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Published: August 6th 2007
Hello all,
In April, myself, Larry, and our friends Ben & Kim, decided to go to a big traditional Korean festival down on the southern coastline: The Jindo Mysterious Sea-Parting Festival. This world-famous festival occurs only once a year, when the sea parts and reveals a path the length of 2.8 kilometers and the width of 40 meters. It is exposed between Hoedong-ri, Gogun-myeon and Modo-ri, Uisin-myeon because of the tide differences in the morning and evening.
According to the legend, an old lady, who was left alone after all the Jindo villagers took shelter in Modo when dangerous tigers showed up in Jindo, eagerly prayed to the Sea God hoping to meet her family again, and the Sea God listened to her prayer and opened up the sea. Later, this magical parting of the sea became world-famous when a French ambassador in Korea visited Jindo in 1975 and wrote about this phenomenon in a French newspaper. Jindo Sea Parting Festival is held when the tide differences are at its highest peak, where visitors can enjoy various sea experiences and the unique scenery and culture of Jindo. Since usually all of the good festivals in Korea occur over the
weekend, we all jumped at the chance to go to this festival in the middle of the work-week, when we have our 2-day weekend!
After our 6-hour drive in the car, we were quite excited to get out in Jindo and stroll along the beach. Here, we had a delicious bibimbap lunch with some dong-dong-ju (Korean rice wine), listened to some traditional Korean song & dance, and even saw some really cute Jindo puppies! Shortly after, we all bought some heinous rubber boots in preparation to walk along the soon-to-appear-path in the sea. As you will see by the pictures, Larry sported some really sexy green ones!
Once the sea-parted, we walked along the path and saw many sights. Many elderly Korean women were digging for clams, crabs, and other sealife, and a complete band crossed the path from one island to the other. We enjoyed ourselves taking pictures, finding starfish, and not to mention, laughing at all of the stupid people who didn't buy the rubber boots!! They were pretty much soaked from the knees on down!
When the festival came to an end, we decided it was time to find our hotel (which was the
presidential suite of a "Love Motel"....only $50 for the night!)...haha! Gotta love Korea! Anyway, once settling in, we all headed out in search of a nice Korean, err, um, pizza and beer dinner!! After dinner, we walked around the town catching the tail end of some festival fireworks and street vendors.
The next day on our way back home, we stopped in Mok'po (a larger city close to Jindo Island), where we did some shopping and eating. The highlight of the day, however, was when we stopped at a "Dinosaur Tracks Museum" we saw along the way. After spending the first hour taking pictures with big dinosaurs along a path, we finally found an exhibit with the actual tracks we were expecting to find! Good times, good times!
Well, that concludes our exciting weekend in April. Hope you enjoyed reading all about it...
Love,
Larry & Melanie
Korean for the Day: Yeogiga eodieyo? - "Where am I now?"
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Chris
non-member comment
That is pretty cool!! Love the boots Lar!!! Looks like the start of a great Halloween costume.