A Weekend Away

Hello my faithful readers. I know it’s been a little while since I’ve written last, and for that, I apologize. The last couple weeks have gone by in a blur, but have been some of my best so far in Korea, on account of a number of things, but especially the beginning of some (or really one in particular) new relationship in my life. Anyone who is friends with me on Facebook probably knows what I am referring to, and yes, I do realize that it’s a bit bold. But hey; I’m a happy man right now, so figure that I should share that with the digital world, as well.

In any case, my recent adventures were highlighted by a trip I took last weekend with Rira to the southern coast of the country. The only other place I’ve been outside of the greater Seoul area is Busan, so I was very excited to get some more legitimate travelling under my belt. I let Rira do all of the planning and organizing for the trip, first of all because she is really good at that sort of thing, but also because the fact that she is Korean (and can read and speak the language fluently) made figuring out logistics a lot easier for her than it would have been for me. In fact, I kept telling her over the weekend that I don’t think I would have been able to manage the trip we took without her expertise and travel-savvy, so I was very happy to have her with me (for that, among other reasons).

We left very early Saturday morning from Anyang to the bus terminal in Seoul, where we caught a 7:50 a.m. bus to Tongyeong-Si, a small port city on the southern coast of the country. While I was expecting the kind of tour bus typical in America—with narrow, stiff seats and no legroom for a big guy like me—I was thrilled to find that the bus was really nice, with big, wide leather seats that had plenty of legroom and reclined for easy sleeping.

Like I mentioned, Rira had made a detailed two-day schedule for us to see as much as we could in the area, but when we got off the bus, we found out that the places we had planned to go were shut down because of heavy winds in the area. Our plans shot, we headed for the ferry terminal and bought tickets to the one boat that was still in operation despite the wind.

The ferry ride to Hansan-do (Island) lasted about 45 minutes or so and took us along the coast. It was a beautiful day, but windy on the boat, so after taking some pictures we spent the rest of the ride in the indoor compartment, lying on the heated wooden floor, surrounded by a dozen or so ajumas who were giving us some funny looks, probably because I was white and we were both under the age of 60.

Getting off the boat at the island, we went to the ranger’s station and found, to our very pleasant surprise, that we could sign out bikes for free to use to tour around the island. So off we went, helmets on heads (though just barely for me, on account of my American –sized noggin) with our economical modes of transportation, ready to explore the island.

We spent the next couple of hours riding along the tiny two-lane road, heaving our way up hills and coasting our way along Hansan-do. The island was beautiful; very sparsely inhabited, with sporadic clusters of worn down buildings separated by large expanses of farms, bogs, and open fields. Because of my less-than-ideal work schedule, I haven’t really had the chance to get out and see the Korean countryside that I’ve heard so much about, but this was exactly that kind of a rural environment. The scenery, combined with the really temperate weather, made it a fantastically enjoyable bike ride. Even my standard amount of sweating didn’t deter us from having fun.

By the time we reached the other side of the island, we were both pretty tired, and as it turned out, we got very lucky with our timing—even though the normal ferry schedule told us that the last boat to leave the island was at 6:30, the company moved that three hours earlier on account of the windy weather. We happened to run into some friendly park rangers who informed Rira of this information and were nice enough to throw our bicycles into the trunk of their truck and return them for us, while we caught the last bus that would get us back to the ferry in time to make it off the island! We kept joking that we were going to get stuck there, but this place was pretty remote, so it’s definitely a good thing we managed to get out (especially considering Rira had already paid for the hotel room that night). The bus ride to the ferry took us through some treacherously narrow roads, too, so we were basically just happy to still be in one piece by the end.

When the ferry deposited us back on shore in Tongyeong, we were both incredibly hungry, having not eaten anything since a couple of Dunkin Donuts bagels (which aren’t quite as good here, if you ask me) back at the bus station in Seoul, so we asked a policeman in the ferry terminal to point us in the direction of a good seafood restaurant, which is the pride of coastal cities like this. We found a street lined with restaurants, so we picked one that looked good and went in to eat.

Our early dinner was a seafood feast extravaganza, the kind that legends are made of. We were served probably 25 different small dishes, each of which boasted a unique brand of seafood, from fried fish to squid, octopus, shrimp, and a dozen other creatures that I couldn’t tell you the names of. Being the brave and easy-to-please eater that I am, I tried everything on the table, to the delight and surprise of Rira (I guess she’s used to those foreigners who only eat white rice and pizza). After all the side dishes were served, they brought out the main course of sashimi, followed by a steaming soup made from the leftovers of the diced fishes. The food just kept coming and coming, and though the meal was a bit pricey, we certainly got what we paid for; I left the restaurant about as full as I’ve been in a long time.

After dinner, we took a bus back to the main terminal, then caught another bus and a long cab ride that eventually got us to Geoje-do, an island right off the coast, where we stayed for the night at a pension overlooking the ocean.

On Sunday morning, we left the pension and, after a bit of directional confusion, caught a bus to Dojangpo, one Geoje-do’s ports. It was a beautiful day again, and we enjoyed a delicious lunch of ramyun and onion rings, then walked down to Sinsundae, or “Wind Hill,” and took some awesome pictures with a backdrop of sharp rock cliffs and clear, blue water.

In the afternoon, we got on a little boat that took us around a bunch of the smaller islands right off the coast, large rocks rising from the ocean almost like the heads of giant sea creatures. The boat guided us past Haegeumgang (“Beautiful Rock Mountain,” as Rira kindly translated for me) and into this crevasse in one of the islands that gave the impression of travelling into an ocean cave, before landing at Oedo, another island that happens to be owned by one particular person who clearly invested a fair amount of money beautifying the place’s landscape in the mold of the Baha’i Gardens. The tour gave us an hour and a half to peruse the island, taking in the well-kept gardens and admiring the views of the ocean and surrounding islands. Oedo, with its sculpted bushes and miniature models of famous Greek and Roman statues, seemed a little out of place on a tour of Korea, but it was nonetheless a gorgeous and relaxing afternoon.

After catching the ferry back to Geoje-do, we headed for the main bus terminal and caught a ride back to Seoul that got us in just in time to catch the subway home. Though a short trip, I felt like I got to see and experience a lot of new things, from beautiful scenery to shellfish that I couldn’t tell you the names of if I tried. The people we met along our travelling were also particularly friendly and excited to see a foreigner—I got more than the usual number of greetings and gawks from random Korean children eager to show off their extensive English vocabularies of “hello.” Overall, it was a weekend to remember, for sure.