Last weekend we decided to visit an island in the Yellow Sea. Deokjeokdo is 77 km's to the southwest of Incheon's Yeon'an Pier. Unfortunately, the high-speed ferry smelled like a urinal, fortunately, we got into a private side compartment and enjoyed the 1.2 hr ride directly to the mysterious island getaway.
Upon arrival to the ferry terminal, w were offered a lift to the Seopori Beach by a Halmoni (grandmother) who ran her own yeogwon/hotel. We accepted the ride unaware of that the group of hikers accompanying the Halmoni were family members of hers expecting us to stay together. We promptly declined the invitation because they didn't seem genuine. She followed us for a while and wasn't ready to take no as the answer. Then she kept saying, "S*x, s*x, s*x..." We took a trail through the trees to the beach and lost her.
The beach was spectacular as the guidebook described. We stayed in a very rustic yeogwon right on the beach. We swam in the Yellow Sea, it appeared clean. A little sun came out, I had a few Cass's from the old women running the Beachside Yeogwon. A Good time.
The night came with our small fireworks celebration, in fact, it was July 1 - Canada Day, so Dave and I had a good reason to celebrate. It was getting cool, and we watched a modified pickup circle the bay with a Fogger smoking for mosquitoes. We took a short walk along the bay, and finally returned to our room in the Yeogwon.
The rain pounded the Yeogwon all night, I thought we might get washed away. The building was a mixture of cement, wood, fiberglass (center courtyard cover). It was noisy, I wish we had spent the night in a hotel. I listened to my MP3s to drown out the thunder and pouring rain.
The following day, at 10:00am we were standed in Seopori Beach. Dave wanted to catch the bus, I wanted to relax more. Once the bus left, I was ready to go too. Unfortunately, buses don't run often. The next bus didn't return until 2:10 pm. Then we met a Korean-Australian nurse, she was really cool and invited us into her mother's clinic for juice and tea. We stayed there until the bus was coming. The bus zig-zagged the island and we finally reached the ferry landing at 3:20pm.
Our ferry pulled up at 3:30 pm, but...it wasn't leaving till 5:20 pm. We walked to another pier and the slow boat, a car/passenger ferry pulled up. They were leaving right away, it looked clean and had relaxing patio chairs on outer decks, it looked like heaven compared to the tin-pot we had arrived on. We bought extra tickets for another 18,000 Won, and caught the ferry, yippee! We were off the island!!!
The trip would have cost 18,000 Won/each roundtrip had we bought from the correct ferry! We spend about 40,000 Won each. Hmmm. Double. It helps if you can speak Korean
The ferry was awesome, it was a 3-hour ride, it had big-screen TV's and a heated floor to stretch out on (on one deck), and there were other places to hangout or sight see through many islands. We made about 5 stops (10 mins each) picking up more passengers and cars on different islands on the return to Incheon. We slept a little too, it was great.
Overall, it was a good trip with beers, fireworks, and a beach to celebrate Canada Day. Maybe I'll return in August with Mi Sung...it would be fun to do it again. ^^++
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