Daebu-do

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Daebu-do, I didn't even know this place existed. Yeri found a trip on t-mon (like groupon) for 10,000 won, so when she asked if we wanted to go, we all said yes, as it was so cheap. 10,000 won is about £6. It wasn't until the day before the trip that I google mapped where the island was, and found out that it was basically along a straight line from where I live. However we had to go up to Seoul to take the bus. We left Jamsil at 7:30 a.m. We did a second stop at City Hall to pick up more people. The tour leader was so organised, and she even left some people behind because they didn't show up on time. I like her style! The tour guide even gave everybody on the bus a small bottle of water. Great service! The tour guide explained why the tour was so cheap, it was subsidised by Ansan city council, to encourage more people to visit the area. The tour guide was funny, she was saying that if you are an illicit couple, you will have to keep your faces covered as she would be taking group photos and other photos of us as we visited the sights. Also because the trip was subsidised by Ansan city council, they wanted us to eat in local restaurants and we had to give the receipts from our lunch to the tour guide as she had to give them to the council. We napped the journey away and arrived in Daebu-do about an hour later.

Because the weather was so cloudy, the tour guide changed the itinerary around, we were not going to get a good sunset, so we headed to the place where we were going to watch sunset first. The west coast of Korea is pretty bleak, it is lots of tidal mud flats. We walked along a path to reach a little outcrop of rocks, that had an observation tower built on the top, however the path leading up there looked really steep, so we didn't bother. We wandered about instead, looking at the not so great views. Back on the bus we drove to our next destination. Daebu-do is actually divided into two, with half of it falling under the jurisdiction of Ansan city council and the other half under the Incheon metropolitan government. It was funny because we drove from Ansan into Incheon, and then took a slip road back into Ansan to get to the beach. We had to pay 1,000 won to enter the beach, but because we were a large group, we got a discount. The beach connected to another island because now it was low tide. We didn't bother walking to the other island, as we didn't know how long it would take. You could rent ATVs on the beach, too, if you wanted. There were lots of people cockle picking there. We were happy just to walk along the coastline and take some photos, this place was more picturesque than the first place we had visited.

It was lunchtime so we were herded back onto the bus and drive to a strip of restaurants. Everyone made a beeline for the place the tour guide recommended, but we decided to take a look at what the others had on offer. That was a mistake, ad we wasted quite a bit of time, as the queue for the tour guide's place was pretty big, however we got a table and ordered some food. The others shared some kalguksu and bibimbap, but I just stuck to the bibimbap, as I don't really like noodles. The bibimbap was ade withbarley instead of regular rice. It was okay and filled me up. I tend to find regular bibimbap a bit boring, and I like it from the restaurant chain, where you can get loads of different toppings like seafood, shrimp, beef, and mushrooms. The restaurant offered free unlimited maekgeolli with the meals, so we had some of that. The tour guide had warned us not to overindulge before our hike.

The hike wasn't too long or strenuous. We went uphill at first an then it levelled off a bit, it was more of a coastal walk than a hard core hike. We could see the sea below, the waves were making cool patterns as they came into the shore. There was an abandoned military hut, and part of the coastline was closed off with a barbed wire fence and a locked gate, which had a big sign on it. The sign said something about the North Koreans coming down to the beach and infiltrating the coast line from the start of the Korean War until the 1970s I think. At the end it was a proper boardwalk and there was this big sun statue thing, which everyone was having their pictures taken at. After getting our pictures, we headed along the boardwalk as it continued along the coast and we came out on the beach. We walked along the beach, clambering over rocks until we got to the end a small village. We had some time to kill and we were all thirsty, so we headed to this cutesy cafe we found. It was like an actual house and not a store, if you get what I mean, it was filled with plant and really pretty. We all had a drink or an ice cream, it was bloody expensive though.

Our last stop of the trip was a random windmill park. Yeah, I on't really understand. There probably is some meaning behind why it is there, but it is all in Korean, so I shall remain ignorant. Anyway, it was a nice place, surrounded by green fields. It really felt like we were in the countryside back home. We wandered around the different windmills, taking pictures. There was even a random piano set up in one part of the field and people were having a tinkle. It was a quirky little place and nice for a short visit. The traffic was really goo and we got back to Seoul in bout an hour maybe a little longer. We got off at Jamsil and decided to head to our favourite galbi place, only to find it no longer existed. We found another place to eat dinner, but it just wasn't as good.

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