Day 166: Campfire Traditions

Ahhhh...how great is it to wake up not to an alarm, but to the bright sunshine and the sounds of birds in the trees! And how great is it that your only decisions for the day are whether to swim now or later, eat now or later, or drink now or later. Vacation rocks! :-)

We were feeling a bit curious about other parts of the island today, so we all decided that it would be cool to go and check out one of the other beaches up the coast. Bus transportation is really slow and sporadic on Geojedo, so instead we decided to take one of the local taxis. We've been hanging out a lot at this one restaurant/convenience store/outdoor patio and have gotten to know the owners a bit, so they called the cab for us. The 'cab' turned out to be just some guy's van who drives people around on the island here and there. Cool!

We piled into the van and cruised on up the coast highway. The scenery was spectacular as we climbed up and down over hills that plunge into the sea. It was so GREEN everywhere and we had really amazing views of the sea and all the little islands that dot the horizon. Beautiful! Mr.Man who was driving the van was pretty cool. He had some great Korean pop hits blasting out of his stereo, and then all of a sudden a cover of 'Hot Stuff' came on! We all just laughed at the sudden English song and rocked out to the Donna Summer hit (currently a hit single in Korea by some Korean pop chick) as we drove along. Another totally fun, random, 'I'm in Asia and it's awesome' moments! :-)

Our destination turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. We wanted to check out another beach and castle that was nearby, but neither turned out to be very impressive. The beach was small and kinda dirty and there was a bulldozer moving sand around at one end of it. Not very peaceful! And the 'castle' turned out to be on top of some hill (the driver wasn't sure where) and difficult to get to. Considering that it was like 2000 C outside we didn't feel like any mountain climbing that day so we kaiboshed those plans. Instead he took us up a bit further up the coast to a one-horse town on the sea. We thought we saw a nice beach up the road so we got out and started our walk in the heat - man is it ever HOT in Korea these days!

Our Quest For The Beach turned out to be a wild goose chase! The 'beach' that we thought we saw up the road was just some muddy flats next to a wharf. It was smelly and rather dirty full of abandoned marine equipment, but it was quiet and there was no one around, and we had come so far, so we found a semi-half decent spot in the shade under some trees and camped out for a while. We all spent a good part of the day just relaxing and reading before we got bored of that and decided to head back to Myeongsa.

We strolled back into the nameless one-horse town and shocked everybody just by being there! We bought some snacks in the local store (I'm pretty sure this town only has ONE little store) and got plenty of stares from the locals. I guess it's not often (as in never) that they see five weguks strolling around! Hehe! We caught the bus back to Myeongsa and spent the rest of the day having beer and playing games in the shade. Good times all around!

That night we decided that we'd make a bonfire on the beach and chill out there for a while. Nick, who is an extremely resourceful man and the perfect companion on a trip like this, did all the work and called us down to present us with a nice bonfire right on the beach! Right on, Nick! It was just before sunset so we all just chilled next to the fire and watched another spectacular sunset.

After dark is when the real fun began! The inevitable happened, you know, the thing that happens on *every* camping trip, cause no camping trip would be complete without it! That is, the telling of ghost stories! haha! Everybody loves to be scared and there's nothing quite as fun or chilling as exchanging stories of horror and supernatural mystery amongst friends while in the dark dark woods. Angele had some really great scary stories, and her, as well as Pauline and Brian, who all grew up in the Maritimes, had plenty of East Coast ghost stories to share! I then shared with them my tales of living in the haunted house in New Westminster back in BC, and of course eventually told them The Scariest Story You'll Ever Hear. Many of you already know this story, and I'm pretty sure that each and every one of you who've heard it will agree fully that it indeed is the scariest story you'll ever hear in your entire life. It's scary cause it's a true story and I've told this story many times while camping and have terrified many of my friends with it. I can't tell you what it is on here (cause it's best told when in a dark room or around a campfire at night) but I think many of you can vouch for me that it's DAMN SCARY! Hehe!

After scaring the wits out of ourselves we turned the campfire conversation to other topics, including all our own travels around the globe, our thoughts on life and the universe, and our adventures in teaching in Korea. It was a really great night! One that you wish would last forever. To lay out in the sand with friends, next to a fire, under a pure black sky full of a billion stars, and to contemplate the ways and mysteries of life, it really doesn't get any better than that! :-)