Here are some more photos from Chuseok weekend. Mine are few and far between, so I may have stolen some from facebook. I’m not sure if I’m sorry or not.
Our FERRY OF THE PEOPLE meandered its way between the islands off the West coast of Korea until we finally arrived at 덕적도 (Deokjeok-do sounds like dock-jock-dough) at noonish. Jason, Evan, Ian, Alice and myself found a van-taxi to take us to Seopori beach where a few of our fellow campers were waiting. The van-taxi cost us around 2000W each and she drove like a maniac (this was relative to Seoul taxi driving. Later we met the King of the Road, who put lady driver of van-taxi to shame shame shame.) Our lady driver was wearing a pink cap that said “Humanity is irrelevant” on the back in rhinestones. I knew I was safe. Who needs to install seatbelts in your crazy van-tax when you wear a hat like that?
I admit I was a little wary about camping on the most popular beach of the island especially after reading Dave’s ESL Cafe (a mistake! Never read it!) The descriptions of Deokjeok-do as “party island of the foreigners” led me to believe that 1) it would be crazy crowded like Grand Bend is on the August long weekend 2) people would be puking in my sandals 3) no quiet chill time would be had.
None of this happened. It was gorgeous. It was quiet. No one puked. Maybe 30 tents were set up along the whole beach, and that was only the fist night. The site we chose was nice and sandy, but was kind of dangerous, being next to some sort of construction site. Paul definitely almost did a running somersault onto a giant piece of jagged glass. However, there were flush toilets (even a real sitting toilet) and I think even showers and even a “field kitchen” – I didn’t check out the two latter – but it still felt like an oasis from city times. Apparently there was a small convenience store and restaurant up the road from us where all the inns were, but I didn’t even leave the beach. I was so lazy. Soooo lazy. And it was soooo good.
The 10 or so of us spent a blissful afternoon swimming and sojuing/mocoli-ing and sitting on a floating, canopied,anchored raft, watching the tide come in. And come further in, and come further in. It was a never-ending tide. And the water was BEAUTIFUL. And the scenery from the water was BEAUTIFUL. And the weather was BEAUTIFUL.
I need to expand more on the water. It felt like swimming in Ontario in July, it was so warm. But it was salt water, so we were extra-buoyant. Alice and I spent a good hour and a bit in the water, stupidly giddy, screaming when frightened fish leapt out of the water near our faces. It was just so BEAUTIFUL. Later we regretted our long stupid swim because we both got sunburnt faces. But now that I’ve stopped peeling, I will say that it was totally worth it.
After the swim, we just chilled on the beach, soaking up (more) sun and playing uke/guitar until the rest of our group arrived. Alice and I stayed in the castle tent Kyle borrowed from his school, which they described to him as holding “7 or more people”. Five was pretty much the max. Maybe we could have squeezed in 6. But probably not. It took us a long time to set it up. By the time we were done it was campfire time. I came almost exclusively for the campfire, and it totally lived up to my expectations. There were smores and Korean bacon and campfire singing and warm sweaters and hats. We almost stayed up to 11:00pm! *gasp*
Alice setting up the tentMikey and Sarah watching us set up the tent.
you can see the raft in the left there
Sleep did not come easily to me that night. Just as I was drifting off to sleep with the gleeful shouts of “CHUSEOK OH-NINE!” in my ears, a mini drama unfolded outside our tent:
(dad, mom, tita leling, uncle mike, mom’s co-workers, other family who might be offended but probably won’t be: the language is rated R, so cover your eyes!)
Girl: HAHAHAHAHAHA*hic*HAHAHA…HA! [flailing around right outside our tent]
Friend: SHUT UP!
Girl: YOU SHUT UP JON!
Jon: …whatever…
Girl: JOOOOOOOOOON! JOOOOOOOOOON HELP ME PUT UP OUR TENT! WE NEED TO SET UP OUR TENT YOU ASSHOLE SET UP THE TENT! HELP ME JOOOOOOOOON JOOOOOON HELLLLLP!
