10/2-10/5
This past weekend was the South Korean holiday of Chuseok which is comparable to the American holiday of Thanksgiving. Families return to their points of origins, have a family meal and generally express their thanks for the past year and their lives. We had Thursday and Friday of last week off as well as this past Monday. A lot of the students went to their grandparents' houses, one kid went to Guam, but for the most part everyone returned to their families and celebrated quietly. Having no family in Korea, their teachers took this opportunity to take short vacations around Asia. A lot of our coworkers had made plans a while ago to get out of the country. Ben and Liz went to Tokyo, Jeremy was going to go to the Philippines but wasn't able to because of the Tsunami that recently struck, Ben Yannuzzi, Natalie and I being relatively new had to fashion our own plans and decided to stay in the country rather than leave. We were lucky and found that Adventure Korea, the same company through which we did the Bungee jumping, had set up a trip to an island of the Eastern coast of Korea which was relatively cheap, so we jumped all over it.
We would be staying on Ulleung Island or Ulleungdo (do meaning island) and would have the opportunity to travel to Dokdo, another island farther our into the pacific that has an interesting story I will get into later. We booked in advance with no problems and by the time last Thursday rolled around we were packed and ready to go . . . for our 11:30 pm departure time, woohoo. We took a cab to the express bus terminal and arrived along with 132 other foreigners who had decided to go on the trip. Four buses filled up quickly in front of the terminal and we soon were just about ready to go. Our guide, the same one who we had ridden with to the rafting trip took roll, made some jokes in broken english, we all laughed, he explained to us our schedule and then we got to know our bus mates a little bit. We didn't end up leaving till about 12:30 in the morning which wasn't that big of a deal, most people were much more excited than tired, so we all talked and laughed until the guide told us we were leaving, shut off the lights and the bus lurched to life.
The plan was to leave and catch the sunrise on the eastern coast of the country before taking a ferry out to Ulleungdo. Our guide encouraged us to sleep on the bus because we had a long day ahead of us what with traveling and exploring the island, the problem with this was that the bus wasn't comfortable enough for me to sleep, not nearly enough. Most of our companions had the same problem, so instead of sleeping I listened to my Ipod for 5 hours. The ride was broken up by two 15 minute rest stops, and oddly enough seemed to fly by. I did try to sleep but the only time I got close to passing out we pulled into the first rest stop. After that I gave up, luckily though we reached the beach parking lot after not to long. We still had a little over an hour until sunrise so I got out of the bus, ate my breakfast and Natalie and I began the walk down to the beach.
The walk wasn't too long, about 200 meters and I was excited to see the ocean for the first time since the plane ride but before I could we had to pass through a fish market where a variety of smells were waiting for us. First sewage wafted into our nostrils followed quickly by the smell of rotting fish, yummy. We turned a corner and saw what our noses had picked up, rows and rows of squid impaled by bamboo reeds hung out to dry by the local fishermen. There were at least 400 of them and they smelled to high heaven. Ben had been complaining about how he doesn't like killing sea animals for the whole of our stay in Korea so far so I turned to Natalie and said, "Ooo, Ben isn't gonna like this." It was squidocide. That was the biggest collection of dead animals I had seen ever in my life. We hurried by after taking a few quick pictures and made our way down to the beach. In the early morning the beach was a welcome site. The sand was cool between my toes and the wind coming off of the ocean felt like a cool caress on my bare skin, it was everything I had hoped for.
We walked down to the water and drank in it's grandeur. Far out you could see the fishing boat's lights dotting the horizon, 10 or more shone like beacons, and soon we saw the rock sentinels that dotted the water close to the beach. Years of wind, rain and ocean waves had carved watchmen out of the stoney shore. The rocks rose from the water in stalwart fashion all weather beaten but stoic against the omnipresent forces of nature. They were a sight to see. I scrambled across the bridge leading up to a rocky outcropping on the right side of the pristine water line and encountered only more impressive examples of the artistic prowess of water. Where I was standing had at one point been a massive boulder of granite that had jutted out into the sea, millennia ago probably, but now there were 15 or so immense rocks across the water. These were accompanied by spits of grey stone extending from the shore which created small channels that the ocean ran up between, like fingers almost, reaching out to touch the sea. I continued along the path and found the entire coast to be a surreal mix of stone, small patches of vegetation and ocean. It was remarkable.
To think that such as this had come without anything but time, people look on the world and revel in the marvels we create, the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China, and the Pyramids at Giza stun and fascinate people the world over. Our cities are monuments to humanities ingenuity and dominance, but at that beach I couldn't help but delight in the fragility and mortality of it all. This had taken millions of years to create. Millions of years of constant wear and tear, millions of years of destruction, degradation. There was no planning, there was no prototype for what I was looking at. We the builders rejoice in our successes, name the planners and the architects geniuses, but could any of them have done this? I think not. Shelley had it right, "look on my works ye mighty and despair." The nerve. Who are we to have named the eight wonders of the world? I could've picked eight from that beach.
