This past Saturday (June 5th) marked my 1 month anniversary of living in Korea, and what better way to celebrate than taking a day trip to the beach! The girls (Kelsey, Bess, Megan) and myself packed up early and headed out around 8am to try and get there before the crowds. Thinking this would be an easy bus trip, we got off at the stop that everyone else got off at because we thought we had to...
You ever get that feeling that everyone is staring at you when you walk into a room? Well this was definitely more than a feeling. As soon as we walked into the shady McShadytown bus station, we were the center of attention. For the entire 20 minutes we were in the station, all eyes were focused on us. And it was obvious. Remember that one time I said using the vibrating belt machine was the greatest "awkward turtle" moment of my life? Well, I think this one topped it.
... So like I said, we were expecting this to be an easy bus trip. Once we bought tickets to our next destination, we were informed that we had to get right back on the bus we just stepped off. fail. We finally arrived at our destination (and we knew it was correct because we asked the bus driver every time he made a stop), we hopped in a cab and arrived at Gamami Beach (only after a little dispute with the cab driver because he forgot to turn on his meter and we waaaay over paid for that taxi ride).
^^shot of the beach and mountains taken while I was swimmin' in the Yellow Sea.
As I mentioned earlier, we left early in the morning to try and beat the crowds/get a full beach day in. Well, for about the first hour or so there was not a soul to be found on the beach. AWESOME. So after exploring the land a bit we set up our picnic area (picnic food consists of watermelon, apples, bugles, kimbap, and beer) and got our relaxation on. The majority of the day was spent sunbathing, a little swimming, wandering around the beach, and eating.
Kimbap is clearly an acceptable beach snack.
The above 3 are just a few shots I took from around the beach. As you can see... the beach was completely empty, the skies were bright blue, the water was warm, and the scenery was GORGEOUS. It was the perfect day.
"Crab Balls" = balls of sand made by sand bubbler crabs. They deposit their balls all over the beach (shout out EK).
"Sand bubbler crabs live in burrows in the sand, where they remain during high tide. When the tide is out, they emerge on to the surface of the sand, and scour the sand for food, forming it into inflated pellets, which cover the sand. The crabs work radially from the entrance to their burrow, which they re-enter as the tide rises and destroys the pellets."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_bubbler_crab
I managed to sneak up on the nittany lion while he was napping. Unfortunately, I startled him and he ran off. Last I heard he was thinking about hiking Mt. Mudeung the weekend of June 18th.
Around late afternoon we decided to head back to Gwangju. The surrounding village consisted of a general store, a restaurant, lots of beautiful country scenery... and no taxi service in sight. Of course, everyone we asked for help didn't speak english but directed us to a seemingly abandoned bus stop. We camped out at the bus stop not knowing if a bus to wherever would show up, but just sort of hoped/discussed our next plan. Luckily for us, some other foreigners drove up and spoke significantly more Korean than the 4 of us combined, and were able to call us a cab. The cab ride/bus trip back went 100x smoother than our journey in the morning, and we were back to Gwangju in less than an hour. The rest of the weekend was once again spent cleaning my apartment/doing laundry/catching up on TV/taking too many naps. Until next time, friends...
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