Geomundo (4 June)

After a long and fairly sleepless bus ride, we arrive at the harbour at 6:00am and scrounge around for somewhere to buy breakfast.  With limited options, we settle on the breakfast of champions at the GS25: a packet of cookies and coffee.  When the time comes to board the ferry at 8:00am, we scramble for and manage to secure seats on the upper deck where we promptly fall asleep.

100 Islands

We arrive on Geomundo at 9:45am, which is earlier than anticipated.  We leave our bags at our hotel and Seokjin guides us on a walk to the British Memorial Cemetery where, for some reason, there are several British soldiers buried.  It’s a beautiful location on a hill overlooking the bay, and a good chance for us to orientate ourselves.  At 11:00am, we take a ferry to see the famous Baek (100) Islands.  Apparently this is considered one of the most beautiful areas in Korea and one that many Koreans aspire to see in their lives.  Catfish’s description is that it’s a pile of rocks in the middle of the sea and once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.  The ferry ride is extremely windy but we’re also offered rice cake by a couple of friend Koreans sitting near us.

A Dip For the Brave...Or the Stupid

Back on the island, we have a quick lunch and change into our swim suits to head down to the beach.   This is not the type of beach we had in mind though!  It’s small, the sand is covered in seawood and other brick-a-brack from the ocean including disgusting sea roaches that creep up on us and the cold water is extremely salty.  Determined to make the most of the situation, Catfish, ByungMin and I head out into the water where we horse around for nearly an hour.  Seokjin seems pleased so see that some people are willing to brave the waters. 

Happy Birthday, Catfish!

After an eventful dinner back at our hotel and a refreshing shower, we relax outside of the local convenience store overlooking the harbour where Catfish and I drink lousy beer with our two roommates.  Suddenly, Seokjin, the bus driver and ByungMin arrive with a chocopie birthday ‘cake’ for Catfish – surrounding a huge white candle. 

With the birthday celebrations over, the four of us decide that we would like to go to the noryaebang across the road.  Unfortunately, all of the rooms are full.  However, while enquiring about the availability of a room, some ajeoshi’s invite us to join them in their large room.  As we enter, two of them promptly leave and return a few minutes later with several ice creams, which they insist we eat.  Unfortunately, the next 30 minutes are not as much fun as we’d hoped as the ajeoshi’s are a little too touchy-feely for our liking and have clearly had too much to drink.  We eventually manage to escape and Catfish and I decide that we’re probably better off just going straight to bed.