Jon: ok.
Girl: [flails somewhere off towards the bathrooms]
Jon: [moves poles around for a little bit then stops abruptly]Oh fuck this.
[blessed silence]
Girl: [returning] JON! JON WHERE ARE YOU! I LOST THE POLE JON! JOOOON! JOOOOOO….what the…GET UP! JON GET UP! GET! UP! JON! AAAURRRRGH! [pole is flung into a tree] GET! [thud] UP! [thud]
Jon: Owww.
Sarah: FUCK YOU JON!
Girl2: Sarah, shut up!
Sarah: JON YOU FUCKER! FUCK YOU JON! WHAT IS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM JON! JOOOOOOOON I HATE YOU JON!
Girl2: Oh my god.
Sarah: HE FELL ASLEEP ON MY TENT! HE FUCKING FELL ASLEEP ON MY TENT! WHERE AM I GOING TO SLEEP!? I’M NOT SLEEPING WITH YOU ANYMORE JON! WTF!?!? JON YOU ARE THE WORST! I HATE YOU SO MUCH JON! JON! WAKE! UP!
Jon: [snort] Uh-what. Wha? [snores resume] (He actually fell asleep.)
Sarah: I’M SLEEPING WITH JEN!
It continued in this vein for a good half an hour. This was followed by an angry sleep-argument from Kyle (hilarious) and then island roosters, which someone in the tent declared to be “goddamn Korean wolves.” When we woke up in the morning, we found a guy (definitely Jon) wrapped in a tent out cold 5 feet from our tent. Also another tent full of snores and one girl wrapped in a coat lying face-down in the dirt. She was asleep. I don’t think Jen let Sarah in her tent.
Alice and I had such a nice time we extended our stay until Sunday, which meant we had to go all the way to the docks because no one on the phones spoke English and no one with us spoke Korean. For anyone who takes the PEOPLES FERRY in the future, know that one ticket for a specific time is as good as one ticket for any other time. Even another day. The PEOPLES FERRY is chill that way. To do as the Koreans, Alice and I bought ice creams and broke out the uke before returning to camp. Because of our horrible sleep, we were too tired to hike that day, but we did swim again to the horror of our faces.
Saturday night brought a thunderstorm and some high winds. Our castle tent was only saved by Sebastian’s quick thinking of tying our fly to a rock and then buring the rock. I felt so earthy. Other tents nearly flew away. Many people bailed on camping at all and found nice cozy inns. Later they came out to enjoy our bonfire and bonfire music and idiot foreigners playing dangerously with Roman candles.
At one point to stay awake, Alice and I raced each other to the water. Two ajushis and a young boy thought we were running towards their private firework display and were overjoyed to share them with us. All three were giggling madly as they pressed lit fireworks into our hands. When we ran back to the bonfire they chased us for a few feet yelling “NO RUN NO RUN! COME BACK COME BACK!”
In the morning, we packed up our stuff, ate most of our remaining food in the great Chuseok feast of ’09, and picked shells along the low tide shore. Most of us left around 1:30, but only Evan, Alice and I took the PEOPLES FERRY home. Our Chuseok Miracle was on this ferry too, but went out of his way to avoid Evan and his guitar. We think maybe he was ashamed of his … dancing.
One more Chuseok miracle occured before Monday, and it happened on our long subway ride home. Evan managed yet again to befriend a drunk Korean ajushi. After trying to drag some schoolboys towards us to speak Englishee with us, hewanted to know where we were from, so I told him Canada and America.
“Woaaaaaaaaa! Aniyo!” he shouted. ”CANADA, YES!” pointing at Alice. “CANADA, NO!” point at me, “AFRICA, YES!”
“Nooo, Canada,” I told him.
“NO! NO! CANADA NO! AFRICA YES!”
I don’t know what it was about my lobster-style red face that spoke to him so strongly of Africa.
I slept so hard Sunday night.
