A Day at the Beach

Jongwon, Ty, me, Alex, Sara, Korean BoyBand member
(thanks to Stephany for photo)

Almost every weekend (that Ty visits Mokpo at least), we make glorious plans to explore the islands that are within a stone's throw of the coast.... of which there are literally hundreds. And, every weekend, the weather gods decide to wreck our plans. It's rainy, or cloudy or just plain un-beachy.

Ty and I

Jongwon and Alex

On Saturday, however, we awoke to bright blue cloudless skies (a real rarity in Korea). We rounded up Stephany, Sara (new folk in Mokpo), Alex and Jongwon, and headed out for a day at the beach. Our destination, Weydaldo (aka Oedal-do) is a small, mostly deserted (except for the tacky, and very small, waterpark) island about an hour's ferry ride from Mokpo. The houses are little more than cottages, with concrete paths that link one beachy side of the island to the other. Friendly dogs run about, asking to be pet, but there isn't much else there.

Walking off the pier

Our beach

The island that Alex and Ty swam to

Because it's the "off-season", there was almost nobody on the beach - except for a Swiss lady (who I chatted with in French all afternoon) and a group of 5 young Korean guys (sort of like a Korean boy band) who kept themselves within bikini-viewing distance for most of the day, but otherwise left us alone.

Jongwon

Walking back to the pier

Well - I mean - what can I say? We lolled about on the sand, gazed at the view of water, mini-islands and passing boats, dipped ourselves in the water to cool off from time to time (Ty and Alex swam out to one of the off-shore islands), ate a wee snack and just had a thoroughly enjoyable day.

That evening, most of the Mokpo-ites ended up at Garrett's place for Canadian Thanksgiving. Everyone brought amazing food (no turkey, though), and even a confirmed potluck-hater such as myself had a good time. It may not have been the same as being in Canada, but who can complain? You've got sunburned skin from a day at the beach, great food and you are surrounded by friends...

I have some other good news too. A few months ago, I sent a proposal to Cat Fancy magazine to write an article about the cat situation in Korea, why they are so feared, how (appallingly) they are treated and what is being done (at a very grassroots level) to make things better. I now have a contract to write this article (due in November -- eek - to be published next March). I am now, officially, a "free-lance writer"... or I will be, once they publish the article.

Annnnnnnnnnd... next weekend, for my 33rd and Ty's 27th, we are going to Jeju-do (after negotiating time off from both of our schools) to go scuba diving. He's a rather experienced diver, whereas I have stuck mostly to the snorkelling side of things (except for two real-live scuba dives in Santiago de Cuba about 4 years ago).... if things go well, and if my head doesn't explode from ear pressure, I will then do my PADI Open Water in Bali during my winter vacation (in January -- it was a *very* hard decision to decide not to go to the Middle East - I've been doing nothing but think, read and talk about Turkey, Syria and Jordan. But, that day will come, I am sure).

Pics of Weydaldo and of Taiwan are on Flickr- click the link in the right-hand sidebar to see.