Mokpo/Jindo

Here is a story of a weekend in May. I hope to post some more stories once
I get them written.

"I'm in a PC bang (internet "room") in Mokpo in the southwest of the country. It's a long weekend because today is Children's Day. Why didn't we have that growing up I wonder? Brad and I and a crowd of other foreigners from Daejeon took the train here on Friday night right after work. We stayed in a motel near the train station. Brad and I had plans to meet up with our friend Matt Cooper who just arrived to work and live in Mokpo a couple weeks ago, to make our way to one of the many islands on the coast, and to go to Jindo island for their Mysterious Sea Road festival aka Moses March aka Sea Parting festival. Once a year the tide at low tide is low enough to expose a path to another much smaller island. The thing about Korea is that there are SO many people. It makes it hard to be spontaneous sometimes because everything gets booked up and full really quickly. Luckily we bought our train tickets a few days in advance, for there and return, because they are full up today. We tried to change our tickets to an earlier time. The boats out to the islands we originally wanted to get out to were booked up as well. But we met up again with the Daejeon foreigners who had found another island to go to called Oedaldo.

So we went out to that island. It's only a couple klicks long, a tiny fishing village type place with an outdoor pool resort type area that's only open in July and August. So the place was sparsely populated with tourists by Korean standards. We walked over to the beach. On the way I had noticed some women collecting some sort of shellfish from the shore so I went to investigate. They were some sort of oyster or something, all stuck onto the rocks. The women were cracking them open with hooks and scooping out the meat. I mean the rocks were covered with these things. After I watched them for a bit they offered us some. Raw. Yep. I love it actually. I've had raw oysters a few times in Korea and it's great. They usually serve it with this excellent red sauce. Anyway, these were like naturally seasoned with sea salt. Some university students we met later on offered me some as well.

The water was quite cold so we only waded a bit. Then a crowd of Koreans challenged the boys to a game of soccer. I was taking pictures and watching the little snails crawl around on the beach. Brad and I got the boat back to the mainland but the others stayed the night. We had already paid for the motel room again and meant to meet up with Matt. We ended up not meeting up with Matt. We had this excellent (but so spicy!) cooked octopus meal on the harbourfront while the table beside us had an excellent LIVE octopus meal. Yep. I haven't tried it yet but I wanna! We had a bit of maple soju (soju is the local ubiquitous poison, but not actually that bad to drink, and super cheap) and decided to climb Yudalsan Mountain. At night. It's lit up for most of the way. The view was amazing once we got up. There are a couple pavilions lit up and two painted relief rock carvings lit up as well, and the peak of the mountain (which you can't actually get to...safely). We wound our way down through tight little alleyway collections of houses hugging the mountain and walked back to the hotel.

Next day we went to the bus station to secure tickets to Jindo for later then checked out the National Maritime Museum. It seems Korea has some excellent underwater archaeology on the go, and excellent preservation/restoration methods. They've got two remains of shipwrecks from somewhere around the 11th and 14th centuries respectively on display as well as tons of beautifully restored celadon pottery (http://www.korean-arts.com/about_korean_celadon.htm) from the wrecks and other sites. Next we walked along the shore and saw some rocks that are supposed to look like monks with hats or something. They're cool rocks but not really monk-like.
We got a hold of Matt and arranged to meet. Brad and I had an excellent steamed crab meal (so fresh!) with a vinegar kind of dipping stuff instead of North American butter and garlic then we went for coffee with Matt. I knew Matt from MUN, we did some history courses together and we know a lot of the same people. We all took the bus to Jindo. We didn't have much of a plan.

They had a concert on the go for the festival in town, we ran into other foreigners from Mokpo that Matt knew. All the hotels were booked up so we decided we weren't gonna go to sleep, and were going to try to walk to the sea parting place. So the three of us went looking for this fortress wall that was supposed to be around somewhere in town (we did have a map) and ended up climbing a mountain. At night. The path was lit but it had been raining so there was this spooky mist everywhere. It's a rural area with old abandoned traditional houses, and little fields. At the head of the trail there was a spooky traditional lion monster thing statue. The trail was just straight up and completely deserted. We came to the top and there was a dirt road with lights continuing in one direction so we thought we'd try to get to somewhere that way instead of going down the slippery mountain the way we came. We eventually came to a really creepy monument with two rearing horse statues. There was mist all around and one yellow street lamp sort of light, and that's where the lights ended. It was so weird. We started to keep going anyway, but it was too dark and misty so we turned back and went back down the mountain, all the while discussing how we should deal with criminals, and freedom of will in those situations and stuff. Sort of random convo but not really considering the participants. I should mention that at this point none of us had consumed any alcohol.

It was only around midnight and we figured we'd get some beer and find a pavilion to sit under (it is legal to drink anywhere in Korea). We found some of our Daejeon friends again. They had a hotel room and had been offered a little room of their own at a bar nearby so we brought our booze there. But there was a bit of a foreigner crowd there of people we didn't know, and two of the girls were piss loaded and like spitting up (not puking...) their beer onto the floor, lolling around. It was kind of a bad scene. We ended up just sitting at the tables in front of the store where we bought the beer.

One of the drunk girls came out and sat with us. She's from Kentucky. Works in Daegu. She was whining about how the others she was just with told her they hated her, and how she tries so hard to be a good person, and she doesn't know why they hate her, blah blah blah. So we got her talking about something else. Matt's friends turned up again, and a couple from Brockville working in some place like Yoseong, or Yosun, I dunno, and a guy who actually works in Jindo town (we didn't figure there'd be an English school or anything there). We had bought a bottle of the local liquor called Hong ju because Brad and I like to try the local specialities of food and drink everywhere. It was GOD AWFUL.

We at some point learned that it's really far to walk to the sea parting, and we decided we were going to get a cab when the time came. A bunch of us went to the hotel room of the pair from Mokpo and we played cards until it was time to go. We made our very drunk way to the sea around 4:30am. People had gathered and were waiting. We were told that the tide would go out around 5, and our coworker Jeremy had actually seen the path around 430pm the previous day so we were set. The Koreans were waiting too, and as a general rule the Koreans know what they're doing. But we waited. And waited. And it began to get light. And the tide seemed to be coming back in. And I think I must have had more alcohol because I got drunker and don't remember really what happened next. Brad told me that Jeremy our coworker started knocking on peoples doors or something to ask for a ride back to town. He somehow convinced an Irish couple (I don't know the circumstances of their being there) to get out of bed and drive us into town. Brad paid them well. I was quite out of my tree and was stumbling and crying apparently though I'm not sure why and there is photographic eveidence which I later discovered of my biting Jeremy's leg because I didn't want to leave yet. We ended up in Jeremy's hotel room that he got with some of the other Daejeon foreigners and slept for a bit. Matt disappeared back to Mokpo I think. Jeremy and the others left to go back to the sea parting place to hang out or whatever and left us the room to hang out in until we went back to Mokpo (you pay for your rooms ahead of time so it was taken care of).

So Brad and I slept awhile longer and caught the bus back to Mokpo. And here I am at the beginning again. We tried to find a DVD bang (a place where you get a room to watch movies in) so we could sleep or something but the one near the train station was closed. So we've been watching youtube videos and doing other random internet things while Korean children blatantly lean over to examine my exotic internet wanderings and exotic ear piercing.

That was a long story. That was only the third night I went drinking like that since I've been here so my weekends aren't usually that ridiculous."

Well the weekend in Gyeongju was almost that ridiculous, and this upcoming
mud festival weekend is bound to be at least that
ridiculous.