haenam (Day 2)

I woke up the next morning at 7.00 am, to catch the earliest monorail ride to the watch tower. This is what i saw while walking to the station... so beautiful... so calming ... i really like Haenam, I like Ddangkeut.

It's amazing that weathering can cause this stone to look like a man's face.

This is the tower, and as you can see, there's a track up to the tower, that's the monorail track.

This is the cute monorail, two cubicles.

View from the monorail cubicle.

Reached finally.

We got off and then walked further until we reach the southest point of the Korea Peninsular !

Here i stand at the end point of the Korea Peninsular.

I had a wonderful breakfast at the end point of Korea Peninsular...

Next destination, Dinosaur Museum !!

The dinosaurs are so real.

Dinosaurs lived here millions of years ago, the evidences are bones, egg fossils, skin fossils, foot prints, tracks etc that are found here.



This is our tour guide, a mobile ''English speaking guide''. It has remote sensors where it can sense where you are standing at, and explain according to the display items that you are looking at.

Real bones of T-Rex

These are real too.

Foot prints of dinosaurs

Track of dinosaurs, they found this in Haenam and made this into an enclosed exhibition hall.

Real skull of an ancient man.

Dinosaur egg fossils

This is bone fossil of a flying ancient bird.

How i wish dinosaurs are still alive... they are really amazing vertebrates.


Next Post Preview: My Temple Stay Experience.

Trip to Haenam (Day 1)

I spent 3 days in Haenam last week. The trip was great and i really enjoyed the beautiful scenery of Haenam. Haenam in chinese character is '海南' (Hainan) ! It's the same as the Hainan Island in China, I was surprised when I first saw the word '海南' in the map. '南' is South, and '海' is sea, that makes sense because Haenam is at the South Western part of the Korean Peninsular overlooking the Yellow Sea.

We left Gwangju at 5.00 pm and reached Haenam Bus Terminal at 6.30 pm. After that we took a bus from the terminal to Ddangkeut and put up a night at a motel. The motel is clean, comfortable and most importantly cheap. Ddangkeut means 'end of the land', which is the southest part of the Korea Peninsular. It's a small township with harbour, motels, restaurants and stores.

Surrounded by green green agricultural land.

The bus that we took to Ddangkeut - Kumho Bus Line

Motel that we stayed.
Room (Only 30,000 won for a room this big)

Seafood dinner

Synchrotron at POSTECH

Yes, it is Synchrotron not Megatron or Cybertron or anything from Transformers.

NOT THIS

IS THIS

(Picture of a French University synchrotron)

The round building in the picture is a synchrotron and i was given a golden opportunity to visit a synchrotron, the one and only in Korea at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH). The Korean synchrotron is named Pohang Light Source (PLS). Basically this is a facility usually in the size of a football field or larger to create high frequency electromagnetic radiation. A synchrotron has to be round in shape so that the beams can run in a circular path under the pressure of magnetic fields to be accelerated close to the speed of light. There are only about 50 such facility in the world. The cost of building one is really high and the cost to maintain it in long tem is even higher. The designs of all synchrotrons are different but they are using the same principle. The Diamond Light Source in UK is one of the famous synchrotrons found.

This is Diamond Light Source, isn't it beautiful ?

So now, you should be wondering why do they want to produce light at the speed close to the speed of light... The ultra bright light produced will be channelled out to workstations where experiments can be carried out. The light can be used in super microscopes where scientists can view structure of tiny substances, like the protein structure.The fields of science that can be applied include biosciences, medical research, mineral exploration, environmental sciences, materials enginering and forensic sciences.

There's so much science behind this thing so it's impossible for me to tell them all here. This is a video explaining the working principle of synchrotron at PLS, it's a good video where it can help you understand more about it. Click here ---> VIDEO OF PLS SYNCHROTRON

Inside storage ring of PLS.

I have to wear this whenever i enter the storage ring, the red colour thing is a dosimeter for measurement of radioactive exposure.

Guest house for users of PLS. The guest house is very proper, it's a 3 room apartment with kitchen, living room and bedrooms.We put up a night at this apartment.

POSTEH is a town itself with buildings, apartments, shops, schools and traffic lights around.

Walking around the storage ring in the synchrotron.