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Published: August 20th 2013
16th Aug: We departed from Seoul's Express Bus Terminal at 10:30 pm. We were on one of the fancy schmany express buses, so we had quite a bit of space, which was nice. We spent the journey napping and chatting. We arrived in Donghae at around 1:45 am, so the journey took just over three hours. We took a five minute walk from the bus terminal and found a love motel. We looked for the one that had the most fabulous exterior. The room was nice, we had a bed that three of the others shared, while me and Mel slept on the floor. They had provided lots of bedding for the floor, so it was comfy. It was only 20,000 each. We ended up going to sleep around three.
17th Aug: Up at nine am. We quickly got dressed as Yeri was arriving around 10, and we wanted to be ready, so she wasn't hanging around waiting for us. We headed off in search of breakfast. We were disappointed as there were no coffee shops open, so we had to rely on the convenience store and a random bakery for breakfast. One thing I love about the convenience stores
in Korea is that a lot of them had at least one table and some chairs set up outside. So we parked our bums there and had brekky. Yeri turned up around half tenish, and after a natter we ordered some taxis to take us to the beach. The journey to the beach didn't take too long, about 15 minutes and cost a man won.
We arrived at the place we were staying, Mangsang Auto Camping Resort. It sounds dead posh having resort in the title. We weren't able to check-in until two, and they said they would ring when the caravan was ready, so we headed down to the beach. The beach was beautiful, lovely fine golden sand, not too many people, the sparkling blue sea, and the caravans were right behind the beach. Also the beach kind of belongs to the resort, so it is private, although the fence doesn't stretch all the way along and you could easily get to it from the regular beach. We got set up with a couple of parasols, and after getting changed, we legged it into the sea. The sand was boiling and really painful to stand on, so this
Starfish Eating a Clam
Mangsang Beach, Donghaeincreased our pace to get to the sea. The sea was lovely, a little cold but not too bad. We had a good splash around and enjoyed cooling off.
Once we were settled on our beach mats, we decided to order some food. Yet another thing I love about Korea, the parasols had food advertisements attached to them, so we called the place to deliver us some food. It was funny listening to Yeri describe our location on the beach, it went like this we are near buoy no. 6, two blue parasols with foreigners under them. And about half an hour later we heard the bloke coming along the walkway on his scooter. We had a lovely feast of sweet and sour pork and fried chicken. After lunch and a cool off in the sea, I spent the afternoon dozing under the parasol. It was lovely, some of the others went to check out the caravan, but I was content to stay put. There was also a lot of perving going on, the lifeguards were cute, even if they were a bit over zealous with their whistles. There were the tannest Korean men I had ever seen!
What a Beaut!
Mangsang Beach, Donghae By the late afternoon we were all a bit sun burnt, we deffo should of put sun cream on more frequently. Malia and I a lovely long walk along the beach. We found a beautiful purple starfish and collected some shells. We walked along the beach and there was another bit kind of fenced off, but as the fence didn't reach the sea we were able to walk along it. I think it may have been an army watch point as there was a building wit a few levels surrounded by barbwire. That stretch of sand deserted, too. We walked through that and then when we reached civilisation on the other side turned back and headed back to our spot on the beach.
After a quick swim, we headed to the caravan. The others had already seen it, but I hadn't. It was really nice, modern and clean. I was well impressed with it. After showering (the bathroom did smell a little funky), I went out to try and photograph the sunset. However it was setting behind the mountains, so I couldn't really see much. But a groups of soldiers did drive through the campsite to brighten things up.
Jellyfish
There were a few in the water, but we think they weren't poisonous.
Mangsang Beach, Donghae We had a lovely evening. After we had all showered and dressed, we headed to the little supermarket on the site. It was really well stocked and we picked up lots of food, so we could have a feast that night. Oh boy! We had an amazing feast. We had samgyeopsal, veggies, kimchi, tofu, potatoes, and rice. I'm sure I've probably forgotten about some stuff, too. Ashley was in charge of the grill and she did an amazing job. After eating our dinner and drinking ladds of maekgeolli and beer, we headed off in search of norae bang. We went to the resort's clubhouse thinking it was there, however it wasn't they sent us to the main beach instead. The walk to the main beach was about 15 minutes. It's a lot more lively down there. There are a tonne of restaurants, where you can sit outside and chillax and drink. We found the norae bang and had a good hour and a half belting out the tunes. Then it was back to the caravan, where we all collapsed in bed.
18th Aug: I had a pretty good night's sleep in my little cave-like bottom bunk. We began
stirring around nine, when the alarms started going off. Ashley, the champion, had brought some pancake batter with her and she knocked out a load of pancakes for us, the star! I was also a complete tramp and went to the shop in my pjs to get some orange juice, well at least I put a bra on. After our lovely breakfast of juice, coffee, pancakes and bananas, we pulled ourselves together and got dressed and tidied up the caravan a bit. The caravan was lovely. It'd love to come up here for a week and just chill out on the beach and be a bit lazy. But I'm never going to get a week off to do that so it's wishful thinking. Only bad point about the caravan is you can't have a poo in it. There is a wire basket in the bottom of the toilet to catch anything that would cause blockages such as poo and toilet paper. However there is a really nice and clean toilet block close to the caravans.
We managed to check out pretty much on time and we headed down to the beach. We rented some parasols gain and then once
Love!
Mangsang Beach, Donghae we had our beach mats sorted we headed into the sea for a quick dip. The water was freezing. Yesterday had been lovely and sunny, but today was a bit more overcast. After only taking a quick dip I retreated to the beach mat. I read for a little and had a snooze.
The afternoon was spent lazing on the beach, reading for me. It's been ages since I've been able to sit down properly and read. It was lovely. The others went swimming, but I was content on the beach. For lunch we ordered more fried chicken and sweet and sour pork. We tried to be a bit healthier and order the sweet and sour pork that had vegetables. But when it came the vegetables were mixed into the batter, so they had been fried, too. Well at least we tried. Around half three we started to pack up and headed to the shower block to get cleaned off.
We ordered a couple a taxis to take us from the campsite to the bus terminal. While talking to the parking adjosshis we discovered that we had been given the wrong bus tickets. The woman at the Dong
Seoul bus terminal had given us tickets from Dong Seoul to Donghae, instead of from Donghae to Dong Seoul. Arrgh! However once at the bus terminal in Donghae, we were able to purchase some bus tickets on the next bus to Dong Seoul, which was leaving in ten minutes time, at the rather odd time of 16:59. The woman did tell us that the bus was a bit ghetto, it was like a regular coach instead of the fancy one, we had come to Donghae on. However the coach wasn't full, so we were able to spread out and get comfortable. The journey was meant to take 3 hours. Definitely a bit optimistic for a Sunday, when the world and his wife are heading back to Seoul after the weekend. The roads are mental and are clogged with cars and buses. But it wasn't too bad. We made it back to Seoul not too long after nine. then I had another two bus journey before I was home.
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