We arrived back in Wando Bus Terminal (you have to stress the 'al' in Terminal here, or people won't have a clue what you mean) and started trying to find a bus to Myeongsashimni Beach on the next island, which is joined to Wando itself by a big bridge. The bus timetable was up on the wall but as you might expect, it was all in Korean and we couldn't figure any of it out. After standing around looking puzzled for some time, a frendly Korean man came over to help. Sadly, it seemed he was actually more of a drunk Korean man who didn't speak any English, so he was very little help indeed and wouldn't leave us alone until a younger Korean guy came and took him away from us. Shortly after, a Korean woman came up to us and asked, in English, if we needed help. Hooray! Salvation! Korean people do seem very happy to help, it happens all the time. Anyway, she got us on the right bus and we were soon trundling across the island. It was kind of a busy bus, so we were standing. This is annoying for me as it means I can't see out of the windows. Boo! After about 20 minutes Becky spotted a beach, so we leapt off the bus and walked down the road to an absolutely beautiful sandy beach.
We'd read about a guesthouse village at the far end of the beach (just barely visible in the picture) so decided to ignore the motel right next to us and explore a little. Sadly, we forgot how distances can seem really misleading on beaches and it took a very long time to get there. The blazing heat made it seem even further too! But we made it in the end, only to discover that maybe we should've thought about the name a little more - guesthouse village. Not motel/hotel village. Everything seemed to be more like holiday apartments, as well as seeming highly closed. There were also no restaurants, which was highly troubling, as we hadn't eaten a proper meal since lunch the previous day and were way past lunchtime. We did find a room eventually, with a nice view over the sea. It was more expensive than we wanted, but really it worked out pretty cheaply - roughly £25 between us for a night. The room didn't have what we might call a bed, they'd gone for the Korean style mat and pile of blankets on the floor instead, which was actually more comfortable than you might think. Not sure I could cope with it for a whole year though! The nice little lady that gave us the room brought us 2 huge round pears which were really nice - she also gave us a big bag of fruit when we left!
After we got ourselves settled, we headed all the way back down to the other end of the beach to find some food. The first place we tried shooed us away, she obviously couldn't be bothered to cook! But we found somewhere in the end and did our standard 'no idea what the menu says, just point at someone else's table and hope for the best'. We watched as one of the women climbed onto the fish tanks lining the front of the restaurant and fished out first a handful of shellfish, then 2 large fish... They brought us a huge array of side dishes with about 4 different kinds of kimchi, swiftly followed by a gas stove and a large bowl containing the two fish. The shellfish must've gone to someone else. Now, you probably aren't aware of this, but I am somewhat squeamish when it comes to fish. I don't like the boneyness and I really don't like fish heads. So I was slightly uncomfortable to be faced with a dish holding 2 entire fish... But I manned up and started trying to eat it without looking my fish in the eye sockets. It was actually delicious, although my first mouthful had about 6 bones in it. Over the course of the meal, I also managed to accidentally poke my fish in the eye socket, pull out the entire spine and upset myself by accidentally looking at the wrong side of the fish head. By wrong side I mean inside. Ick ick ick! Was very tasty though.
After our meal we wandered off and went in search of ice cream. We bumped into Brandon and Aviom (not sure of the correct spelling!), 2 guys we'd met earlier in the day who were on bikes touring the area and had a bit of a chat, then met a guy called Jonathan who was working in Wando and told us what the bus times were so we'd be able to get back to the bus terminal the next day. It's kinda nice meeting people like that, it breaks up the panic of not being able to talk to everyone else properly! For example, in the shop where we eventually found ice creams. The old lady outside started jabbering at Becky semi-angrily and gesturing at her. We had no idea what she meant at all, but suspect it was something to do with the fact that Becky was wearing a dress which didn't cover her legs and shoulders. Or maybe it was something else entirely! Who knows?! We can get by ok without speaking Korean really, but sometimes I do worry that we won't know if we're doing something wrong or offending someone. Fingers crossed though, eh?
Anyway. Becky went for a quick dip in the sea after we'd eaten our ice creams. I decided it'd cooled off too much for me to go in, so stayed safely on the beach and watched. More entertainment followed when Becky got out and started trying to change. Four Koreans turned up in their standard beach wear of trousers, shirts and jumpers, plus hats and started trying to take pictures of her! I hasten to add, she wasn't standing around naked or anything, she was wrapped in a sarong, but they were clearly highly amused and or shocked by this! Fun. As soon as Becky was able to dress in peace we headed back to the safety of our little apartment.
The next day was sadly miserable and overcast, it actually started raining as we walked back down the beach to get the bus. Either our info about bus times was wrong, or it was vastly different on Sundays, but we waited patiently for about 30 minutes before giving up and getting a taxi. We arrived about 10 minutes before the next bus to Gwangju so prepared ourselves for a fight for the seats, but luckily got on pretty much first and sat down safely. A couple of hours later we were back in the bustle of Gwangju. It's actually really nice to be back here, as lovely as Wando was. This is really our home now, and that feels pretty great.
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