The problem is that it takes a good bit of planning for actual proper camping (finding a suitable site, acquiring camping gear, etc.), and it’s hard to coordinate all this in a week’s time. So we Googled around and had winnowed it down to two or three sites camping areas, but we all realized that spending both Friday and Saturday nights under the stars would be next to impossible at these places because schools don’t let out till 4:30 at the earliest on Friday afternoon. Then there would be the two- or three-hour trips to wherever and it would be dark by the time we made it to any sort of wilderness.
A friend of ours, Denis, suggested Muuido, an island just southwest of Incheon’s airport island. It was more of a beach setting than a mountain one, and we could rent relatively inexpensive heated bungalows right on the beach, rather than try to find tents at the last minute. Perfect. It was settled.
The Mad and Expensive Rush
Now the main worry was making it to the island on time. Muuido can only be reached by ferry from another intermediary island that connects by a small concrete bridge to the larger airport island. The last ferry runs at 8:00 pm, and we wouldn’t even be able to leave Ganghwa until 5:30 at the earliest. The one thing I could think to do was take a taxi.
Lindsay, a friend of ours from Ganghwa decided to join us on this mission, and after asking around at the bus terminal where the taxis line up and getting a lot of head scratching from the cabbies, we found one who had heard of Muuido and sort of knew where it is. We said okay and hopped in and watched him fiddle with his GPS while he ignored basic road safety standards and flew down straightaways and around curves. And then we were in a standstill.
For an hour and a half we sat in bumper to bumper traffic along this two-lane stretch that runs along a channel heavily fortified with barbwire and armed guards. My co-teacher told me once that it’s a deterrent to North Korean spies. Anyway, we just sat there watching the meter go up until finally it was clear again and we were back to speeding down the freeway.
After an 85,000-won cab ride, we made it to the terminal at 7:30 and met our friends there who had just arrived by bus from the city. We ran the .75 mile to the ferry terminal and as we turned the corner we saw the boat coming back in. We thought, “We made it!” and we got ready to board the ferry. But a man came around and held up an “X” with his arms and said. “No.” We were devastated; all this way and we missed the last ferry. Still, it was only about 7:45 and the time for the last ferry fun is printed as 8:15, so a couple of us started pleading with the guy and pointing to the time schedule. He still refused.
Then, out of nowhere, another guy came around and said something to the first guy and all of the sudden they were waving us to the ticket booth and telling us in broken English to hurry and that they would make one more trip. Unfortunately, we were still waiting on four more friends, but the ferry would not wait. Our friends graciously said to go ahead without them and we took the four-minute ride to Muuido.
When we arrived on the island we asked around for the bus that would take us to Hanagae Beach, but it had finished running for the night too. A nice man at a nearby store said hang on, called his friend, and within a few minutes a man arrived in a van and said hop in. He charged us 1000 won each to take us the four miles to the beach (the same price the bus would have charged). We had made it.
Close Quarters and Close Calls
The bungalows we had read about are nice, but pretty small, and we had six people on Muuido Friday night. The man at the counter laughed when we explained that all six of us would be sharing a room, but it wasn’t as bad as his laugh suggested. Yes, it was a little tight, but we wouldn’t be spending too much time in it.
We bought some samgyeopsal (sort of like bacon) from the nearby market and Beth cooked it on a portable gas grill Denis had brought. We ate the greasy meat and passed around a bottle of soju and another of makgoli and another still of some apricot wine Denis said he swiped from his school.
It was very dark after the meal but we still wanted to explore so we went to this large beach house where they film a Korean drama, “Stairway to Heaven.” That house was empty at night but there was another larger house adjacent to it that looked like it might have some activity going on inside.
Beth and Denis decided to swing on the swing sets on the playground behind the larger house until the incredibly loud squeaking alerted someone in the house to our presence and he came out in a mad dash telling them to stop because they were interrupting a movie that was being filmed inside.
So, for the next 10 minutes, all six of us stood outside the house trying to get a peak though the large bay windows that faced the beach. We could make out cameras and sound equipment and two actors who looked like they were in the middle of a very emotional scene. A few of us snapped pictures, and then Denis thought that was a good idea and snapped one with his flash still on. Every head inside the house whirled around to our direction and we took off running and cussing Denis. Who knows what kind of security they had? Maybe we had just (twice now) interrupted the next movie to win the Oscar for best foreign language film.
After all the excitement, we walked back down to the beach and met some very drunk Koreans (one of whom really like Beth) and we shared a laugh with them before heading back to the bungalow for some drinking games and sleep.
Mountain Music
Beth and our friend Lee got up first, about an hour before everyone else and did a little exploring. I awoke in the morning to the sound of waves crashing very close to our bungalow, which was strange because that sound had been absent the night before. The tide on Muuido recedes a mile or so throughout the day and returns throughout the night. More on that later.
