A Day at the Beach

"An-young-ha-say-oh, Two tickets for the Gang-nee-young bus departing at eight, please." I asked the woman behind the counter and glass of the inter-city bus terminal, holding up first two fingers, then eight.

"Gangnueng? Two tickets?" She replied, putting emphasis on my mangling of the town name.

"Please."

"Something-something-in-fast-Korean"

"Yes. Nay (means yes in Korean, I think)." Please take my money. She reaches out for my card, and swipes it for two "excellent" class tickets to the east-coast beach town (a little more expensive than the "normal" class tickets I had intended to buy, but they would do).

And that was how our day began.

We had been meaning to go to a beach while the weather was warm, and it has been warm. August was a sweltering soup, though just recently it's been cooler, and drafty. Almost like October in Georgia. Worried we were missing our window, we made for the coast and the beach town of Gangnueng, packed for a day in the sun.

I went in trunks and a tee (Maria had the good sense to travel in a long-sleeved shirt), and we each packed dry clothes along with an old duvet cover turned beach blanket, and sliced apples for "snack.'' Not for a snack, but for "snack". I got a kick out of that. Maria taught K-8 before coming over, so "snack" is more or less one of the square meals for her. You know, breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner.

We were up around 6 AM that morning, and it took us just a few subway trains to reach the bus station we needed. I've said it before, but the public transit here is just awesome. So easy. Having never lived in a big city, it's super cool to me to not have a car and still be able to get wherever I need to go, and with ease. I think I understand a little better all the griping I've heard about MARTA now from my enlightened, worldly Atlanta friends.

When the bus came, we found our "excellent" seats in the back of the Greyhound style transport. They were nice. The views on the way to the beach were nicer. Korea is a very mountainous country. Mountainous and green. We kept looking out at the misty rises and slopes and thinking of the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Smokies, but there's a lusher, greener quality to these mountains. For one, they're mostly covered in pines. Literally, the Korean Pine.

Pinus koraiensis

The beach was on the other side of the country. On the eastern coast. We'd read that the beaches to the south (by Busan) and the east were much nicer than those on the western side of the country (closer to us). I was excited for the long ride, as I've really been itching to get out of the city and see more of the country. Seoul is wonderful, and wholly Korean, but I'm very interested to see how the rest of Korea lives and looks. We got a taste on this trip. 

Bus station bathroom. There are urinals and these... So when you #2...

The bus ride was scheduled to take 2.5 hours, but we hit traffic and it wound up taking closer to 4. Not a big deal. Like I said, my eyeballs were glued to the windows most of the ride, and we both had our books. I'm on book five of King's Dark Tower series, and am totally hooked. Great books. 

Shortly after the mountains shrunk and eventually ceased, we arrived in Gangnueng at an inter-city bus station not so unlike the one we had departed from in Seoul, if a little less glamorous. The city remind me a bit of a blown up Tybee. It's a beach town, yeah, but there are still scaled down versions of the tall, clone-ish buildings that are so prevalent in the Seoul area. I'll talk more on those later. It's very strange to an outsider, and certainly one not used to the city, but there's a definite trend in Korea to building many identical skyscrapers right next to each other. Entire groves of them, rising to the exact same height, painted the exact same color. Sometimes you'll see new buildings rising at the end of a long line of clone-buildings, maybe two new buildings at the end of two lines of clones, AND THEY'RE BEING BUILT AT THE EXACT SAME SPEED. It reminds me of an assembly line. I'll take pictures of this soon. You just have to see it. 

Sidebar: In Korea, it's a thing for couples to dress exactly the same. On the beach bus a guy and girl had the exact same pair of shoes. 

Anyway, there was a similar vibe in Gangneung, although the buildings were smaller and a deal shabbier. This seems to be a town where the chief attraction is the beach (although it's called the Pine City), and tourism isn't doing so hot. The weather was also bad. It had been sunny all week. Friday, in particular, was an eye-squinting sundance of a day. But that was Friday. And this was Saturday. And there are some folk that say we're still on the edge of monsoon season here in sometimes-sunny Korea. 

Still, it was only a dreary, overcast when we arrived in Gangneung, one that might break up at any moment. After some scuttling around and chatter with some locals in a tourist info building, we found the city bus that would take us to the beach, and got on board. In Seoul, you have a transit card (looks like a hotel key-card) that you scan to use the bus/subway/whatever. We were pleased to find that the same card worked in Gangneung! 

The bus rattled through the town, making a good many stops before reaching the end of its line at Gyeongpo Beach. This place really looked like Tybee, though with a few more beach condos, so maybe more like a small, slightly shoddier Destin. We didn't come to judge the condos though, just the beach, and the beach was awesome. 

The way to the beach was festooned with the Korean Pines that the city is nicknamed for, and the smell of them mingled with the salt air very nicely. It reminded me of home in a way that is hard to find in the bustle of Seoul. 

The water was a deep aqua-marine, the shade of which I've only seen in Greece. On on overcast day like Saturday it looked more of a steely-green, though when a big wave would tunnel up to the shore you could see the hard, aqua color in the roll of it. Gorgeous. I have always loved the beach on days like that, when it looks so angry. The waves were kicking up pretty good. The wind was whipping. At first, I was wishing I hadn't dressed so lightly (you know, as if I were going to the beach at the tail of August), but I got used to the draft about the time it started raining. Just a spare drizzle at first. 

