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I had two holidays in the last few weeks, and I think I used them well. The first holiday was Buddha’s Birthday, and we had a three-day weekend. Some friends and I decided to go to Samcheok (pronounced Sam-chuck), a large town/small city on the coast, to the northeast of Daegu.
Our bus ride was 4½ hours (from Dongbu bus terminal), so it took a while. I had never been to that area of the country, but the scenery is really nice—there are lots of pine-forested mountains next to rocky coastlines. One of the friends I went with is Korean, and he told us that people from that area are known in Korea as ‘potato-eaters’, a pretty negative description. Because of the landscape, people there couldn’t grow a lot of rice and had to eat potatoes. Rice is so important to life in other parts of Korea, that Koreans not eating rice sounded a bit absurd to me.
We got to town, and had to wait to meet a friend coming from Seoul. We wasted time by going to a seaside statue park, which turned out not to have many statues. We took a taxi there, and the
taxi driver scammed us. He told our Korean friend that if people aren’t from that part of the country, the government requires the taxi fares to be increased by 10-20%, depending on where you’re going. Although Jacob tried to politely argue with him, we ended up just paying. Then we walked along a coastal road back to the bus station. Along the way, we passed an old Korean woman fully dressed in long sleeves and a sun visor, but chest-deep in the water. Jacob told us she was a ‘sea woman’ (해녀 I think). Traditionally, in the area, women would gather materials from the sea, either by wading or diving, and the men would go out in the boats and fish. During our trip, I saw many older people drying out and sorting sea products, so at least the older generation continues to make at least a partial living from the sea.
As we walked back through the town, we got to see one of the best free aquariums I’ve seen in Korea yet. Actually there are free aquariums all over Korea, because sea creatures are kept in tanks live outside of restaurants. However, this town had more than
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And I'll bet they employ native English speakers all over the townI’d seen before, and a ton of crabs. The crabs weren’t only from Korea, though—they came from all over the world: Panama, Russia, and Alaska.
Our friend was supposed to have met us in Samcheok at 3, but for some reason the bus she was on took 3 extra hours, and when she finally got in at 7, we had missed the last bus out to our pension (Korean accommodation without a bedroom—you sleep on the floor, but there is usually a kitchen). We took a taxi instead, and this guy also said the same BS about raising the fare by a certain percentage. We paid it and got out angrily. Jacob told us he would write a formal complaint letter to the tourism and government departments telling them how the VIP foreign visitors would not be returning because of the ridiculous taxi drivers.
Where had we ended up? Our pension was facing the sea and next to a Korean military training camp. There was barbed-wire fence along the beach in between our pension and the ocean, so we had to walk about 300 yards away to get access to the beach. We’d bought some meat to grill
and eat as hamburgers. The pension owner set up the grill for us, and then started cooking it. He was very interested in us non-Koreans, so he kept asking Jacob to translate. Eventually, he let Jacob take over cooking, but nagged him the whole time. Finally he left us alone when the food was cooked.
In the morning we decided to do some more sightseeing. But the buses from the hamlet we were staying in were infrequent, so we had to wait to catch a bus after noon. In the meantime we went down to the beach and hung out. The water was pretty cold, but the beach was nice and mostly empty. Only one section of the beach didn’t have barbed wire along it. Jacob explained that because the area is so close to North Korea, there are a lot of security precautions along the coast. We took a bus to Samcheok, and then another bus. Unfortunately as soon as we got off the bus it unexpectedly started raining, and we got caught in the downpour. We took a bus back to near our pension, but stopped and ate at a restaurant first.
A side note, story
time: One of the main tourist attractions near Samcheok is Haeshintang, a seaside park dedicated to a certain part of the male anatomy. Now, I’m not saying we went there, but I can tell you the story of its origin. A long time ago, there was a young engaged couple. The man took the woman out to sea in a boat so she could be a ‘sea woman’. He went back to the land to wait for her. However, suddenly a huge wave came and the woman got stranded on a rock. He couldn’t save her, and somehow she drowned. After the woman died, suddenly barely anyone could catch a fish. One night a drunk fisherman stumbled down to the sea and peed in it. The next day, people caught more fish than usual. The townspeople surmised that the young woman (virgin)’s spirit was horny, so they thought if they built some statues, she would allow the fish to return. From then on, there have been statues built nearby, and people have been able to catch fish.
Anyways, that night we just had a relaxing night in and watched a Will Smith movie marathon on tv (none of us
has tv in our apartments). At one point, my (female) friend Tahnee went outside for a cigarette. When she was outside, the pension owner got a bit in her personal space while they were speaking some Korean. He suddenly reached over and pulled a hair off her shirt. She has dyed-blond, extremely curly hair. Instead of just throwing the strand to the wind, he stared at it and pulled it straight and then let it get curly again. He was fascinated by her hair, and she was totally freaked out. Aside from that, the night was uneventful.
The next morning, we woke up super-early to pack up and catch a bus back to town. We went to see some caves, which are supposedly the largest limestone ones in Korea. The area around the caves was really beautiful and reminded me of Hakone in Japan. It would be nice to hike around there. The cave we went to was a big cavern with a large variety of different rock formations. The paths were lit up with strips of neon lights—really Korean. We were kind of wired from waking up really early, and we walked through quickly. The English signs in
the cave were probably the best English I’ve seen anywhere in Korea—really technical language that seemed to be used correctly for once. We caught a bus back to Samcheok, ate lunch in HomePlus, and then Tahnee caught her bus back to Seoul. We did a bit more sightseeing, but didn’t really see anything exciting.
Overall, I will remember Samcheok as a place we rode a lot of buses. It was nice to spend some time in the countryside and see how people live in a different part of the country. Also, I heard a different Korean accent—at least they spoke really slowly in general, and it was nice because it was much easier for me to understand them. Even if everything on our trip wasn’t perfect, it was good to hang out with friends that I don’t see very often. See the next blog to learn where I went on the next holiday.
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coach kathy
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Love these weekend excursions
Very funny that the same weekend when you didn't say you went to the seaside park (HA) your baby sister was at a social event for adult toys and edible lotions with all these older ladies she works with. Very nicely put in your blog however for the G audiences.