I rejoiced in my exploration. As it the night faded I ran around the area snapping pictures of the landscape, which without water would have been pretty frightening, the rocks rose out of the ground like spikes in places, I felt like I could have been traversing a granite wasteland except that it was broken by the bluest cleanest ocean water I have ever seen. The rocks looked menacing, frozen as they were climbing up and out of the ground. I started to climb on them and took as many pictures as I could. It was still very dark so I had a hard time getting shots that weren't blurry but I did manage to get some good ones as the lighting improved. There were fences set up everywhere and signs written in Korean which undoubtedly said "Do NOT Climb!" luckily I don't speak Korean and despite the fact that I will try and learn I will forever use that excuse as a way to circumvent the silly boundaries preventing me from venturing into places I must see.
This was certainly one of those must see places. The sunrise came and went with nothing as a large cloud bank was sitting over the pacific in front of us so I took the time to fence jump and play on the rocks that had been screaming for me to scramble across them. The climbing was excellent. Nature had carved natural foot and handholds into the stones which I took advantage of. It was lucky to that it had because my rainbows probably wouldn't have done so well on sheer rock face. I made my way out onto the largest extension of the shore, it was as if I was tenderly picking my way across the spine of a once mighty sea creature, now long deceased with only its bones remaining, rising twenty some feet out of the water as proof of it's monstrosity. I went up and down the solid backbone of the smooth stone, testing its limits finding new places to go. Paths along the rock opened up to me freely and were I a little braver I could have certainly made it to the furthest edge. I had my camera with my so I climbed to the tallest point took a few pictures and left.
No less exciting was the climb back, I tried new avenues, different from the ones I'd taken before, they proved more challenging but all the more rewarding. Halfway through I had to catch myself. A spider bit me as I reached for the next hand hold and I wrenched my hand away leaving myself supported by only one foot with a 15 foot drop onto the sharp teeth of the earth below me. Reminded again of my mortality and now carrying some kind of stinger in my left pointer finger I took less risks and made it back safely to return to the bus. My finger swelled up a bit but did nothing more, I'm fine now, but I do think I killed the the spider.
We left the beach not soon after I returned. People were disappointed we had not seen the sun but the anxiousness was building, we were almost there! We got to the boat terminal grabbed out things and boarded the ferry. I had the misfortune to be sat next to a very large man who smelled rather funny and seemed to want to talk the whole boat ride there. He was nice enough but I was not in the mood. Luckily I hadn't slept in over 24 hours at this point so I quickly passed out and slept for the entirety of the ferry ride. My oversized seat buddy shook me awake when we reached the harbor at Ulleungdo. We were leaving and I had missed the approaching view of the island, no matter though, I'm on vacation. Slightly groggy Ben, Natalie and I climbed off the ferry and took our first look of a simple little fishing town wedged between the ocean and the towering mountains that make up the island. It was exactly where I wanted to be.
We carried our stuff up to the hotel and got put in our rooms. Ben, Natalie and I were in one room with an Irishman who was also named Patrick. I took my name and he took Paddy but we hardly saw him for most of the trip anyway. We got situated and after exploring a little bit with a new friend Matt, discovering a few goat and an incredible view of a beach we had not seen, we were corralled by the tour guides into four buses on which we would circumnavigate the Island. I was excited, though very tired. From what I had seen the Island was a paradise. The place was clearly dominated by the landscape, mountains rising unhindered from the depths of the ocean, but the people had managed to carve out small niches in the small valleys between the looming volcanic rock. The rock itself was ages old and now much of the surface had degraded into perfect soil for the multitude of plant life flourishing on the slopes. Trees, shrubs, flowers and much more covered the entirety of the Island and we would gt some good views of all of this on our bus tour.
The first stop we made was at turtle rock, a huge extension from the main body of the island that rose hundreds of feet over the water. It's called turtle rock because it looks a lot like a turtle when you look at it right, it took me looking at my pictures a few times to actually get it, but I did. We walked around and climbed a little bit, the tide was going out and had left pools on the edges of the rock which I took some pictures of, but the most impressive part of this entire stop I think was the ocean. I hadn't taken time to stop and look at the water yet as we had been rushed off of the ferry, into our apartment and onto the bus almost immediately, but now I had the chance to. There wasn't anything but flat blue water with the sun reflecting off of it as far as the eye could see.
