Sleeping In Shop Doorways, Pita Bread and an Island

Shortly after the departure of my parents, we found out Dan Henrickson was going to be here in Gwangju for a little while. Dan is a recruiter who gave us loads of excellent help and advice, even though we ended up getting our job on our steam. So we felt we owed him a drink and loosely arranged to meet him at Speakeasy on a Thursday night Open Mic night, thinking he'd be really busy (he has something like 70 teachers in Gwangju, 300 across Korea) so we'd just have a quick chat and a drink and then go home. As all the best nights go, one drink swiftly becomes 10 and soon we were dancing away to some sweet soul music like total fools, having all manner of giggles and making new friends. It turns out Dan is even nicer in person, so when he mentioned he was having a big gathering in Seoul that weekend we thought we might as well go along too - if only to deliver the cd I'd promised to make him! It coincided with a four day weekend, so we planned to spend a night in Seoul, then head to Gunsan and take a ferry to Seonyudo (reportedly South Korea's Polynesia...).

Being the frugal types that we are, we spent ages wandering around Sincheon looking for a cheap motel. We should've learnt from last time we came, and booked in advance! This time we were repeatedly told that it was 'Showtime' (i.e. when they get a large amount of 1 hour bookings...) and they were very busy so either full or really expensive. Eventually we found a really cheap little place above a chinese restaurant and got settled, before heading to the bar designated at foreigner hot spot of the night. En route we bumped into none other than Dan, his lovely wife Aggie and two of their Korean connections. This was handy as we didn't really have any clue where we were going. We were lead to a bar staffed by Aussies and Scots, given name badges and sent into the gradually expanding throng of teachers. Somehow, we ended up spending the whole night with one girl from Seoul and a huge group of Gwangju teachers that turned up seperately to us. We all went for galbi, chatted a lot, staggered to another bar and drank rather a lot of soju cocktails, staggered back to the first bar and drank more, hung out on the rooftop terrace and had a whole lot of fun. At some point, I decided it was time to leave and, without telling Becky (or so she claims. I think she was just so drunk she didn't understand me), went outside to wait for her. By the time she came out to find me, I'd fallen asleep in a shop doorway. But she managed to get me home to bed safely, so I began trying to sleep the whole mess off.

It didn't work all that well frankly. I woke up to realise I was very drunk still, and had to sober up while we went to find coffee and some food. We decided to head to Itaewon where one of our friends had told us there was a pita bread shop (or peter bread as we have learnt to say to avoid cross-Atlantic confusion). Regular readers of our blog (hi Mum and Dad! and Becky's Mum and Dad!) may remember our first trip to Seoul, where we thoroughly hated Itaewon. This hatred is gradually receding, if only for the number of amazing little restaurants selling all manner of exciting food. And the book shop. The pita place proved to be truly excellent and well worth the 45 confused minutes we spent walking up and down the street trying to find it.

Eventually we made it to the bus station and went to Gunsan to catch a ferry. We'd picked up somewhere that there weren't any evening ferries, but thought we'd head straight to the ferry terminal and stay in the closest motel we could find so we could get a nice early start. Saturday and Sunday had been blazing hot so we were really excited about the island trip. One very lengthy taxi ride later revealed the ferry terminal to be in the middle of nowehere on an industrial estate. Cue taxi ride straight back the way we came to a motel.

We awoke in the morning bright and early to catch the earliest ferry and really make the most of our time. We opened the shutters on the windows to discover the foggiest morning we have ever seen in Korea. Possibly anywhere.

Undaunted, we made our way to the ferry terminal and jumped on the first boat available. The fog seemed to lift a little on the way over, but was still lingering around blocking anything further than 15 metres away. So not much could be seen from the boat really. Having deposited our bags in a minbak, we took a walk around the island. Fortunately, the fog continued to clear as we walked, and we discovered we were on a very beautiful island. The only connection I could make to Polynesia was that it was a group of a lot of small islands, but it was very beautiful nonetheless. There was a distinct lack of places to eat things that weren't fish, so we settled on big pots of ramen (as far as I can tell, glorified pot noodles) for lunch, then decided to head to the beach. It wasn't quite hot enough to warrant a swim but we sat on the beach for a while relaxing and reading. After some time, Becky had dozed off and I was fully immersed in my book. I glanced up to discover that the fog had rolled back in, and I could no longer see the island across the water from us. As I watched, it continued to move in until I could barely see the sea at all anymore. 'Twas somewhat eerie. We swiftly retreated back to the minbak, having exhausted all the possibilities for walking we could handle for the day, until it was time to locate some dinner. We knew that we were going to have to have fish, we just didn't want it to be raw, so we peered in through restaurant windows until we found one with burners on the table. We managed to order a large bowl of stew with pieces of what appeared to be assorted fish which was pretty tasty. Sadly, there was no sign of a bar or aywhere to go post meal, so we bought a couple of beers from the small shop next door and went back to our room.

In the morning the weather was a little brighter, but we didn't want to end up getting back to Gwangju too late, so we went over to the ferry to go home. We met a couple of other foreigners who'd spent the night on the island and shared a cab with them from the ferry terminal back to Gunsan bus station and made our way home to Gwangju. All in all, although we didn't have the most amazing time there, it seemed like it'd be an amazing place to go in better weather, with a bigger group, especially if we prepared and took some food with us!