A short trip

I decided to get off my bony butt and go somewhere. Steve and I (no he is not my partner) went to Ulleongdo early last week. It is an island about 200km from the Korean mainland. It was supposed to be our jumping off point to visit Dokdo (which means chicken, or rice cake island or something like that, do=island) but tours weren't available until March. Dokdo is really just 2 barren rocks in the middle of the Sea of Japan (or if you are Korean, the East Sea) that the Koreans claim as theirs and the Japanese say is theirs (but they call it Takeshima.) When I brought up Japan during my camp classes, the kids would always say how evil Japan was and tried to explain how they were trying to steal Takesh...um...Dokdo from Korea. They did this all through song with fist raised fury. It just so happened to be Takeshima Day when we were planning on going, so we were hoping for some protests or some other nonsense. Unfortunately none was to be had.

On the plus side was that we avoided tourists somehow. Everywhere we went we were the only people around and everything was so peaceful. Walking through the forest we couldn't hear anything but the sounds of gentle streams trickling along the mountain trails and birds chirping away their siren in search of a springtime lover...sorry, I was trying to set the scene, I'll just go back to my nonsensitive style. Everyone on the island was more than friendly and it made up for my bad experiences the previous week. Our waiter in one restaurant even drove us to a cable car after we asked for directions.

Since it was off season (even though every student is on holiday) many of the restaurants and shops were closed. We had a pleasant evening in a DVD room (you rent a room with a giant TV and watch a movie) watching a Korean movie. Afterwards we went out to find so sort of night life. We popped into one disco which appeared to be completely empty but with 3 guys in suits working the door. They tried to get us to stay but we moved on to a bland bar where we had some crap beer.

The next day we walked along the bottom of the cliff coast to a lighthouse. Again, we saw almost nobody. The weather was perfect as well so all in all it was a good trip.

I also have a new little GPS device that I was using and after hooking it up to Google Earth I got this nifty little map. Hopefully I will learn how to use it better and when I go on my big trip in September (wherever I may end up going) I will be able to track it all. The image below is just of me riding the boat from Ulleongdo to the mainland. Posted some of the pictures for the trip as well so click the link on the right!