Mallipo Beach

---

31st May: First beach weekend of the year! We left Suwon around 10 am on the bus. The traffic was good and we arrived in Taean just before midday. We bought our return bus tickets and chilled in the Dunkin' opposite the station waiting for the others to arrive. I had the most god awful doughnut, it was meant to be a savoury one, or at least that's what the name implied. But no, it was coated in sugar, I really hate Asia's obsession with sugar at times, and they say us Westerners have a sweet tooth. We had a look around the station area for a restaurant to eat at. We couldn't find anything we liked so we headed deeper into downtown Taean. We found a pizza place and got a couple of pizzas to share.

We headed back to the bus station to catch the bus to Mallipo. Apparantly the bus was full, so we ended up getting a couple of taxis instead. The journey took about 20-30 minutes and cost around 21,000 won. It was nice driving through the countryside and it reminded me of going to Korea Burn last year, unfortunately we won't be going again this year. We arrived at our bed and breakfast and we got ourselves checked in. The place was called Pinnochio and some of the others had stayed there last year and had suggested that we should go, as they had really enjoyed it. The room are all little cabins. They are nice, new and clean, a perfect combination. The location is great, across a not very busy road from the beach and set up on a hill so the views are good. It has loads of picnic tables, so we sat on one of them and ate the belated ice cream birthday cake. I think this was the first time I have had ice cream cake, it was lush, Baskin Robbins didn't disappoint.

We got ourselves sorted and headed over to the beach. There were a canny few people on the beach, but it wasn't crowded at all. I suppose it's still May, so not technically summer yet, so the beach wasn't busy. We spread out our beach mats and went for a bit of a walk. Ashley and Chuck went for a dip in the sea, brave, mad or stupid, I'm not sure which. They said that the water was still a little chilly. The others went back for a sit down, but I continued walking until I got to the end of the beach. It's a nice beach, not amazing, but good for the west coast, as the beaches here aren't as nice as the ones on the east coast, I'm blaming the pollution and smog that comes from China. If I had wandered on to the road, I could have went round to another little beach, instead I sat on the rocks at the end of the beach for a bit before heading back. The weather was warm, but not too hot. I had a lovely snooze in the sun and was only woken up, as usual, by the pins and needles in my numb hands. I need to find a better position for sleeping in.

It started to get windy around six ish so we headed back to the bed and breakfast. We sat on the picnic tables once again and dug into some chips, hummus and guacamole. We watched the sun setting, too. It was so nice to watch, especially because we were elevated over the beach. I wish I got to see the sun set more often, but Monday to Friday I'm at work when it is setting. We went back to the rooms and changed and chilled for a bit. Then we headed to the convenience store and picked up some alcoholic beverages and fireworks. The bloke behind the counter was even giving out free Dutch coffee, so I gladly had one of those. We headed down to the beach and set off some of the fireworks, we got a bit wet as we headed close to the water. It was a bit chilly being that close to the water, so we back up a bit to set the rest of them off.

We then walked along the beach to discover what the lights were at the other end. It was the opposite end to the one I had walked to earlier in the day. This side has a lot more new developments and they looked canny plush. A bunch of people were setting off a tonne of fireworks, they were well coordinated and it was a pretty impressive display. It must of cost them a pretty penny, but I think everyone on the beach enjoyed watching them. We walked past them and up some steps to a cafe that was perched on top of a hill. We went in, but they didn't do food, so we headed back down to the beach. We got chatting to a big group of foreigners that were chilling with a bonfire on the beach. After that we went for dinner, it was about midnight by this point, not too late for food, as pretty much all the restaurants were still open, but none were busy. We found a place that did meat and we feasted on some pork. We were all pretty tired so we headed home after dinner.

1st Jun: We woke up around eight ish I think. After showering we headed down to the guesthouse's cafe for breakfast. They had rang earlier to ask what time we would like breakfast and we had told them around nine thirty. The breakfast was yummy, strong coffee, toast, eggs, tomato, and bacon. After breakfast we went for a little walk to get our bus tickets back to Taean for later in the day. There was some kind of event going on, and we found out that today, 1st June, was the official opening of the beach for the summer season this year. We packed up and left our stuff in the cafe and then headed to the beach.

Some of the others went looking for kayaking, but they couldn't find the shop or van where you rent them, it was still a bit too early in the season, so they weren't about. We spent a while chilling on the beach, but the weather wasn't great and it was really overcast and hazy, fog or pollution smog, think it's the latter. The beach was a lot quieter than it had been the day before. I tried to read for a bit, but was too tired, so had a little nap instead. The wind picked up a bit to, so we headed indoors.

There is a surf shop that also has a bar attached to it. We wanted to go last night, but by the time we had finished our walk along the beach it had shut. We spent a couple of hours chilling in there and had one of their burger sets. The food was pretty decent, just a shame the only drink you can have is coke. We also played some sets, a game I had never played before. It was a lot of fun. We let around 5, I think, to take the bus to Taean. The bus journey through the countryside was quick and were back in Taean in about half an hour. We had a canny bit of time to waste in Taean before our bus home, so we hit up the amazing three storied Diaso. My excuse being that I had moved house on Friday and needed to pimp my new pad. Then it was back to Dunkin' for a coffee, before picking up kimbp for the bus ride home. We entertained ourselves on the bus ride with the scratch cards we had bought at CU in the bus station. Although we had to send Yeri photos of them, as we were unable to figure out if we had won. The bus left at seven, the traffic was amazing and we were back in Suwon just before nine.

---