Maria and I walked down the coarse, orange-ish beach, headed for some far-away jetties where the waves were breaking dramatically. There were several rocky outcroppings poking up through the waves, most of them within 50 yards of the beach. If the water hadn't been so chopping I might have swam out to them, though I noticed colored floats placed intermittently some 20 yards away from the beach (probably to keep people from swimming out into a riptide). Still, no lifeguards. Not really much of anyone. There were a few families walking around. I saw one guy wind-surfing (awesome). 

When we finally arrived at the big jetties (which turned out to be more of a single micro-mountain), we climbed on top of them to watch the ocean. There were some spent fireworks up there. The customary empty beer bottle. Some stuff spray painted on the rocks. That kind of thing. The view was something, though. Roiling, heavy-handed grey-green-blue waves slamming on irongrey rocks. Nothing like an angry ocean just before a storm. And then the rain picked up. Slowly, at first. 

I pulled out the duvet cover and we used it as a makeshift tent for a while, not wanting to abandon the mountain-jetty yet. But the rain and the wind kept building, the duvet cover made a pretty poor rainfly, and before we knew it we found ourselves in the middle of a pretty serious rainstorm and without much cover in sight. 

Check out the first picture in this post for a wider shot of this

We scrabbled down the rocks, and made for where we'd ditched our shoes for the climb. That was when we found one of the coolest things I've seen in Korea thus far. Etched into the side of the mountain-jetty were several lines of Chinese characters. I've never been one to really go for them. The calligraphy is amazing, but still, I never really gave them much thought. But here, carved into the jetty with the wind and rain whipping and the grey sea pounding on the grey rocks -- they were incredible. Elegant and stoic. They may well say. "Joanie loves Chachi," but, then, if you can't read the characters, it doesn't much matter. They were beautiful. 

Don't ruin this for me if you can read Chinese

While I was staring open mouthed at the carvings, and Maria took pictures, we were getting pummeled by the rising storm. We slipped on our shoes and ran up the beach to a nearby shop (I think it was a fish market of some kind) with a short awning. We were still getting rained on, but it was something. Some place we could re-adjust the backpack, moving all the electronics to the center pocket and wrapping them in our dry clothes. Leaving Maria under the sort-of-dry awning, I jogged down the street looking for a dryer place for us to wait out the storm. People gawked as they drove by in cars. People eating in restaurants craned their heads to look out in to the rain at the waygook (foreigner, and in this case idiot-foreigner) running around barefoot in the rain. I wasn't finding much. No bigger awnings. Mostly just restaurants full of dry people. I was soaked. 

I stopped in the doorway of a laundry mat to get my bearings. There were a few old women inside talking. I felt like I was intruding a little, but the door was open and I was drenched to the bone running down the street like a jilted lover in a lifetime movie-- it was a very "what-the-hell" moment. I smiled at them and pointed out at the rain, as if to say, "Can you believe that?!" They laughed and one of the women handed me an umbrella. I must have looked pretty pitiful, because when I gesticulated that I would go and come back with it, she waved me off laughing. Telling me, I knew, to "keep it (you idiot)." Nice lady. All of the grandmother aged women in Korea have been very forthcoming and nice -- grandmotherly, you might say. I thanked the woman, "Gam-sah-ham-nee-dah," and went out back in to the rain to show Mara my find. 

Armed with our new umbrella, we trudged out in to the rain. Where, we didn't know, but we were starting to get looks from the fish mongers who's shop were were taking refuge under. Maybe 20 seconds later the rain stopped. Damn. I tried to return the umbrella, but the ladies in the shop waved me off. There's a boardwalk that stretches the length of the beach, and we took to it. Pines are planted all along the way. I've never seen pines like that on the beach, and it was quite pretty -- the smell I've already told you about, but I'll re-emphasize now that it was fantastic. We passed a few building facing the ocean with sandbag fortifications on their concrete porches. There was a tank behind a rusting fence, covered in a rotting nylon sheet and dripping in the post-rain. There are plenty of reminders around Korea of the war. I think often about what kind of memories the older people I meet must have of those times. 

The waves had calmed a bit, and we decided that we shouldn't travel 4 hours to the beach and not swim. The water had been bitter cold when we walked the beach earlier, but it just wouldn't feel right to leave without getting in. I'm glad we did. The water wasn't cold at all, and next to the dreary, yet still somewhat humid air, it was very refreshing. I have always loved salt water. It feels so clean. I think it stems back to when I was small, and my parents would tell me to get in the ocean when I had some cut or scrape (which was often). "Just get in to the water," they would say. Nature's Neosporin. Whatever the reason, I always feel healthier in the salt water. 

We got out feeling revived (it had been a fairly long day already), and made our way back up the beach and through the pines to the beach bus station. We tried for a shower. I asked a shop-keep along the way where we could find one (we'd seen signs, but no building). 

"Shhhhhh," I said, miming a shower head with one hand while the other worked imaginary shampoo in my hair. 

"You want a shower?" He said in perfect English. Damn. 

"Yes."

"4,000 won. Just over there." Next time I'll lead with English. 

Drowning

We wound up not going for the shower, and just heading back to the station. After changing in to our spare clothes, we felt fine. I bought a chocolate bar and a tiny bottle of Jameson at a mini-stop (Korea has a very loose open-container policy), so I was feeling dry and toasty by the time the bus arrived to take us back to Seoul. 

The ride back was three hours this time, and I read for most of it while Maria slept. When we finally got home, we washed the salt out of our hair, and had breakfast for dinner. A really wonderful day, and a great chance to see more of this green-mountained country and its steely sea.