Our world is incredibly small, yet it is rife with incredible places, populated by perfectly awesome individuals! This past weekend I found myself on a journey to the southernmost tip of Korea with a band of fellow adventurers to see a most rare sight. I got to witness the annual miracle of the Jindo sea parting! Not only that, but I was able to experience several incredible hikes and meet a host of awesome new friends!
This trip was coordinated by WINK (When in Korea), the same tour group I got to experience Holi in Busan with a few weeks ago. They are a fantastic group to work with, great accommodations, good event coordination, and all around great people. I look forward to attending many more events with them in the near future!
I met up with my good friend Daniel in Seoul for dinner before tracking down the rendezvous point with WINK. We had an excellent Indian dinner in Gangnam before making our way to the WINK group. 9pm rolled around and Daniel and I found ourselves in the company of several other foreigners with bags and backpacks standing around on a busy street corner. Yet, as is so often in Korea, we quickly found ourselves in a myriad of convivial conversations. As expats, it's never hard to meet and make new friends with other English speakers! Soon a large charter bus arrived to take us across the country and we all boarded to find seats for the trip south.
The drive was long and tiresome through the depths of night. Picking up extra souls along the way we soon found ourselves on a bus full to the brim, each seat occupied by another adventurous soul. I slept restlessly as the hours ticked away into early morning. Soon 5am arrived and the lights on the bus lit up. Shying away from the light we soon found ourselves creeping off the bus with still legs and sore arms to the harsh chill of the morning air. Why us so early? To hike a nearby mountain of course! We were told that if we made good enough time we could reach the summit just in time for sunrise. Armed with my new DSLR camera and a firm desire to feel warm from hiking I took off in the dark with Daniel and our new friends.
For the record, we only got lost in the dark twice...
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| Not much to see of the moon setting behind the mountain, but still pretty cool! |
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| Sunrise |
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| Daniel at dawn |
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| Some other guy... also at dawn... |
Sunrise found us at the sky bridge, a lovely sight. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to get to the summit of the peak. Having to make our way down by a different trail allowed us to see more of the mountain and long awaited signs of spring in Korea!
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| Bridge! |
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| Spring! I totally saw Spring! |
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| it's a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong way down! |
This is the mountain in daylight, quite a different experience after having hiked it in the dark!
Soon fed on muffins and canned coffee, we were off to Jindo and a special resort for one of the island's natural treasures, dogs. Jindo is known for a special breed of dog, and this resort had a number of trained dogs in their facility for public viewing. Along with a fascinating little museum, which I would have indulged in... if I could have read the exhibit information.... but it had some cute pictures so there!
Holy awesome application of engineering batman! This resort also had hillside set up for tubing! Having missed out on sledding this last year, I couldn't wait to try it out!
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| it is truly ridiculously stupid amounts of fun! |
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| yes we took our shiny new cameras careening down a hill, totally worth it! |
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| WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! |
The dogs themselves were kept near the slide, and we were able to enjoy a trick show by one of them who performed a number of impressive feats on an obstacle course for our amusement! I'm not a dog expert, but all in all I was very impressed by this puppy!
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| Jindo dog, showing off some skills! |
After the dog show we returned to our buses. Another hour long nap saw us to a town in Jindo
where we hopped off for lunch. It was a small town that could have passed for
main street America... if all the shop signs had been written in
hanguel. In any case, I feasted on kimbab before the group gathered for
the Sea Parting Festival.
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| Daniel leaving his mark on the world |
The festival was full of people, vendors, food and events. On the water ships circled while sending up colored smoke in celebration. Along the sea wall was a long banner and paints for people to write messages in honor of the event!
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| A shiny new penny to whoever can figure out what I wrote |
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| Commemorative statue to the legend of the sea parting |
There is a legend that the sea parting at Jindo is a miracle. Long ago the island was overrun by tigers and the people fled by boat. Yet, they forgot to bring grandma along with them. Since she was stranded, the old woman prayed that she would be saved and the seas parted for her allowing her to cross safely. Granted, it doesn't explain why the tigers didn't follow her, but hey legends are legends and sea partings are just cool!
More on the sea parting to come! Await in eager anticipation gentle readers as I leave you in suspense for my all too true account of walking on water!
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