Our friend Andrew (an admitted coffee snob) made us some very strong and delicious coffee and we headed out to join Beth and Lee and explore the island. We came across weird rock formations and tide pools teeming with life before starting on the trail up the mountain. The trail started out easy enough, just a leisurely stroll through the woods, but then it seemed like it turned steep very suddenly and soon we were all breathing hard and passing the water bottle around.
The hike turned out to be strenuous but very rewarding once we reached the top. We had an excellent view of the beach below and we could see for miles out into the West Sea.
On the climb back down, we noticed people riding horses on the mud flats and once we got back to the beach, people were renting very large horses to run and gallop out into the mud and water and back again. But it was very expensive to ride them and even more expensive to rent the ATVs and dune buggies at the other end of the beach so we decided to find some food and drinks and rest in front of the bungalow.
Our friends who had gotten left behind arrived soon after we finished the hike and then two more arrived and before long the 12 of us were eating more samgyeopsal and grilled kimchi and scrambled eggs, and passing a guitar and ukulele around playing whatever songs we knew.
The Mud Flats
With full stomachs we rolled up our pants and walked out into the mud flats, squishing the cool mud between our toes and stopping to play with the crabs and shellfish left lying around. We walked clear out to the water and stepped into the West Sea, which was surprisingly warm for the first day of May.
On the way back, Beth found a patch of mud that acted like quicksand; she found she could sink all the way to her knees in it without getting a little freaked out. This, of course, only piqued the rest of our interests and we all wanted to see how far we could sink before we thought it might swallow us whole.
It was sort of surreal to stand in this expanse of mud, which just a couple hours ago had been completely covered by seawater and where waves had been loudly crashing. As you walk back to the beach, you can almost see the tide slowly advancing, the little film of sediment highlighting the water’s edge, moving forward ever so slowly.
Soju Squirt Guns, Impromptu Concerts, and West Dominates East in Soccer
We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing in the sand, drinking and trading teaching war stories from the week. (In Korea, relaxing always entails drinking – not much different from anywhere else I suppose.)
Scott and Mary, a couple who live in Seoul, were the most prepared for the trip. They brought cooking equipment, lawn chairs, another portable gas grill, and for some reason, squirt guns. Mary showed the reason for the multi-colored pistol when she filled it with soju and asked for a volunteer to take a literal shot. I said why not and stepped up. It worked surprisingly well, and soon everyone had lined up for their “shot” of soju. (Beth didn’t care for it. She also wasn’t very good at giving shots either, as she blasted our friend Daniel right in the eyes.)
And then suddenly we were descended upon by a group of curious Koreans in brightly colored outdoor clothing. They surrounded us, smiling and laughing and then began looking into our bungalows and in the sand around our little huts. One man in a leather hat set a large box on the beach near us and pushed a button and the box started blasting very loud reggae music (with a Korean flair). We soon realized this group was doing a scavenger hunt. They would find little scraps of paper and cheer loudly and jump up and down.
The man in the leather hat noticed we had a guitar and asked to play it. We said sure and he turned off the reggae and sat right there in the sand and played soulful renditions of Korean songs. (I guess they were Korean – I didn’t recognize any of them.) Either way, he put a lot of emotion into his craft, and it sounded very much like he was shredding his vocal chords every now and then. We all cheered and clapped made up our own words to sing along.
Later, another group of Koreans invited us to play soccer with them. I’m not very familiar with soccer, so I declined to play, but Beth played a lot in her sorority, so she jumped at the chance. A few other people from our group joined and the couple in the bungalow next to ours (and Irish guy and a girl from Portland, Ore.) decided to play as well.
After a while, our group came back breathing heavily and red-faced, but they announced they had beaten the Korean team by something like 15 goals. A humiliating defeat for the Koreans, to be sure. No wonder they left the beach so quickly.
Fire and Firewater
As the sun went down the guys ventured into the woods to gather firewood while the ladies cleaned up the campsite and prepared everything for dinner. When the work was finished we all sat on the beach and watched the sun turn bright red and dip into the sea. Daniel got a great fire started and we gathered around and opened soju and makgoli bottles. Our new friends from next door joined us and soon another Korean couple did too. They brought us more samgyeopsal and Beth made them their very first s’more.
The fire burned well into the night and we sang songs loudly and our friend Colleen broke out some Roman candles so we shot them into the black sky and reenacted epic battles from Harry Potter. It was a great way to end one of the best days we’ve had in Korea so far.
This is an incredibly long blog post and if you’ve read this far, I’m impressed and I commend you, so I won’t go into much detail about the five hours it took us to get home the next day. But it’s weekends like this that are the reason we came to Korea, good times in another environment with some great people all here for the same reasons and all looking for the same things.
This last picture is the distance of the ferry ride.
