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Published: August 20th 2013
10th Aug: A nice start today, not too early. We met up at Incheon airport at 11. We were meant to get the 11:20 bus but due to illness and waiting to get a doctor's appointment we had to get the 12:20 bus. It worked out better though because there was a big storm brewing and we missed getting caught up in the torrential rain. The bus is easy to find, it's number 222, and it leaves from the departures part of the airport by gate (door) number 7. The bus took about twenty minutes to get to the port. It's easy to know where to get off as it is a) the last stop, b) you can see the big ship, and c) everybody else gets off there, too. We went into the office to buy our tickets. It's 3,000 won return. On the board listing the prices as well as the prices for humans there were also prices for transporting various cattle and other animals.
We walked down to the ferry, it was only about 100 meters from the ticket office, but the bloke was telling us to hurry up, as the ferry was about to leave. Sorry
mate, but I ain't running in flip-flops in wet ground. That's a recipe for disaster and a broken limb. The ferry journey was extremely quick, I think they say it's about ten minutes but it feels like less. You can see the island, it's not far away at all. In fact, I think you could probably swim it. We got off the ferry and straight on the bus to take us to Hanangae Beach, where we would be staying. That bus journey took a little longer, maybe 20-30 minutes. It wasn't the nicest bus journey in the world as the bus was packed and we were all squashed in like sardines. It was also going up and down over the hill in the centre of the island. The whole process of getting to Muuido was painless and only took about an hour.
When we arrived at Hanagae Beach we had to pay an entrance fee of 2,000 won to use the beach. Then we went to the information office to pay for a couple of huts. The price was 50,000 won for a hut, a bit more than we expected, but it is peak season. Because we got there
around two ish, we were in the last row of beach huts. We went down to our hut and dumped our stuff. The hut is pretty basic, it is just a small room on stilts. There was three of us sharing our hut and that wasn't too cramped. I think anymore would be a bit awkward, but there were bigger huts set back off the beach, that even had there own bathrooms. We had nothing, but there was a public toilet block, just a bit further back, so that was handy.
We headed for a little look around and to grab some lunch. We had some noodles in a small restaurant on the main road heading away from the beach. I also got some boiled potatoes from a snack stall as I was still starving. We went for a wander along the beach. The tide was really far out and we could walk out for miles. The beach is a mud flat, so there were a million Koreans digging for clams. We walked out to the sea and got our feet wet. The water was lovely and warm. I think it was lulling us into a false sense of
security for later.
Hanagae Beach is nice, there are some small mountains in the background and you can go for some nice walks along it to explore the coastline. We rented a beach umbrella, as it was later in the day all the ones in the front row were taken, so we were in the second row. We chatted for a bit and then I think we all fell asleep. I know I woke up with a little pile of drool next to my head. The tide was right up when we woke up, too. We had only been asleep for an hour, maybe an hour and a half max. Since it was about 6 o'clock we thought we'd better go for a dip in the sea. Well the warm water from earlier had disappeared, it was freezing. We had a bit of a paddle and splash about, but when a couple of older Korean guys started splashing us with water and trying to talk to us we knew it was time to make a quick exit. We spent a bit more time chilling on the beach mat before heading back to our hut.
One thing about the
hut, there is no fan or air-con, so it is boiling in there! We were sweating buckets just changing out of our swimming gear and back into proper clothes. We were hungry again by this point, so we headed back out to find some dinner. We walked along the path up behind the beach and then headed back down to the beach. We ate at one of the restaurants on the beach. One thing about Muuido is that it is filled with foreigners. It's mad I've never seen so many foreigners in the same place since Mudfest. We had a right good feast at the restaurant; seafood pancake, clam ramyeon, samgyeopsal, and some kind of marinated galbi. It was all delicious.
After dinner we headed to the shop to pick up some beers and ice cream. Then we headed to norae bang. Outside of the norae bang, there was a huge domestic going on. This couple was arguing and a couple of other women were trying to calm the situation down. It was sickening to see the bloke hit his wife/girlfriend. He seemed to punch her canny hard. We kind of skirted around the side of them and headed
into the norae bang. Well it was the most ghetto norae bang I have ever been to. There was absolutely no sound-proofing what so ever and you could hear everyone in the other rooms singing. the room itself was pretty low-key, too. The furniture was probably someone's rejects from their house with a couple of plastic stools thrown in too. We spent about an hour and half having a great singing sesh. I had some really good laughs.
We headed back to the beach, when disaster struck, the others had lost the key to their hut. We split up and headed back to revisit the places we had been earlier in the evening. This lead to an amusing incident at the convenience store. The shop was shut and the owner was chilling with a few beers outside with one of the local policemen. Yeri was explaining the situation in Korean to the owner and the copper blurted out, "Where are your friends from? Are they Russian?" Basically, in Korea if someone asks if a woman is Russian it means not are they from Russia, but are they a prostitute? Well he got the death stare from all three of
us, the cheeky git. We had no luck finding the key but the others found it at the restaurant where we had been sitting. We had some chill time with fireworks on the beach before calling it a night.
11th Aug: First woke up around eight, but didn't get up until after ten. It was pretty noisy outside, as all the families near us were up and out. There were some cold showers available at the beach but you had to pay 2,000 won for the privilege of using it. Me and Mel thought sod that and went for a swim in the sea instead. That would be our wash for the day. The others used the showers and said it was like being in a prison. The sea was really far out again, so we had to wander quite a way out. Also the water was really shallow, so we had to walk out even further still. There was also a helicopter flying over heading, blaring out stuff in Korean, as we had no idea what they were saying we just stayed in the water as all the other people were.
We spent the afternoon chilling on
the beach. We got an umbrella and just chilled under there. We had fried chicken and ice cream for lunch. There was an adjumma on a quad bike, who drove up and down the beach delivering fried chicken. She rocked! I wouldn't want to mess with her. After lots of chill out time on the beach, we went to do the zip line that was on the beach. The zip line was cheap 13,000 won. We went to the hut and got all harnessed up. The hardest part of the zip line was walking up the tower to the top. There were about a million stairs. At the top we watched the other people go that were already up there. I was feeling slightly nervous by this point. I am really soft and scared of my own shadow. I went last. The whole experience wasn't too bad. I was nervous about getting off the platform, but once in the air it was fine. I was in a sitting position, so that was good, it wasn't like I was dangling by one leg. Also the zip line goes pretty slow, so you can take in the beach below and the views
of the sea and the mountains. We had been instructed on how we should land at the bottom. however I was facing backwards and despite turning myself around, I had swung back to being backwards. However I landed fine with no broken bones. Also we got a lift up the beach by the guy taking the harnesses back, so that saved us walking up the beach in the baking heat.
Then it was time to pack up and go. Our beach weekend was over. We took the bus, ferry, bus back to Incheon. There we splashed out on taking the airport bus home as it is quicker. I definitely want to head back to Muuido in the cooler months. The huts have ondol (under floor heating) so we will be nice and toasty. It would be nice to do some hiking on the island, too.
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