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.

월미도2 | Wolmido Deux

Quite a while ago now, one of the teachers in my school took myself and Nick out for a trip around Wolmido with his family. He broke me out of Summer Camp deskwarming (classes finish at around midday but I can't leave until normal school time of 4:40pm, gah) by asking 교장 himself if I can be excused early. Then we hopped into the car, greeting his lovely wife and daughter, before speeding off to Nick's school, grabbing him, and continuing on to Wolmido.

I think there was originally some misunderstanding or miscommunication, but it turns out that the reason for the rush was because we were due to get a ferry! Just a little chain ferry across the water to the Airport Island, but as the last one was at 6pm we had to get a bit of a wiggle on.

We were handed a large bag of shrimp crisps, which are great (popular with the Filipinos back home) but a bit too fishy for my liking. But we were told "for the birds". Hm?

Turns out the tradition with this little ferry is to lob these snacks into the air for the seagulls to catch and fight over. A braver man than me, 김 선생님 would hold one between his fingers for the birds to snatch right from his hands. They did it very delicately and with great accuracy, but I value my fingers a little bit too much to risk it ;p