west sea islands

APPENDIX 2/3 (sept 17-18)

Close to the megacity Seoul, there is a place where one can find peace and harmony, calm beaches and sleepy towns. The west sea islands are a couple of islands around Yeongjong-do (the island where Seouls International airport Incheon is located).

As the weather was perfect for a short beach holiday, nothing was going on in Seoul because of Chuseok (Southkorean harvest festival) and we had two days left before going to Hongkong, Betti and I decided to go to that supposed to be awesome place near Seoul.

The parties and too less sleep the nights before made me sleep long, so we started our journey very late at 2pm. But Betti was so kind to wait for me.

entrance to Chinatown

We had a long, long subway ride to Incheon where we acctidentally found Chinatown. Unfortunately most of the stores and restaurants seemed to be closed so we just had a little walk through Chinatown and then took a bus to the ferry. But when I entered the bus the busdriver strted yelling at me for no reason. Obviously I didn't understand what he was trying to tell me as he just spoke Korean so he started to get louder and louder (as if this would have helped) and angry. I guess all he wanted to know was if we were sure we needed his bus. Finally we managed to get on the bus and made grumpy busdriver tell us the station we had to get off.
Now there we were standing in the middle of nowhere. No harbor, no ferry, no sea. Thanks to my orientation, lots of luck an a young Korean we found out the direction the ferry was located and started to walk there.It already started to set and we had a slight time pressure to catch the very last ferry to Muui-do. That's why we took pictures of the disappearing sun while running.

Suddenly a car stopped right next to me. A friendly smiling Korean, Mr. Choi, waved and signalized me to jump into the car. So we did and he took us to the ferry. He hardly spoke any English but tried his best to tell us about his wife, children, his dad who was a famous DoP in Korea and asking questions about our lifes. It turned out that he was owner of a guesthouse in Muui-do and he offered us an appartment. How could we have said no, after he was so nice, we hadn't reserved any accomodation for this night, it was getting dark already and we're having a hangover and therefore really tired after this whole subway-bus-ferry-4h-travel. He even gave us a discount just because we were so nice (or just for being non-asian girls, or maybe just because he was happy finding someone to rent a room to in offseason).

Muui-do

The apartment turned out to be comfortable and even with a balcony that allowed us a nice few over the mudflat bay.

To orientate ourselves we decided to have a little walk alonge the coast. On the way we found some cute little puppies next to the street whining for a stroke. Obviously we could't resist and spend half an hour with those fluffy animals.
Before going to sleep and getting some rest our hosts' wife okked us a traditional Korean meal. I guess she really missed her grown-up sons cause she acted like a mom. She watched every bit we ate and brought more and more food. Her English was even worse but we had so much fun trying to communicate that we sat there with her for an hour or two just enjoying her company.
The next morning Mr. Choi drove us to the beautiful beach Silmi with the Silmi-do (do means island bytheway) next to it. As it was low tide we could easily walk there over a small stone bridge, enjoy the silence and watch a few people didding for mussels to eat or sell them later.
It was very early in the morning so it was totally calm and quiet, we watched the wonderful sunrise and just sat there for a while before we left Muui-do to to see some other islands.

Sin-do, Si-do, Mo-do

It took us another 2.5 hours, two ferries, three buses and a 20 minutes walk to reach the archipelago Sin, Si and Mo and rent a to bike. We spend the whole afternoon to explore those islands with our bikes, lay in the sun on the beaches, get a refresh in the yellow sea, visit some shooting places of famous Korean soaps and have a very late breakfast (that was more of a late lunch but we never had a chance to get something to eat till then) in a sculpture park on Baemikkumi beach.

After a warm and sunny weekend we came back late, packing our luggage for Hongkong and fell asleep with a satisfied smile upon our faces.
Oh and I know it sounds unrealistic but I tanned! I just say 29°C and couldless sky!