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Published: July 16th 2013
6th Jul: We took the bus from Suwon bus terminal at 8:20. The bus journey was fine, and as we were all tired we tried to sleep away as much of the two hour journey as we could. The buss arrived in Taean, a little early at about 10 am. We had a bit of time to kill before Yeri picked us up, so what did we do? We headed to the massive three storey Diaso! Haha! Yeri called to tell us that she had arrived and so we headed to Dunkin' Donuts to grab a coffee and some breakie, and have a natter.
We decided to head to the beach, on Anmyeondo, and spend some time there. It was only about a thirty minute drive from Taean. However we ditched that plan when we saw some signs advertising a flower festival and decided we should check that out first. The freedom of having our own set of wheels meant we could do whatever we wanted.
The Flower Festival is fairly new, as they only held the first one last year. It was slightly pricey to get in, at 9,000 won. However it was really nice. We spent a
good hour or two looking at all the flowers. We must of took about a million photos. The flowers were all really pretty, and it was a beautiful summer's day. The sky was bright and blue, no clouds and the sun was shining. The flower festival area was quite large and it must of taken a lot of work to plant and grow all the flowers. Also the festival being fairly new, obviously wasn't very popular yet, so it was really peaceful to walk around as there weren't a million people there. In fact we couldn't get over how quiet it was, for a beautiful sunny day in July.
Back in the car, we decided to head to our pension on Hwang-do island. Hwangdo is a smaller quieter island off of Anmyeondo. We drove to the island and found our pension at the end of the island. The pension was really nice and we were in the Jasmine room. Well, when I say room, it was more like a small house. We had a huge lounge area with sofa and tv, a small kitchen was attached to it, a fairly big bathroom and an open plan upstairs area with
a double bed. Score! We also had our own balcony with a picnic bench and we were told that the owner would bring us a barbecue in the evening. We spent a bit of time chilling in the pension and having some snacks as we were all starving. It was a shame we didn't have any proper food.
Beach time! We drove through the countryside. Anmyeondo is very rural and pretty. It's nice to drive through the countryside and to be away from the city. We went to Kkotji beach, which, I think, Yeri said was meant to the best beach on Anmyeondo. We parked up in the huge carp ark and headed down to the beach. We hired an umbrella and beach mat. We dumped most of our stuff and then went for a wander along the beach. There is part of the beach that juts out into the ocean and has two hills on it. So we wandered out to them. The sea and sand was full of tiny crabs, especially under the water. I think we must of accidentally killed a few by stepping on them without realising.
After our walk we headed back to
our beach mat and stripped off for swimming. Koreans never swim in just their bikinis, they always have t-shirts and or shorts on too. So us three westerners in bikinis got some strange looks off the others on the beach. The water was pretty cold, but after being in a while we warmed up to it. It was also really shallow, which meant a shortie like me could stand up. After a bit of a splash about, I went and had a snooze on the beach. The beach was canny busy before I had my little siesta, but when I woke up, all the other parasols had been taken down and the people had left. We ended up leaving the beach not long before seven.
We were all starving by this point, so our next quest was to find a supermarket and stock up for dinner. Thank god for sat nav, it directed us to a big Nyong Hyup. Four starving ladies meant we bought a tonne of food. Veggies, fruit, water, crisps, ramyeon, meat, cookies, juice, samjang, and kimchi. We would be having a right feast later. We definitely overbought! Back in the car we drove back to
the pension. At the pension we showered off the sand and prepared for dinner. There was lots of chopping going on. The owner of the pension brought us a barbecue and we cooked dinner. We had so much food, but it was all so good. We washed it down with some lovely red wine. Also I noticed (well felt) that the backs of my legs had caught the sun. After cleaning up, we decided to head down to the port and set off the fireworks that we had bought earlier at Diaso.
The fireworks were pretty good, although some of the items in the party pack were a bit dubious. Well it was only 5,000 won (about three quid).We also played with some sparklers. We are big kids really. Then we walked back up to then pension. I was knackered by this point, so rolled some bedding out on the floor and fell asleep, while the others were still chatting.
7th Jul: I woke up pretty early but dozed on and off. I finally got up and was shocked to realise it was half ten. Oops we had slept pretty late. We had found out about the Asiana
plane crashing at San Francisco, so we spent a while watching the news, with Yeri being a star and translating for us. Ashley cooked us up a lovely breakfast of banana pancakes with orange juice and coffee. She even made pancakes shaped in our initials. What a genius! After getting dressed and packing up we were ready to hit the road.
We had decided to visit a temple on Anmyeondo. We typed it into the sat nav, and drove there. We went through some pretty countryside to get there. We drove down some tiny country roads too. We arrived at the temple, Anmyeon-am, and we walked through the temple grounds and down the hill to the coast. There is a broadwalk/bridge thingy to walk across the mud flats, which take you to the sea and a couple of hills. We passed a dragon boat, and some other boats anchored on the mud. We spent a bit of time wandering around the tiny island. There was a floating shrine that locals had built after an oil spillage, to give them good luck. Also there were great views looking back at the temple perched on the hill. We also spent some
time exploring the temple area. There was a big tower covered with lots of religious paintings, that we climbed and got some great views of the surrounding countryside.
Back in the car we consulted the map and decided to head to some gardens that weren't too far away. After paying our entrance fee, and having a quick coffee, we decided to check out the gardens and not the hiking trails. The garden area was massive, however a lot of it was a bit of a let down. There were many different sections, but they didn't seem to have plants growing in them. There were even a tonne of dead plants in some parts. However we did find some alive pretty flowers and the Korean garden with a pagoda was gorgeous. We must of spent an hour or two wandering around the gardens.
Our next stop was a very late lunch / early dinner. We drove to a budae jjigae place and tucked into that. I hadn't had budae jjigae (army stew) in ages, and it was really good. We decided to visit one last spot before our drive home, so we headed to a small beach near the
restaurant. The beach was pretty small, and quite empty, which was nice. There were some stone steps all the way along the beach and a few people were sitting there, taking in the pretty views. The sun was starting to set a little, so the sky was changing to a beautiful colour. Then we got back in the car and started our two hour drive home.
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