Baeknyeong-do #3: Buddha's Birthday and Bye-bye!

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We were up bright and early, to make the most of our final morning on the island. We got all packed up and headed out. Since it was Buddha's Birthday, we wanted to head to a temple on the island. Luckily there is only one. It was pretty much at the other side of the island, so it took a little time to get there. We knew we were heading in the right direction as we saw a statue of Buddha, in a field in the distance. The temple, (name), was tiny, so cute. There was a a really cute outbuilding. The yard was covered with lanterns and there was also a statue of an elephant. I can't recall seeing any elephants at previous temples I've been to Korea, so that was unique. The temple was small, only one main building that had the main temple room, and several other rooms, that were joined to it for other uses. I think the monk was a bit surprised to see us He was asking Yeri about us. The temple was really nice because it was peaceful and quiet. Most temples are carnage on Buddha's Birthday with a million people milling around. We

were told that the temple would be busier around lunchtime as there would be food available for everyone, but unfortunately we wouldn't have time to go back.

We set off for another drive around the island. We were just driving along and we saw a bus parked up by the side of a fenced off beach. We stopped the car and got out to investigate. The beach was covered in seagulls. There must of been about a million of them, they were on the sand and rocks, and in the air. The beach was littered in mines, so humans were unable to enter, but the seagulls must be too light to set off the mines, so they had claimed the beach as their own. All the barbed wire made trying to take photos difficult, but I got a few.

As we were driving along, we came to a port, that I think was Gobong Port. We drove into the port area and parked up. There were some soldiers guarding the entrance to the port. We had a little wander for about ten to fifteen minutes. We looked at the fishing boats, There weren't any other people around apart from the soldiers. We walked along the harbour wall, snapping photos of North Korea in the distance and the look out camouflaged up on the hill. There was also a restaurant or something that was shut, but there were two cute little kittens playing with a box. They entertained us for a few minutes, until they got sick of us and disappeared. As we were leaving the port we waved at the soldiers and they saluted us. They even broke out into smiles. We must of been the highlight of their day, I don't think that they must get many foreign female visitors to their little island.

We drove to Simcheonggak Pavilion. The pavilion is up on the top of a hill and it was a steep drive to get up there. We explored a couple of old tanks that were on display there. One was an M17 and I don't know what the other one was. I wonder if they had been decommissioned or if they were still in use, as one had a chain around it so you couldn't get to it. The pavilion was built to commemorate Simcheong. We walked around the grounds of the pavilion. There were some binoculars, so we looked out to the North. We could make out some buildings on the land. We could also see some fishing boats and we wondered if they were real or just props, like the fake North Korean village in the DMZ. I think Malia even saw someone moving about on them. Simcheong was a girl that lived on the island and she had a blind father. In order to restore her father's sight, she threw herself into the sea. Her father's sight was restored and also I think she got her life back, as she was so selfless to give her life in return for her father's sight. We had a walk around the pavilion. It was spread out over two levels. The first level was all about the story of Simcheong, with pictures and models. There was also a video showing performance of the story, but we didn't have time to watch it. We had a look around the second floor, too, but I can't remember what was there. We found a lady selling souviners of the island, so we purchased some Baeknyeong-do scarves as a memento of our trip.

There was one last place of interest that we want to find, another small port that had some special rocks sticking out of the sea. I think they were meant to look like something. We came across a little port. There wasn't really anything there, but we got out and had a walk along. Some blokes were fishing off those concrete things that protect the harbour and whose name has escaped me. There was a family sorting out their fishing gear and I think drying fish. The kids here have a completely different one from the ones I teach on the mainland. We weren't sure that this was the right place, so we set off for another drive to try and find what was the right place. We even stopped and asked someone and that lead us back to this port. We had been in the right place after all, but we couldn't really see the rocks, they weren't impressive at all.

We went for lunch at the same place we had eaten at yesterday. This time we didn't share and we all had our own dishes. I had the shrimp fried rice again, it was still very greasy, but good, as I didn't really fancy anything spicy, and in a toss up between prawns and pork, prawns will always win. After lunch we headed back to the motel to collect our stuff. We headed to the ferry terminal, as we had to drop the car off around one. We parked up and phoned the travel agent. A random bloke in a car pulled up immediately to pick up the car keys. We sat outside for a bit until it was time to board. The journey home took about four hours and we arrived in Incheon around 6. The ferry journey was a lot less rough than when we had come over. We had been worried (well, secretly hoping) that the ferry would be cancelled as it had been yesterday morning, but no such luck. We took a taxi to the subway station to start the long subway ride home.

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Photos

Barbed Wire Beach
The signs is warning that the beach is covered in mines.