Day 198: Transportation, Island-Style

The funny thing about camping is that you always wake up early. Even if you've gone to bed at like 4am, you just can't sleep-in while in a tent. Between the sunshine and the heat you're guaranteed to have a pretty early rise. We all woke up practically simultaneously this morning around 10am and went for a very lovely morning swim. Once again, in comparing a weekend at home to a weekend camping, I'd totally pick a morning ocean swim over a morning shower, anytime!

It was another perfect lazy day today spent lying in the sun reading, playing in the ocean, and beach-combing our own little private piece of paradise. Other than a brief interruption from some 'lost' German weguks, we had the whole beach to ourselves all day long again. I love it! We stayed until mid-afternoon or so and then it was time to pack up and head back to the ferry terminal.

Getting to the ferry terminal proved to be more challenging than last time as well. Since the island was practically devoid of tourists, there was like no shuttles driving along the island's roads looking for passengers. Last time we never had to wait more than a few minutes for a van to come along. This time the eight of us sat next to the road for what seemed an eternity before something came along.

This time our salvation came in the form of a pick-up truck. We didn't think it was going to stop as A) it's only a pick-up truck, where are you going to put eight foreigners? and B) there was already two passengers sitting in the back of the truck. Well they stopped anyways and much to our pleasant surprise eagerly invited us all to crawl into the back of that little truck. So in we piled, all eight of us, with all of our bags and gear, and squeeeeeezed on into the open back of the truck. Seconds later we were whistling along the highway on the way to the ferry terminal, wind in our hair, buried by all our gear, having a great laugh. Pauline and I thought it was especially funny for us cause it was the second 'unusual ride' in a stranger's vehicle that we had had in the last 48 hours!

We got dropped off at the ferry terminal and promptly went for lunch. Then it was time to catch our boat and head on home. Eric, Michael, Pauline and I had tickets for an earlier ferry than the other four so we said all our goodbyes there. On board we broke out the Scrabble game again but half way through the game we lost two of our players. Both Michael and Eric became quite seasick as the seas were rather rough and the boat had a good bounce going on as we ploughed on back towards the mainland. Surprisingly I was fine with the oceanic turbulence! After emptying their stomachs and then passing out on the seats Michael and Eric tried to sleep all the way back while Pauline and I engaged in our typical cut-throat blood-thristy game of Scrabble.

Michael drove Pauline and I back to Ilsan and I was actually home for around 6 o'clock! I spent the evening doing laundry and report cards and then off to bed. Another great weekend with all my buddies! :-)