Chinhae, South Korea

Back in early May, I had the good fortune of being sent on a business trip to Chinhae (sometimes seen as Jinhae), South Korea. Although my work provides service for Korea, I had yet to go over during my previous three years in Asia. What a great trip...

Chinhae is a small city about an hour or so from Busan, Korea's second largest city. The US has a small navy presence there, but it is in the shadows of the Korean navy's much larger presence there. The rest of the city embraces the military areas, but the place has a very small town feel to it, almost like some of the country towns along the mid-Atlantic area where I grew up. Except pretty much everyone on the streets is speaking Korean.

Since it was my first (and maybe last...) trip to Chinhae, I wanted to see it all. I walked the town's central area about a half dozen times, taking pictures of almost everything I saw. Except the areas that the Koreans have posted the "NO PHOTOS HERE" signs, basically, anywhere in range of the military zones.

During the weekend while I was in Korea, I took advantage of a MWR trip to Jirisan National Park, to visit a temple and a waterfall. The last real hike I'd been on was my Mt Fuji trip several years back, and man did it wear me out!

During my stay, I also ate fun foods, visited a farmer's market, strolled along an eco garden... and I did some work, too. The photos turned out great and they are in the Gallery, dated 07/09/2009.