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June has been an insane month of fun. I have hung out with the absolute best people, and done so manyyyyy many things. I am switching away from school, because the highlights have been the trips. I'll begin with the first weekend, which was a trip I have been looking forward to since I almost got here. Back in December, when I did a Jeju trip, I talked to one of the guys who helps lead the trips, and he told me about this island excursion, we'll call it, that is literally a - deserted island.
On Friday night, I made my way down to Joongang Station to meet up with one of my good friends, his girlfriend, another one of my good friends, and a few others planning on jumping a 7am ferry. Again, we were out until 4am with some drinks and some friends, took a .. nap? ..on a motel floor for about an hour. Caught a bus at 6am to the ferry wharf.
So by deserted island, i mean, deserted island. Meaning: we take an hour ferry from the mainland to another island. From there, a .. not totally sober... fisherman takes us the rest of the way out to a privately owned island. Meaning: a man and his wife live there alone. To visit, which involves bringing all your own food and water, you must pay him a fee to use HIS island. You come in on a fisherman's boat, which there is no dock, just pull straight up onto the beach. Then we began a 30 min trek to the other side of the island, lugging coolers, tents, and blankets and pillows to the other side. It was beautiful weather, and we got everything squared away.
Soon after, we decided to go pay a visit to the single inhabitant of the island. According to my friend Skofe, who has gotten to know this man personally, he's lived there for 40 years. Just him and his wife. They take their fishing boat to the mainland once a week or so for food. But the rest of the time, they live together, peacefully, on this island with their own private beach and well water. We brought him makgeolli (korean rice wine) and played on his private beach. He brought us a bowl of fresh strawberries and we got to see where this man has lived for most of his life. Can't imagine it... but, the weekend was incredible. At night, we had a bonfire and went into the water. The water, mind you, was full of bioluminescent plankton. The waves rolled in and lit up so brightly, as did the sand under your feet when you walked on it. Asssss did the water when you ran through it. It was.... surreal. I don't know how often you can find that in the world, but it's not something I'll forget any time soon.
My friend and I set up our tent that night. Nicknamed the Booze Tent, we had everything we needed - booze, thermoses, and a blanket. He brought supplies to make Tequila Sunrises, though due to lack of planning, we stopped at the ferry wharf and got liquids based solely on colors, not flavors. The real Tequila Sunrise has of course, orange juice, cranberry juice, and the tequila. Our dubbed "Te-Kill-YA" Sunrise, island style, on the other hand, had orange pop, and dragonberry vitamin water. So the colors were right, the flavors left a lot to be desired. Regardless, we set up our tent, and thought we did a solid job.
However, around 5 o clock in the morning, we awoke to our friend screaming our names outside the tent about the tide coming up. Not sure the yelling was necessary, but we opened the tent to have the ocean water inches from overflowing into our tent. So a litttttle hungover and extremely out of it, we pulled our tent back to the rocks and passed right back out. GREAT way to wake up though?
We spent the whole weekend with no technology, and we played beach soccer and frisbee, and spent a wonderful sunday hiking some rocks and taking in the views of one of the LARGEST beaches I've ever seen.
It took us a longgggggg time to get home. Had to catch the fisherman who was going back to civilization, then a ferry to the mainland, then a bus off the airport's island, thennnnn a subway back home. Got incredibly burned, but thats ok. We ended the weekend with some aloe massages, realllll hawaiian pizza, and motor scootering through a city south of Seoul, because, why not? It's been the best summer of my life so far. It's gonna be hard to beat it.
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