Boryeong and Sapsido Island

So the three day weekend has come to an end sadly, but what a fantastic time it was! I unfortunately forgot my camera (part of the reason why I am investing in a new one) so I have to wait for other to give me their pictures to send them along. Like I said in a previous post it started very early on Saturday morning with me dragging my bike down to the World Cup Stadium taxi stand. There abouts I met up with some of my partners in crime, the Canadians Lindsay and Thomas (I have been told that I often refer to where my friends are from so I will keep this trend going) and we started out to the bus station. Now normally this would be a run of the mill activity catching a cab to a bus station but somehow we made it into something pretty screwed up. We couldn't find our friends that were joining us and ended up going in circles for awhile before we finally agreed to meet up at the bus station.

At the Bus station we found the rest of our crew, Lauren, Christi, and Colin my American brethren, and Scott a canuck from Ontario. Now all we were missing was our Korean accoutrement's, namely three girl teachers from my school. We had about 15 minutes before the bus was scheduled to leave and they were no where to be found. So we called them...turns out they were 20 minutes away, but they had a plan! There sure fire plan was to have us tell the bus to wait. Er what was that again? They said we should go up to the bus driver explain that our friends were tardy and ask them to hold the bus. Well that would be all well and good except none of us knew nearly enough Korean to make that a reality. So we waited. The minutes passed ever so slowly, creeping closer and closer to our scheduled departure. 10 minutes. No girls. 8 minutes, no girls and a Korean man gesturing us to get on the bus. 5 minutes, no girls! Finally with 3 minutes to spare they arrive! Kate and Hennah (who is really one of the funniest people I have met) show up and quickly buy there tickets hurray! But wait...where is the third Korean girl, Kimberly? Turns out that they were not together and we still might miss the bus. Good grief! Luckily she turns up right before we leave and we all scuttle onto the bus. Off to Boryeong and Daecheon Ferry Terminal!

The bus ride was largely uneventful, barring that while everyone was sleeping Colin and I had an extensive conversation about baseball, to the point that one of our friends asked "How long will you continue to talk? People are trying to sleep!" Not to be dismayed by the opportunity to talk shop we just talked a little more quietly.

We arrived in Boryeong with little hassle, though the Konglish (Korean English) that was written on the walls was something fantastic. My personal favorite being Manless Tourism Attractions Guide, for an automated information booth. We hopped on the city bus and were off to the ferry terminal.

Now it turns out that there are only 3 ferry trips out the island everyday and all of them were booked solid. So we had to arrange for an alternate method of travel. What we came up with was paying a local fisherman to drag us out there on his rinky dink boat. Unfortunately for us it was going to be a tad expensive (23k won) and wouldn't arrive for hours, but hey we had to get out to the island right? So we spent the afternoon on the beach swimming and making a sand castle, my additions to it were lacking style and largely unimaginative, until completion when I came up with a brilliant idea for a flag. After we had finished building the sand castle Hennah found a large piece of seaweed that she proclaimed to be a monster attacking the keep. I told you she was funny, among the other things that she has done was attempted to feed a fly because it was begging by rubbing its hands together. Oh Hennah...

So we had finished our beach escapades and went back to find our fisherman friend, after getting lost several times on the wharf we found the lovely old chap. Turns out we had to have a little bit of subterfuge and claim that we were chartering his boat to go fishing so the Coast Guard wouldn't arrest him. After signing the waiver and seeing off Johny Law we were on our way to Sapsido. Really the private vessel was a fantastic way to head out to the island and was a good start for what turned out to be a great adventure.

On the island we were picked up and driven to our pension building, where we would be staying in the Pension commissioners suite er... ondal suite. Apparently there was a snafu with the arrangements and we argued down the price but we had a place to stay. So it was off to another beach for the rest of the evening!

This beach was far from sandy but had a bevy of sea creatures and animals to see. We played in the mud and tried digging for shells before realizing we could go clam hunting at no charge. All you had to do was dig a small hole, look for water spots in the sand and pour some salt and then watch as a clam came shooting up to be snagged. Some of them put in a good fight but we captured a bucket full of what we lovingly referred to as tube slugs, thanks to there distinct tubular shells, and slug like appearance. Now this had to have been one of the most exciting things I have ever done before, all twelve of us were running up and down the beach with shovels and screeching with delight upon every successful capture of a tube slug. Lots of fun. I highly recommend it.

After tube sluggin, the sun had set and we were getting a tad peckish, so we went to one of the few restaurants on the island and had some good ol' samgyupsal. It was on the walk back through rice paddies and treacherous confined streets that we were accosted! It turns out that the island folks spray some type of pesticide to keep the insects down, unfortunately for us we happened to be outside when they came around with the evil white cloud of death. We had to run through the mist and luckily no one was hurt but it was a little scary. It was night time and the agenda called for a waterside campfire filled with singing and drinking. I will say that my musical likings are a bit different than others here so I was largely quiet for the rest of the night.

Well the trip home was less eventful, with us buying tickets on the ferry. Except that apparently a car had fallen into the ocean while we were there, and we were shooed away from seats like birds, complete with ticking sounds. Now I am back home and excited to begin the work again as June appears to have lots of interesting events. I am trying to plan a trip to Japan for July and we will see how that goes. Until then I will surely find someway to keep myself occupied.

See ya Pasties!