I left my house at 8 a.m. on Saturday, met Leticia, Nerina, Greg and Amber at the Masan bus station and we took the first bus to Suncheon. However, the bus decided (for some silly reason) to take a 15-minute break halfway (even though it's just a little over an hour away), which meant that we missed the 11 a.m. bus to Wando by...get his...ONE MINUTE. The next bus left 3 hours later. Bit of a downer, but we were all in good spirits (in part thanks to the seemingly endless bottles of wine the girls kept producing). We decided to have a little picnic on the sidewalk in Suncheon and a bunch of friendly Koreans came to talk to us, say hi, etc. We finally made the bus, which took around 3 hours to get to Wando, where we grabbed a cab and ended up at the beach just before 6 p.m., fairly exhausted and some of us showing the first signs of a hangover. But...the beach was worth it! It was a gorgeous sandy beach, and even though the weather wasn't too great (overcast and kind of chilly), the mood was awesome. My beach pictures are from the next day, because the weather was much better (I'll have a pano soon, too). Sorry, the pics aren't the best, I left the beast at home and just took the little Canon G9 with me:
My backpack/tent (with my blanket on the beach) at our home base...just to give you guys an idea as to the gorgeous views we had all day:
Foreigner city on the beach:
After settling in, we mingled with the crowds and bumped into some old friends, though I think I set the record for the oldest friend to randomly bump into there. I went to TRU with Pete (we were both in the journalism program) back in 2006-2007 and then we briefly worked together at the Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune newspaper in 2008 before I left for Edmonton. Pete has been in Boseong for about 9 months, so it was awesome to catch up on stuff. Pretty crazy that we keep ending up in the same places.
When night fell, the Fire God (some half-naked, tattooed dude who made it his mission to not only birth, but nurture the fire the whole night long) started a bonfire that went all night long...it was a wicked atmosphere with everybody making friends with everybody, some people playing guitars and singing, others just enjoying the ocean (including some hairy dude who decided that skinny dipping about 100 feet from the crowd was the best thing to do). Oh yeah...they also had some fireworks...pretty neat...some pics from the night:
Fireworks:
It was very misty/hazy at night...made for some cool shots...
The crowd around the bonfire at around midnight:
I called it a night at around 2 a.m., and it was surprisingly easy to get to sleep. I set up my tent (just to see how easy it was, I waited until nightfall and did it alone...got it all done in about 10 minutes!) just off the beach , and the sound of the waves crashing on the smooth sand put me to sleep in no time...it was blissful!
In the morning, we woke up early and it was very, very foggy, which gave the place a wicked feel...our home base...from left to right...Nerina and Greg in sleeping bags, my tent, Leticia's tent...they're cheapo little 20k won (aka about 17 dollars) tents from Home Plus (think Wal Mart) and they are wicked! Small, light and perfect for one or two people for a couple of nights:
Once the weather cleared up, this was the view from my tent...can't really complain!
Leticia and I were up before the rest of our gang, so we went for a bit of a walk and saw some really beautiful stuff:
Life guard chair in the mist:
Wheels for opening and closing a dam...in the mist:
Some neato fields with morning dew on the flowers:
People spreading what looked like seaweed on the pavement...they were doing this EVERYWHERE around the beach...I'm guessing they were drying it out:
After our walk, we went back to the beach and hung out in the sun for a few hours. I don't have pictures of that yet, but Greg was nice enough to take a few of me when I went into the ocean. I just had to ask him to take pictures of that historic moment, since those of you who knew me in Canada know that as much as I looooove the ocean, I usually stay out on the shore and rarely get deeper than ankle-deep into the stuff. (Mostly because the water back home is cold, the beaches are usually rocky and I hate crabs. I know, it's dumb. But crabs are stupid.). Well, here the water was warm, the beach was nothing but sand and there wasn't a crab in sight, so I went in, jumped in the waves, ran around and tripped and fell on my face, swam around and let the waves carry me around, drank about a gallon of seawater, etc...it was soooo beautiful. It was exactly like I'd imagined playing on a tropical beach would be. I really, really didn't want to leave. But, sadly, we had to.
So, we left the beach shortly after noon and caught the 1:35 bus from Wando to Busan. We figured that rather than bouncing around Suncheon or one of the other hubs and waiting hours for connecting buses, we'd overshoot Changwon, go to Busan and backtrack. It was a little more expensive, but a lot more simple and actually faster, as buses from Busan to Masan go every 10-15 minutes. The busride home was good, but we were all getting sick of being on buses. Especially because they're generally fairly full, the drivers drive like madmen and the air conditioning is pretty weak, so it was pretty stuffy and gross in there.
On the bus, I finished my book (Catcher in the Rye) and I have to say I wasn't all that blown away by it. I bought the book a few weeks ago in a book shop in Masan and I was pretty excited about it, but it was really underwhelming. If the book was 80 pages long, it would likely have struck me as brilliant, but to stretch what few ideas he had (great as they may be) to 210+ pages was a little over the top for me.
Anyhoo. After getting back to Masan and saying bye to everyone, I took a bus home and walked through my front door at around 10 o'clock.
I don't think I'll ever do this trip on a regular weekend again, it was just way too much travelling for not enough time on the beach, but I'm very glad I did it this time. The party was great, meeting all the people and hanging out with my little group for two days was well worth the endless hours on the bus!
I have to go (gotta pay my whopping $7 gas bill), but I hope you're all having an awesome day and you've all had a great weekend too :)
T
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