Sin-do, Si-do, and Mo-do

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We left from Suwon Station around 8 am, doing a couple of pick ups at different stops in Seoul, and another one in Incheon. The drive to the ferry wasn't too long, and we got there just after ten. We had just missed a ferry so had to wait twenty minutes for it to return. Whilst waiting there was a lot of war talk about North Korea, maybe the West Sea Islands weren't the best place for a day trip in the current climate. Also the islands are right next to Incheon airport, so we constantly heard planes taking off.

The journey on the ferry was very quick. It only took about ten minutes. We arrived in Sin-do and split into two groups hikers and bikers. We set off on our hike, stopping at a massive Family Mart so everyone could pick up some supplies. The hike wasn't too strenuous, there were lots of wide paths on the trail and we stopped around midday at a little pagoda thingy for a water and snack break. The views were nice, it was just a shame that it was so overcast.

We continued on with our hike, coming across a random gren tower. We also found a dead animal's skin. We decided that it couldn't of died in the wild, as it was only a patch of skin, and decided someone's taxidermy experiment had gone wrong. Makes you feel a little unsafe, God knows what nutters are around. We hiked down the other side of the monutain (a big hill really) and came across another random sight. There was a building possibly a pension or a restaurant and out the back they had a load of gutted fish drying on the washing line. It's common to see fish and squid outside drying, especially in summer, but I've never seen them on the washing line before. We then walked on a kind of concrete walkway, which wasn;t very wide, with the mud flats on one side and a salt farm on the other. It took us a while to figure out that it was a salt farm.

We finally made it to the beach, where we would be having lunch. It was pretty chilly. We didn't sit on the beach, but instead took over one of the picnic benches and laid all the food out. We had a massive feast, and I was stuffed by the end of it. I suppose we could of had a potter around the beach, but we were happy just sitting talking. We must of had a good hour break if not longer.

We started hiking again. We left the beach and continued up the trail for a while. It was a lot harder with a full belly. We stopped at a viewpoint and took some photos. The area is really nice, it would be nice to go back in summer, when the sun is shining. We then hiked down to the beach. I think by this point we were on the second island. Maybe we were on the second island for lunch, too. I didn't really have a clue where we were. The beach was pretty but a bugger to walk on. It was covered in massive rocks and we had to pick our way across carefully. There was also another part that was walking on loads of rocks, which had bugs under them, and you could see the critters darting from under one rock to another. Urgh! I had bugs.

We finally made it to the end of the beach. My toes were sore from walking on all the rocks, despite having my hiking boots on. There were some pretty starfish on the beaches too. They were a gorgeoud purple colour, I hadn't seen anything like them before. We then walked along the bridge connecting us to the third island Mo-do. This was right under the flight path for Incheon airport, so we got to see lots of planes taking off.

We were kind of wandering aimlessly at this point, as we had lost a lot of the others and didn't really know where we were going. We wandered through the small town and found the sculpture park at the end of the village. It isn't exactly well signposted. The entrance fee was meant to be 2,000 won, but we got discount and only paid 1,000 won.

The sculpture park was quite small, but had lots of risque sculptures. A lot were sex themed, but there were some other cool, non-sexual ones,too. I really liked the tree with metal rods for branches that was on the beach. It was freezing cold by this point, so we headed into the cafe at the sculpture park to warm up. The cafe was really nice, with lots of big comfy chairs and sofas. It felt like you were in someones living room. We had hot chocolates to warm ourselves up. They were delicious. We left not long after five and headed to the bus stop to take the bus back to the ferry terminal. We had about a ten minute wait for the bus and it had started to rain lightly by that point. Thank God there was a bus shelter for us to huddle under.

We packed the bus out, when Koreans got on at different stops they must of been thinking where have all these foreigners come from. We got off at the ferry terminal and had to wait about ten minutes for a ferry. The journey back to the mainland was short and uneventful. Then it was back onto our bus for the long and tedious drive back to Seoul. We got stuck in a lot of traffic, but did noraebang (Kareoke) to help pass the time.

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