So Korea has given you a Wednesday off from school. To be fair, this day has been given to all foreigners. The only question is, what will you do with it? Honestly, until about 12:00pm on Wednesday, June 6th, I hadn't really considered my options. Maybe I should have considered a big hike. Maybe I should have traveled to a different city. Maybe I shouldn't have stayed out on the town in Hampyeong of all places until 3:00am last night. Well, that should tell you all you need to know about why I might have been a little slow and indecisive on Wednesday morning.
After a few hours of watching LeBron and the Miami Heat vs. the Boston Celtics, courtesy of 2 fantastically entertaining Korean commentators (in which Dwayne Wade becomes "Dah-way-nuh Way-ee-duh" and Rajon Rondo becomes "Londoooooooooooo th-reee pooooooo iiiiiiin ttttttt sssssuh!"), it was time to finally make a decision about my day. Luckily, several similarly slow-operating foreigners (try saying that 5 times fast!) hadn't made much of a decision either. So, around 2:00pm, we hatched a plan. We would drive out to Dolmeori Beach (돌머리 해변), grill some food, and just generally relax. So we packed the car and made the 10-minute trek, Rob and Joan in the front (Rob from England, Joan from Scotland, lovely couple now living in Hampyeong, profile to come) and Erik and myself in the back, like the two children who, after Mom and Dad seemingly bought all the food and drink, packed the car, and thought of everything, were just itching to get to the beach and run around. Here is a picture of Rob and Joan, out at the beach, with their hot new wheels:
Sure, it's a little small. But it gets the job done. And we can take it to the beach.
That's what she said.
To no one's surprise, I did indeed take some cutesy, close-up flower photos, because why not? I get the sense Mama Bear back in the States would love to peep these, and they're pretty photogenic after all.
It felt really nice to drive about 10 minutes, unpack the car for another 10, and get psyched for a huge lunch just 50 meters from the seashore--lthough you're never too far from the ocean when you live in Korea, I seriously doubt that my next home here will be within sea salt smelling distance. Although there were some other families, there, we staked out a nice spot to lay down the blanket and chairs, break out the cooler of Corona and Hoegaarden, and assemble the grill. Sounds like a typical afternoon at home with the boys in Madison, but it's more of a luxury in this country this far.
The scene.
Rob and Joan had been so kind as to do some solid shopping beforehand, and we were treated to an absolute feast that included all of what you see here, as well as some later mystery meats. Australian beef (because we've eaten enough Korean beef at this point), and a Russian Roulette assortment of sausages, some nice and mild, some...regrettable.
Wanna know something that's not regrettable?
Aforementioned mystery meat. Ribs, baby, ribs. Just like Pops used to slow cook in the oven. Only in Korea. Rob and Joan really knew how to spoil us boys on this fine day.
I'm a pretty happy camper at this point. This is the kind of day I could have only dreamed of a few months ago in the snow and cold of Korean winter. Note the tide starting to slowly work its way out. This will become ever more apparent in later pictures.
View from our feast.
As the tide washes out, many people rush to the water's edge to check out the scene--some folks, just out of pure interest for the wonders of our world's oceans, but most, I'd imagine, quite literally, to find dinner or snacks. The muddy spots near the water are full of crabs and other shellfish, and that's ever more apparent with each rippling wave and its sediments of fresh seaweed and fragmented shells. I'm not sure if I felt hungry enough for it at this point.
We decided to take a little hike along the shore, and stumbled upon a futuristic, if awkwardly-designed lighthouse (is it really though?) building on the rocky coast. Making their way around these piles of solidified rocks near the water were literally thousands of tiny, prehistoric-looking, millipede-esque creatures. The real challenge became crossing from rock to rock without finding one in your sandal.
A quick look in a tide pool reveals (forgive me, for I don't have a name for anything I'm looking at in this picture) a hairy plant with some sort of powerful mouth. When bristled with a finger, or agitated by some other shellfish, these hairs fold up and the plant shrinks to about half its size. Didn't have the presence of mind to rattle it and take an "after" photo.
This is a pretty solid view from the "lighthouse" at Dolmeori. Looking straight north, more or less, you see a couple nice pagodas with solid views, some dolmens (hence Dolmeori, possibly?), and a cool little tide pool fenced in by two man-made, rock retaining walls. Ideally, kids swim and flop around in there, and it's kept at a moderate depth by a pump that pushes saltwater back out to sea, but the idea still seems a little strange. Anyway, the sun begins to set on a nice day thus far.
Looking out into the vast ocean. Vast might not be the word, as only about 5-10km away lies
Shinan-gun, the next "county" to the southwest of Hampyeong. Made of mostly islands, Shinan obstructs any endless, open-water view from most beaches in Hampyeong. Pretty cool views though, nonetheless!
One more look near our picnic spot. As you can see the tide is really starting to wash out quickly. Mud flats begin to appear, and the seafood buffet really starts to make its presence known.
One brave older lady has gone out with her bucket, agitating small rocks and bubbling spots in the mud in hopes of digging up some small crabs--maybe for a soup, maybe for a pet, maybe just for kicks. I'm gonna go with the soup idea. The tide has washed away quickly, leaving mostly awkward, green puddles of algae and shells as far as the eye can see. This tidewater literally seems to wash all the way out as far as the eye can see, leaving the area almost exclusively mud for a good portion of the day.
Shellfish cling to a root in the mud.
Digging for more crabs.
This little guy found his way onto the walkway out to sea, and was dying to flop back into a tide pool. With a little push and much verbal encouragement, he finally did it, despite his oversized claws. Clown.
The sun sets on a great day out at Dolmeori Beach.
The opportunity to relax or generally do anything on a day off is not lost on a single Korean. We are so lucky to have the opportunity to simply drive to a local beach and relax, eat nice food and hike around. The majority of my Thursday and Friday students, when asked about their day off, attested to helping their parents farm (specifically picking onions, for which Hampyeong must be famous in some way--there are literally thousands of bags of them throughout the county, and they even act, most often in fact, as roadside barriers). My point is that, on days like this, foreigners get to have all the fun, while most Koreans are happy enough to relax. The majority of them, at least in this part of Korea, do not have this luxury. It's a thankful opportunity to tend to fields for 14 hours of sunlight, and get the whole family together to do so.
I can only say that I'm thankful to have the time and the freedom to do such things, and a good group of foreigners here to enjoy them with. That's all from Dolmeori Beach. Thanks for reading!
All the best,
Sam
