The 2011 Wando Beach Party

     Alright, the blog is back after a quick weekend hiatus.  I last left you at a pleasant conclusion of our big weekend in Busan over the Chuseok holiday, and promised big things in my forthcoming recap of the annual Wando Beach Party.  As promised, another blog post that might make you wonder if I ever work here in South Korea.

     The Wando Beach Party is an annual event, a gathering of all the foreigners in our province of Jeollanam-do (and some from beyond) in Wando, which is more or less a county made up of many islands, about 50 miles to the south of Hampyeong.  Mostly made up of relatively poor fishing villages, Wando also has some idyllic beaches and amazing landscapes, which make it the perfect setting for a bunch of foreigners to leave reality and get rowdy on a beach for roughly 48 hours.  

     I hadn't really mentioned this yet, but I lost my wallet one night in Gwangju on one of our first few weekends in the city after orientation.  So, at this point (mid-September, one month in), I was mostly living off of borrowed money from my main co-teacher and the nice friends I'd met so far.  Every week, Aaron and Erik and countless others offered to spot me some cash, and I'm forever grateful.  The Friday of our trek to Wando that weekend saw me with about 5,000 won in my wallet, or enough to take a bus to Mokpo (about 30 miles west of Hampyeong, where one must change buses to eventually arrive in Wando) and little else...certainly not enough to make it to Wando afterward.  Erik, too, was scraping the bottom, as we hadn't yet received our mandatory allowances from our schools yet.  We were pretty concerned about our prospects of finally getting to Wando, but decided we'd figure something out in Mokpo--the least we could do was get on the road and see what happened.  As it turned out, our Texan buddy Zach came up huge and offered us 100,000 won each to spend for the weekend and tide us over until our allowances came, under one condition--we meet him in Wando to get it.  With about 5 minutes left in our launch sequence before heading to the terminal and getting the journey started, Erik magically found a small stash of emergency cash in his dresser, making us temporarily rich and forever grateful men who were about to have a great weekend.  We knew luck was on our side in this instance.  

     So we hopped a quick bus to Mokpo...no problem there.  As it turned out, buses from Mokpo to Wando only run until about 6:30 or 7:00 pm, and we had just missed the last possible direct bus.  One more bump in the road.  Luckily, we figured out that buses from Mokpo to Haenam (Zach and Monti's stomping grounds, more or less on the way from Mokpo to Wando) run quickly and even run from Haenam to Wando as late as 9:00 pm.  So we jumped on the first bus we could, bound for Haenam, and arrived at about 8:55 pm, with 5 minutes to spare and catch our final bus to Wando.  As it turned out, the bus was full of foreigners!  Folks from Suncheon and Gwangyang, on the other side of Jeolla province altogether, had been stopping in small towns for several hours and Haenam happened to be one of them.  So it was great to see some familiar faces for the final leg of our journey, and the luck had been restored.  

     The girls decided, upon arrival in Wando, to settle for a motel close to the bus terminal and check out the beach in the morning--they were pretty tired.  Me and the boys were just a little wired from all the traveling, and were eager to have some beers on the beach and get things started right.  After mumbling what we had heard was the location of the festivities, we exited a taxi and had no idea where we were--a couple convenient stores and a motel were all that we saw, but we also saw a path of sand leading somewhere...we knew we were close.  And sure enough, after walking on the sand-covered boards for a couple hundred feet, we arrived near the water on the stretch of boardwalk that lines Myeongsashimni, or Wando's finest beach.  A 5 minute walk and we knew where the party was.  Finally, after about 5 hours of traveling only about 80 miles, we had arrived.  A couple bonfires, two or three dozen foreigners, and a whole lot of booze ushered in a great weekend.  We took things pretty easy that first night, but were so excited to be there, we stayed up until about 4:30 am.  Here's a photo that nicely sums of some of the night's activity:

Monti getting toasty by the fire.

     Monti had booked a hotel, a short walk from the beach (bless his heart), and we crashed there--all 5 or 6 of us dudes, I couldn't remember how many...we just remember a cold floor, not a lot of space, and the smell of dude everywhere.  Here was the scene in the morning:

From left to right: Zach, Monti, and (introducing, for the first but not the last time) Reading, PA's finest, Dan Glucksnis.  Zach was still sleeping, but Monti and Dan were ready for a long day of drinking, circa 10:00 am.

It took us a few hours to get the wheels spinning that morning, but we came outside to what must have been 75-80 degrees and absolutely clear skies.  Oh yeah, and apparently this is the view from where we were the night before.  

Just try to tell me this is what you thought South Korea actually looked like.  Could've fooled me...I might as well have been in Hawaii or Jamaica.  

Psyched for the big day, with Julia.  Not pictured is the giant bloody mary I tried to make, using a 2-liter bottle of tomato juice (FYI, the tomato juice in Korea is straight up sugar and tastes nothing like a tomato, a little disappointing) and a bottle of soju.  Pepper and hot sauce would've helped, but nothing could've truly saved that terrible concoction.

