I had a busy weekend this last week. I went to Jindo island, off of the southern coast of Korea, to walk on the sea floor after it had parted, and then I went to a butterfly festival the next day. It was a great weekend, but it began with a very early start so I was very tired. I had to wake up at 4:30 on Saturday morning to take the train to Seoul. There I joined a group, the majority of whom were expats, and began the five hour bus ride to Jindo island. The ride went fairly fast, with most people sleeping most of the way. I unfortunately cannot do this, and didn't sleep on the bus at all, but I did rest my eyes. The scenery in South Korea is very similar throughout the entire west side of the country. Tree-covered mountains everywhere, although, as we got further south there was more farmland which was surrounded by tree-covered mountains. We stopped at a rest stop about half way through the trip. The rest stop was pretty amazing. Imagine about four of the largest bathrooms you have ever seen all beside each other. That is what the restrooms were like, it was impressive, and there was still a long line, although the wait wasn't bad. The rest of the rest stop was basically a strip mall of food and coffee vendors, so there were a lot of options. It was the most impressive rest stop I've ever seen. It sure beats a gas station with one or two stalls.
We finally got to the bridge that went to Jindo island and we got out of the bus and walked across the bridge. It was beautiful and it had three statues around it of a Korean general who outsmarted the Japanese back in the day. Apparently the Japanese had fire power of some sort and the Koreans did not. This general designed a boat that was low to the water, made of steel, or something, and had large spikes all over the top. So, when the Japanese fired on these boats they couldn't damage them and the fire power actually bounced off the boat and sometimes bounced back to the Japanese boats. This allowed a surprising defeat of the Japanese by the Koreans who were severely outnumbered. There is a bit of questionable history for you. Please feel free to look that up to see how much of it is actually true. My main point being this general is a Korean hero and these three statues weren't the only ones of him I saw on the weekend.
After we got across the bridge there were some rubber boots we could buy for $5. I had brought my own so I didn't get a pair even though I really wanted a pair because they were kind of awesome. They were thigh waders, like hip waders, but they only went up to the mid-thigh area at most. Since I had brought my own boots I thought it would be wasteful. However, I soon learned a lesson. If you ever plan to do this, get the thigh waders. I got soaked. It started off decent enough, the water was higher than I was led to believe but it was not higher that my boots, but as the tide rose back up the water flooded my boots. What happens at the sea parting is the tide goes down, low enough for a road to a nearby island to emerge, and then tons of people walk to and from this island while the tide is out. I got about half way before boats started blowing horns, and event organizers started blowing whistles, emphatically gesturing to us to return back to Jindo. These warnings made it seem like there was imminent danger, so I high-tailed it back to Jindo and there was one section that the tide came in pretty quickly, and the current was pretty strong, so this all led to my boots getting filled with water.
Before the see parting on the beach on Jindo island.
In the water, before the road emerged.
Road starting to emerge.
After I got back to shore. The line of people still working their way back.
The next day we got up and drove back to the main land. There, we stopped at Mokpo which is my new favorite place. We were driven halfway up a mountain and were then told to hike or have coffee or whatever. We didn't want to sit so we ended up climbing up the mountain. By the time I leave Korea I will have climbed enough mountains to last me a lifetime. This was the most beautiful place. It was manicured, and paved in sections, with beautiful views every so often.
This is another statue of that general.
After that we hopped back on the bus and headed to the butterfly festival. The location seems to be a learning center on all things insects. There were giant insects everywhere that were obviously permanent residents, and curiously enough there were many cow statues too. There was a cactus exhibition, two tunnels of squash, and a butterfly and insect museum. There was also a butterfly habitat, but all of these things seemed to be there all year round. There were a lot of food vendors there, so I guess that is what makes it a festival. I did have a good time, although some of the insect stuff was disturbing and I hope to never see some of them in real life. After spending three hours there we hopped on the bus to take the 220 km drive back to Seoul. I naively thought, oh 220 kms that won't take that long........5 hours later we finally got to Seoul. That made me miss good old SK.
Have a great week! Here are a couple more pics.
The first squash tunnel. Yes, there were two.
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