May 18 Cemetery, Gwangju

Today me, Umer and Khisa went to May 18 Cemetery in Gwangju. It is located in the North east side of the city. The place is outside the city and the surrounding is covered by small mountains. We took a taxi from GIST. While going taxi driver took the long way and he entered the Honam Express way from Gwangjsan Interchange located at the west of GIST. It took us half an hour to reach the cemetery and we paid 13000 KRW. We visited the whole cemetery including the museum, photo room and grave yard area. The weather was very hot today. While coming back we again called a taxi with the help of the lady at the information counter of the cemetery. She also gave us booklet titled "A guide to May 18, Revisiting historical places of the May 18 Scenes" and a CD titled "Memento Memory, 10 Days of the memory of the May 18 Democratic uprising". The CD contains a documentry movie in Korean language with English subtitles on the democratic uprising. While coming back taxi driver took the shorter path and we reached in GIST only in 20 minutes and the meter showed 8300 KRW. We paid him 9300 KRW as we had to pay 1000 KRW extra to call a taxi on a remote place. Overall the place is very nice and one should definitely visit that place during his visit in Gwangju.

In Korea on October 26th, 1979, Kim Jae Kyu, the Chief of the Korea Central Intelligence Agency fatally shot President Park Chung Hee and brought the President Park's 4th Republic to an end.

After the Murder of President Park, Chun Doo Hwan seized power by executing 12-12 coup d'etat using his military influence.

However Koreans who have been thirsting for democracy under President Park's dictatorship held violent demonstrations which continued until May, 1980.

In response Chun's military authority declared martial law nationwide effective midnight of May 17th, 1980 and sent out the special airborne troops to Gwangju.

"Operation Nice Vacation" began in this manner.