For Chusok, which is pretty much the Korean equivalent of Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, we had a long weekend from school. If Chusok falls during the week, you can have up to the whole week off, but this year we were unlucky. Whatever, I’ll take whatever long weekends I can get. Chusok is the holiday where you leave the city and go give thanks and offer the harvest to your ancestors. Since no one’s ancestors live in Seoul, you have about 10 million people leaving the city for the weekend. Flights and trains are virtually booked months in advance and traffic can take up to eight hours to just leave the city. With not to many options to travel, we headed on the subway to Incheon and the West Islands.
Incheon to Seoul is like Dartmouth to Halifax. It’s a pretty big city, but out on the sea. It only took us about an hour to get there on the metro after work. We found the motel in Lonely Planet we were looking for just outside the subway stop right away. It was a hilarious love motel. For a pretty nice room it only cost $30 per night. When we checked in we got a love kit in a ziplock bag complete with desensitizing cream, lube, etc. The room also had a hilarious red light, rope, and a DVD player with dirty movies for rent. We had a light and late dinner at Cafe Castle after a walk through China town. It was at the top of the hill overlooking the whole city and the water. The sandwich was the most hilarious thing yet with jam, pickles, a cheese slice and cabbage. It was actually pretty good. The gardens and flowers on the roof and inside the building were amazing. After eating we walked through the park at the top of the hill. There were some really cool LED light shows like an enchanted forest, and a huge monument the US for saving South Korea from the North.
The next day after spending some time at the main ferry pier looking for the fast ferry to Muuido, we gave up and headed to Wolmido warf to catch the slow ferry. Wolmido is a cool boardwalk along the water with fair rides and lots of shops and midway games. The ferry was hilarious, about three bucks, and you walked down a cement ramp that it dropped its loading ramp onto. The short trip took us to the same big island that the Incheon airport is on, but you wouldn’t know it from where we were. We caught the bus right away that took us past the airport and right to the causeway connecting to another tiny island. The bus stop was behind a huge fish market, and the bus driver looked remarkably like an Asian Elvis, complete with the sunglasses. We walked over the causeway, staring at all the mudflats and ajuma ladies collecting oysters. On the tiny island Jamjindo, we caught another little ferry for Muuido. The ferry basically left the dock, turned around, and then docked again on this very short trip. We were the lone white couple travelling with all the locals getting away from Seoul for the weekend. Just a couple short ferry rides out of the city and you could barely tell you left the traffic, noise, and buildings of Seoul so close by.
On Muuido we walked through the fishing village and climbed up and back down a small mountain to get to the beach resort on the other side of the island. It was so peaceful and tranquil and all alone here. The resort had a $2 admission fee to check out the beach. Most Koreans in late September are no into the beach or the water at all. It was still in the high 20’s though, so we dropped our towels and laid out for some rays. Koreans aren’t big on tans, it makes them look poor. There were even people on the beach with umbrellas or wearing suits. We could see the next beach we were going to head to across the water with a lot more development on it.
After a quick lunch at the Family Mart convenience store and another ferry ride, we were back on the same bus we just got off and on our way to Eulwangni Beach on the island Yeongjongdo, the same island as the airport. We went searching for another cheap love motel for the night. There was a huge Western style hotel with a waterslide, and tons of places all along the really nice beach, even one shaped like the front of a cruise ship. We settled on a little one with a deck and headed for some walking on the beach. The beach here was beautiful and the sunset was amazing. There were some huge rocks at the end with big waves crashing along them. It started to get really windy and cold, really really windy, but we roughed it out and watched the sun go down over the water. Then we went in search of some dinner. This was an issue as every single restaurant served only shellfish and fish. Not our favourite. We found probably the only place with beef barbeque, galbi, and it was awesome. We watched the ladies of other restaurants all along the beach try and desperately wrangle in customers, and the locals on the beach lighting fireworks.
More buses, ferries, and cabs later we were back in Incheon and boarding another ferry, bound for Deokjeokdo this time. This island is about 90 kilometres off the coast and even more isolated. The high speed ferry got us there right away, and the windy ride was beautiful. We coasted by the new city skyline, the huge bridge to the airport, and Muuido and all the other islands along the way. Deokjeokdo was even more beautiful. We caught a little bus from the fishing village to Seopori Beach. The beach was amazing with 300 year old pines lining it. We found a minbak for sleeping. This is just a traditional Korean hotel room with no furniture and mats for sleeping. The place was crawling with foreigners, all on their breaks too. A bunch were camping along the beach, or drinking in big groups outside their minbaks. We ate at one of the sketchiest places ever, but it had amazing food and the guy spoke English. A big thunder and lightning storm was rolling around, so we watched it from the eating place, the beach and then wandered around the little beach village.
The next and final day of our weekend we thought it would be a good idea to hike the islands highest peal. The mountain was way bigger than we thought, but we had fun hiking until it got too dangerous for us to scale jagged rock faces and shimmy along ledges. The view from the smaller peak of the beaches and islands was amazing. After making it back down in one piece we just chilled on the beach in the sun. It was almost tropical. We caught a shuttle van on the road back to the fishing village to make out 5pm ferry with lots of time to spare. The Korean family that joined us in the van was apparently trying to make the ferry that left in 10 minutes. We tore out of the village, took the turns on two wheels and sped up and down the hills back to the ferry pier. The driver was on his cell phone pretty calm the whole time, but we were scared for our lives. He even sped the whole way down the pier past the line loading the boat and I thought we were going to drive off the pier into the water. We caught this early boat back too.
We caught a taxi to the metro station and had a pretty sleepy ride back home.
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