Here are lovely ladies Toni and Nichole kicking back on the beach.  Also, a pale dude's nipple trolling in the background.  Nicely done, dude.

     As far as the day's activities, there's just not that much to tell...once you get on the beach, with all your friends and booze and sunshine in hand, things just sort of take care of themselves.  Everyone gets pretty rowdy, plays some drinking games, horses around in the water, gets some sun, and drinks some more.  One thing we hadn't counted on is a really cute dog that spent most of the day with us.  Our friend Mackenzie even took it home, as we decided it probably had no real owner.  Here is Sam getting some quality time with the little furball:

Whole lotta love.

Foreigners chilling in the water.

Just flawless weather...I could take pictures of this beach all day.

Either the dog got a little sleepy or someone decided to hand it a few beers, because it spent a good 3 or 4 hours under that umbrella.  As for the foreigners, they just kept on partying the afternoon away.  Eventually, I finished my terrible semblance of a "bloody mary" and a few beers had never tasted so sweet.

Snapping a quick picture with Tex.  Dude had the most rocking trunks of the weekend, and sported some solid, slicked back lettuce for hair.

     As fun as it was to get wild on the beach for 7-8 hours, we decided it would probably be a good idea to get some food in the system before Round 2 that night.  Luckily, there was a great barbecue restaurant right beside our motel/the beach, and we made ourselves at home.  Here are a few pictures from our dinner, as I continue to rave about the world of Korean barbecue:

Various onions in a sort of sweet and tangy sauce, which you wrap in lettuce along with your desired meat.  Really fresh looking and tasting.

This restaurant in Wando boasted the most rocking kimchi I've had to date.  That stuff had some giddy-up, but it was absolutely delicious.  

Me and Julia digging the scene.

Here was our choice of the night: "sam gyeop sal", which more or less means mean of the "pork stomach/rib fat" area.  It looks like thick slabs of bacon, really.  And although you'd think the higher fat content provides it with even more flavor, that's not really the case.  Still flavorful, still incredibly good, but not my favorite type of barbecue.

Here are various types of lettuce in which to wrap our "sam gyeop sal," as well as some mild, crunchy peppers.  Typically you dip the pepper in a tangy, red pepper paste and munch it down to the stem. 

...And it's back to the beach for some nighttime partying.  There's a peek of our aforementioned man Dan enjoying a beer in the background, but the real story of this picture is our friend, Rozanne, who teaches very close to Wando, and was really enjoying her time in the lap of our friend Shari.  Rozanne and Shari, in all seriousness, have been two of the kindest, most helpful people I've met in my life, and they've made my transition to Korean work and life that much more smooth.

Team Sam, a little tired and a little sunburned, but still psyched.

     The night looked a bit like the previous one, only, instead of 2-3 dozen foreigners, the number exceeded the 100 mark...we'd like to think so, at least.  A couple bonfires, some guitars, lots of inebriated young people, some ocean swimming in the dark...all fun things, eh?  We stayed up until about 3:30 am, but had to call it quits.  And OH, MY did it get cold at night near the beach.  I should mention that, instead of crashing in that motel again, we opted to sleep on these exposed platforms just uphill from the beach, and we all agreed we'd never spooned people harder in our lives.  The name of the game was A. body heat and B. don't get eaten alive by mosquitos.  Anyway, it didn't make for a very comfortably sleep (or really, any sleep at all), but still provided a nice, serene setting by sunrise:

The view from our platform.

Looking toward a few other ones...some folks brought tents, but a few of us literally used a blanket or two, and backpacks as pillows.  Not an ideal scenario, but probably the most interesting night of sleep I'll have in Korea.  

     Everyone was packed at a relatively early hour, and wanted to hustle back to their hometowns, as a journey from Wando to just about anywhere can take a while.  Some of us opted to stay until about 2:00 pm and catch some more sun and swimming on the beach.  It was another gorgeous day, and we just didn't want to leave.  

     We caught our bus back to Mokpo, and eventually Hampeyong, and called it another successful weekend.  Erik and I always have this tradition of saluting each other and tipping our caps to another great weekend as we both enter our apartments and face what is more often than not a lazy Sunday of napping, lesson planning, and watching internet T.V.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  Nor would I have this weekend any other way...some of the most fun I'm sure I'll have in my year here.  

     Hoping to get back to Wando again, as soon as the weather will allow us to do all of this...so it might be a while, but it will certainly be worth it.  This was the closest one can probably get to the idea of a tropical paradise on the Korean peninsula, and we lived it.  We lived it hard.

     That's all for now, I'll check in sometime in the next 48 hours, and I promise I'll get back to some talk about my actual job...maybe.

     Thanks for reading!  All the best, and love to all,

     -Sam Teacher