One thing that I have learned to appreciate about Korea after having lived here for the last couple of years is that they have some absolutely GREAT weather in September. Another thing I have learnt after being in Korea for the last four years is to NEVER EVER EVER try to plan a nice vacation away from the city on Chuseok weekend. Chuseok is the traditional Korean version of a Canadian and American Thanksgiving where everyone makes the trip back to their hometown to pay respects to their ancestors. Much traditional food is consumed, traditional costumes are worn, and families are visited. It's a joyous aoccation which mostly entails a long weekend and tons of traffic jams. That's why Ryno, myself and our friends Brian and Wian decided to plan a getaway to the East coast the week BEFORE Chuseok.
Korea during mid-September, unlike Korea during most of June, July and August is really nice! The sun is hot, the air is mostly humidity and mosquito free and best of all no Korean natives have ANY vacation time after about August 20th, so all of the beaches, camp sites and motels are fairly uncrowded! It's funny to think that Korea in the thirs week of September was roughly the same temperature as Barrie on the 3rd week of August, but there you go. I've been wanting to wear my new Fall clothing anyway.
In anticipation of the fact that we wouldn't be going anywhere special for Korean Thanksgiving we tried to find something interesting to do the week before. After having been in here for 3 years, the pull of museums, temples and mountains has really begun to wane, but something that I've never grown tired of is the beach. My South African boyfriend and his buddies agreed, so we started looking for cool events to check out involving as much sand and booze as possible.
What I found one day while flipping through a Korean fashion magazine in the 'Tom and Toms' cafe, was an adventure of a completely different nature. A Billabong sponsored surf event on the East coast of the country near Yangyang at Gisimun beach! 'What's this?' I said 'surfing in Korea? I have GOT to check this out, for the free swag if nothing else.' And so, I convinced first, my boyfriend and then he, some of his friends, to all make our way out to the beach and see if we could catch some waves, or at the very least swim in some.
What followed was one of the most hilariously disasterous (yet not in a terrible way) weekends! Although we look happy enough in these photos, it was a bit of a treck to get there and there were several short comings along the way. First of all, coordinating 4 different people who do NOT live near each other to get on buses to the same place at relatively the same time is no easy feat. By the time Ryno and I had managed to get on a bus, we wouldn't be arriving at our final destination till mid afternoon. ...which would have been fine in retrospect. However, when we got there, we found out that Yangyang is more of a general region that a town and that out hotel was near the next beach, Naksan Beach, which while appearing dead close on a map, was actually about 13 km away!
We also discovered that Ryno had unfortunately left his phone ON THE BUS!!!! Oh no! So in fact, we spent most of the afternoon trying to track down our friend Wian who was still in transit and having HIM track down the phone; which was aparently at the bus terminal. After several calls and texts and translated conversations by the bell man, Wian finally arrived sans phone! Oh no! Eventually we DID make it to the beach, which was a 20,000Won cab ride away! OH no! But this is where the story gets better. We arrived at the beach, found that the water was COMPLETELY flat and then met up with Brian. In an effort to not have the day be a complete failure, we bought our event tickets and gratefully began to drink the free beers and gin and tonics which were involved in the cost of the wristband.
By dinner time, we were feeling GREATTTT! Although it may have had something to do with the numerous gin and juices that were consumed along the way. A BBQ dinner of roast pig and standard Korean side dishes were served and afterwards a bonfire was lit. Ryno, being a total pyromaniac, kept the fire big and burning all evening while we drank our gin, talked with friendly strangers and eventually had a dance party on the beach! Finally, something was going right!
So right in fact that we stayed until 2am and then discovered that no cabs ran after midnight. (ARE you kidding countryside???) With the help of some very awesome locals we were able to get our cab to order a special taxi to come and pick us up. Wian and Brian stayed behind and somehow we didn't think we would see them again. However, Wian surprised us by stumbling back to the hotel some time around 6am.
We were even more surprised the next day when he was able to wake up and verbalize that his wallet was missing and that he must have lost it the night before! Oh no! So then we spent another while making a valliant effort to track down both the lost phone and the lost wallet before finally checking out and getting some lunch.
Unfortunately for Wian, the wallet was gone, but fortunately for Ryno, the cellphone WAS at the bus terminal. It was just that when Wian went to the terminal they didn't bother asking ANYONE else (because admiting that you don't know the answer to something or checking something out further is aginst the law in Korea). We managed to all get on buses to the appropriate places and make our way back to Seoul without ANY traffic jams. So there you go, our dramatic Chuseok weekend adventure done one week earlier so as to avoid traffic jams and desperate crowds. As Ryno would say, "WORTH IT!".
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