Now I've been going to the beach all my life, I love it there, but it was not the same as this. The water was different, the air was different, everything, even my sense of place was not at all similar to what I remember it being at Ocean City (MD or NJ) or even Key West. The water was comparable to Florida, crystal clear yes, as it was on the eastern shore of Korea, but even clearer than that. It was almost as if I was looking through blue tinted glasses at the bottom of the sea. I had never seen water so translucent in my entire life, not even in water bottles. I remarked to Yannuzzi that I think I could probably live in that water and never have to come up for air, never, that's how clear it was. It stretched forever too, the water did, and it wasn't that dirty greenish brown water we know and love on the east coast of the US it was all blue, inexplicably blue, it molded itself with the sky so much so that the horizon looked like the joining of two parallel universes, embracing despite their significant differences.
There I was, in the middle of all of this rock, air and water finding it hard to decide to which of these worlds I belonged. I knew which one was right, but I wanted to live in the others so much. I felt like my place could just as easily have been flying around the sky or walking on the bottom of this pristine ocean in stead of standing on the edge of my solid grounded world looking into the two realms of this planet characterized by motion and ever present change. On solid land we live in the same conditions as everyone else; we have gravity, we stand, we walk, we sit. We jump and we come back down, we fall and we get back up, but no matter where we are or what we do we still inhabit the ground. We have engineered planes and boats that carry us through these other realms of sky and water, but they are not made for us anymore than we are for them. Our place is rooted to the earth and forever will be. On Ulleungdo for the first time I though I could live in these two other worlds, I thought that they could be for me, I hoped they could, but they can't, I'm still rooted here in Seoul. I still walk to work everyday, I don't fly, I still teach classes standing near a white board, not angling my way through reefs. I know that this is where I belong, but if for a day I could belong to the sky or the sea, just for one day, I would never complain again.
We were called back to the buses, but I stayed and stared out for a little while longer. It was beautiful, the varied world we live in is truly amazing and there are some places in it that force you to realize this, Ulleungdo's turtle rock proved to be one of them for me. Snooze and I walked back. I was mournfully dry except for my toes, but that was enough for me, for now. We loaded into the buses and passed several more rocks rising out of the sea, each as impressive as the last. There were several tunnels, lion rock, bear rock, each of which I feel are pretty self explanatory and then we reached our second stop. There would be five stops and this on was just a deck from which you could see this entire side of the island. From here you could see part of Elephant rock, the ocean and a really nice view of topography of the island. The ocean fed into the small harbor which sustained the village that climbed up the looming mountain that outstripped the village and soared in its majesty. The mountains really did dominate the island but they were so nice about it I felt. They were ever present and triumphant but people lived at their feet and in the crevasses between their toes and thrived. It was perfect symbiosis and it was a nice departure from Seoul where people have become the dominant ones.
We stayed for twenty minutes there, took a group picture and departed for the next stop. We passed more rocks in the water. The first of these was the rock that nobody cares about, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA, very funny. The next few were a trio, the three sisters. Legend has it that these rocks were actually angels who had decided to stay near Ulleungdo because they had found it to be an earthly paradise. All right, at this point I was halfway to declaring the same thing. Next was the sitting man, crocodile rock and a few others. One was actually another miniature island where there was only one farm and a man and his son who lived there, lonely life. We continued on, reached a harbor and then started climbing. The roads were very steep and frankly I was amazed that the bus could actually drive up. The drivers were maniacs, they could probably have driven those buses through hell if they wanted to but luckily it was just a mountain road and we made it to the temple we were headed for soon.
The temple was framed on three sides by mountains one of which had a few holes poked through the top. Our guide told us that these are for the apocalypse. When the world ends God is going to pluck Ulleungdo out of the ocean by hooking his fingers through the four holes. I love the legends this place had. I took some pictures of the relatively new temple and them we continued on to the final stop, the crater.
Ulleungdo had been formed by a now dead volcano and we were headed for the center of it. When we got there we were stunned it looked like the midwest. The island, being dominated by mountains, had no flatland except for the few plots some industrious fisherman had carved out for their homes. Here in the center of the crater was flatland though, enough for rolling farmland surrounded by the rim of what used to be a volcano. We stayed here for a little bit. We got to see an example of old an old Korean farming village which had been built for tourists, drank some pumpkin makali, a rice wine flavored in this case with pumpkin which is very good in my opinion then left. The whole ride took about 5 hours and I was pretty excited still. I surprised myself in that I wasn't tired. I had been awake for almost 40 hours straight at this point but I was still going strong. Ben had passed out on the bus a few times but I was just so excited by this amazing place my energy was feeding off of it.
I'm gonna post this now and stop. There's a lot more to this trip I know it's a lot but this was the best experience I've had in Korea so I think it deserves the time and volume I'm giving it, enjoy.
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