Day 177: Survivor: Deokjeokdo!

How absolutely wonderful it was, this morning, to be able to wake up not the sound of an alarm, or noisy kids outside my apartment, or propaganda trucks cruising up and down the street, but instead to the calm, soothing sound of waves crashing against the beach. Now *this* is how to spend a weekend!

All the Koreans had left last yesterday afternoon and none of them had returned. We literally had an entire beach all to ourselves and it was amazing! (This is quite a stupendous feat in itself, as finding a quiet piece of real estate to relax in ALONE is near impossible in this crowded little country.) It was great to be able to sleep in a bit and then relax on the beach and enjoy the solitude.

Our solitude didn't last too long as we were all anxious to jump back into our Survivor game and find out who would win. After Nick's build-up last night we were expecting some sort of back-breaking triathalon to compete in today but it ended up being a fairly simple challenge. Pauline, Angele and myself had to run the length of the beach and back again - backwards. We weren't allowed to turn around at any point to see where we would be going and the winner of this challenge would win Immunity, meaning they'd advance to the final round and get to choose who'd be going to join Nick in the jury, and who'd get a chance at a cool million dollars cash....errrr.....free dinner I mean. ;-)

I figured that I totally had this challenge in the bag, with my unnaturally long legs and all, but fate had other things in store... As soon as the race started Angele shot out of there like a cannon, and considering that she's only five feet tall, she blasted down that beach!! I was about two sleps behind her the whole way and just could not catch up it seemed! (Pauline was waaaayyy behind, eating our sand dust.) The first leg was already completed and I still had done nothing to catch up with that little jackrabbit Angele! In the last stretches of the race I really just started GIVIN' 'ER and was only like one step behind Angele but she crossed the finish line ahead of me and was once again awarded with Immunity! Wow, this is one competitive little girl!

Pauline and I then had to tell Angele why she should take each of us to the Final Two, and in the end she ended up choosing...ME!!!! YAH!!!! So it was now Scotty & Angele in the Final Two with Nick & Pauline making up the jury. This was the last part of the game, so now Angele and I had to give long-winded, poetic, Oscar-winning speeches about our valiant efforts in the game, our illustrious virtues and admirable characters, and our desires for striving in competition, setting a good example 'for the kids', and dreams of world peace all just to try and woo the Jury into picking us to win.... Who would it be...?

Pauline & Nick went off to the far end of the beach to have a private pow-wow and make their decision. They took a long time to decide and from a distance Angele and I could see that they were having a hard time making their choice. They finally came back and revealed their selection... The official winner and soul survivor of Survivor: Deokjeokdo was....

....ANGELE!!!

Okay so no, I didn't win, but hey second place ain't bad, right? (Yes there were only four of us playing this game so it wasn't that amazing to get this far, but hey let me enjoy my moment, k?) ;-) Angele did a little Happy Dance on the beach and then we went for a swim to cool down and relax.

After that it was unfortunately time to pack everything up. We bid farewell to our own little private beach and unanimously agreed that we this beach was even nicer than our weekend last week at Myeongsa Beach on Geojedo Island! I'll definitely be coming back to this beach sometime.... We headed to the ferry terminal, had some lunch, and then sailed back to the mainland. After that we went into Itaewon and had a really yummy dinner at Outback restaurant. Angele enjoyed her free dinner and the four of us recounted our glorious weekend on that beautiful island. We all had such a blast this weekend and I can't wait for the next camping trip!

P.S. We've also planned to have a 'Survivor: Deokjeokdo - AllStars!' in early September by gathering up all our friends and having a BIG Survivor weekend with lots of cool challenges. Now how much fun will *THAT* be!!??? I totally plan on winning that game! :-)