동해 | Donghae (Part 2)

I'm deskwarming again, so hopefully I'll finally have some time to catch up on my huge backlog of posts!

As a brief warmup, I'll wrap up the posts about my brief holiday with my co-teacher in Donghae.

Nick went home after breakfast by coach, as he'd managed to nab tickets to a SHINee concert (or so he thought, more on that later, maybe, haha)

After an incredible, yet simple, lunch of 죽 (juk, Korean rice porridge similar to arroz caldo/lugaw which I've probably mentioned quite a few times before because I adore it) with roasted chicken and salt, my co-teacher, her sister and I went to a nearby beach that was much less densely populated than any I've been to in Korea so far.

The water was so clear and the weather was fantastic, no clouds in sight. Other than a couple of families and what looked like a simple pre-wedding photoshoot, it was incredibly quiet out there. I suppose it was because we were visiting out of season. I can't imagine a beach this nice would be this quiet all the time, but one can hope.

The sand was quite rough and sharp, mostly made from seashell fragments. This is where I made a big mistake. We arrived at pretty much the sun's peak in the sky, so I didn't realise the sand would be baking hot like fire. However, the pain was delayed and I was already halfway across, barefoot, to paddle in the water. 

A painful choice between burning my feet more to run back to my sandals, or just speed up and run across the sharp, burning grains until I could rest in the water ultimately led me to standing in the waves shifting uncomfortably while I waited for my feet to recover.

We headed back to the house and lazed about on the floor watching TV while my co-teacher napped in preparation for the long drive ahead. It was so nice to just relax in a very quiet room (rare for me these days ;p), with a breeze coming through the window, listening to nothing but the quiet rustling of kimbap being made and the TV turned down low.

This advert played a couple of times and it was baffling each time.

We set off in the late afternoon and sadly got stuck in gross traffic with everyone else doing the same thing. The few hours we should have taken were nearly doubled and we didn't get home until gone midnight. I felt bad that I couldn't take the wheel for a little while and let my co-teacher rest, considering I'd napped a lot more, but I guess there was nothing I could do about it.

I don't want to finish a post about such a lovely day and holiday overall on such a sad note so here's a photo of my co-teacher's mum's calligraphy work. There were paintings like this all over the house and they were all gorgeous. Such a talent!