Anmyeon Island Trip

We recently took a weekend trip to Anmyeon Island. Anmyeon is about 174 kilometers southwest from Seoul and is Korea's sixth largest island. We reserved a Pension which is what Koreans call a studio rental when it's in the country. I do not know why it's called a Pension. The trip down was fairly pleasant, mainly because there was very little traffic. The phrase "very little traffic" is rare in Korea. After packing everything into the van we left about 10:00 a.m. . We packed a lot of stuff but hey, when you are camping you need all that stuff, right. WJ drove about a third of the way and then we stopped at a rest-stop. This place was much bigger than most that you find along the Korean expressways. It even had clean bathrooms which is another rarity here. WJ was tired so I took over the wheel. Driving in Korea has many challenges and the highways have their own set of high speed dangers. There is no Korean Highway Patrol and if you see a Korean Policeman in a car they are not the kind of police that hand out tickets. Yes, there are different kinds of police here. What this means is when driving on the highways about the only way to get a speeding ticket is if you are exceeding the speed limit when you go under one of the cameras that are positioned over the roads. It takes a picture of the driver and your license plate and then you get the ticket in the mail. No worries if you have your concubine with you because they block out the passengers side...just don't let the concubine drive. As long as you slow down to the speed limit when going under the camera you are legal and then you can drive as fast as you want the rest of the way. You can imagine what happens when a line of cars are doing 90 mph and all of a sudden the one up front sees a camera just ahead and throws on his breaks then everyone behind does the same which causes a chain reaction. The problem is that those people that like to tailgate don't have enough time to stop and they rear-end the cars in front of them. The people driving over here are very dangerous and callous and it's frustrating. Luckily we made it and arrived at Anmyeon about 12:30. NEWS FLASH...Just prior to our arrival WJ figured out that she forgot the meat. No steaks, no hot dogs, and no sandwich meat, so to prevent the serious impending carnivorous withdrawals we stopped at a local market to stock up on what was available. When I go camping I have to have some part of a dead animal to grill over charcoal. It's just tradition where I come from. AJ, KK and I got out to stretch our legs and check out the scenery. Here is where the weird weather started to set in. A strange fog started to roll in and I presumed it was rolling in from the ocean. Man that fog was thick. You can look at the sign and get an idea of what it looked like. One minute it would be sunny and the next minute it was 15 degrees cooler with the clouds rushing by like a scene out of Moby Dick or some pirate movie. It was surreal. We also found out that there was a marathon being run down the various beaches and we would have to take the long route to our apartment. WJ came out of the market with a pack of steaks that was full of fat and two packs of baby back ribs with no sauce. I was to later find out that we did not need any sauce for the ribs. Off we go now with meat on board, a heavy fog to make our drive a tad more dangerous, a dog that won't quit whimpering with excitement and no barbecue sauce. I had just taken a well needed bathroom break and so I had no worries.

We rode through the winding roads of the country side, passing in and out of the fog. There were some very pretty forests that we passed through displaying a unique type of tall slanting pine tree. Unlike those in the states these rarely grew straight up but did so at a slight angle up towards the sky. They were very pretty and living in Seoul one learns to enjoy trees and the country side. We finally arrived at our pension. The first thing that I
noticed was that it was quiet. There were very few cars and none of the ambient noise that goes with living in an apartment in a city among 12 million people. Noticeably missing were; people outside yelling, car horns, mopeds and city buses climbing hills under a heavy load, dump trucks, speeding motorcycles, etc. The pension complex was a two-story house that was sectioned off in small studio apartments each with a small attached porch and picnic table. The apartments were nice enough. They were all furnished with a queen size bed, 32" TV, small kitchenette and bathroom. They would have been better with a private entrance but that's not a complaint. They were going to give us a room upstairs but a downstairs room was available so we took that one. We started unloading the van and I quickly worked up a sweat carrying our stuff up the mountain. The 8 steps up the mountain quickly let me know how out of shape I am. Once we got everything situated it was time to check out the beach.

We all got into our swim clothes, except WJ, and with KK in tow we immediately set off to the beach in the wrong direction. When we finally
figured out the right way to go we skipped off along the sun splashed road. I'm good at skipping. As we walked along we could see towards the beach and the sky did not look good. The fog was thick as pea soup but that was not, however, what was disconcerting. As we topped the hill to the beach we found out that...we could not see the beach. The fog was so thick that you could barely see 25 feet in front of you and it was not exactly warm either. We walked down to the seawall and then we saw something that was repulsive and utterly pathetic. The roadside, the seawall and the beach was just littered with trash. It was everywhere. You could not find one square yard that did not have someone's refuge discarded within. All of the beaches that I have ever been to combined did not have this much trash on them. Bottles, food, cans, expended fireworks, all kinds of food wrappers and empty chip bags, fishing equipment, shoes, chairs, pretty much everything that you can throw down on the ground after one is finished with it. The good thing is that the tidal movement in Korea is enormous on it's east coast and the tide had carried away most of the trash from about 20 yards off shore. We could here the surf but could not see it so AJ and I ventured out to find the waters edge.
I jokingly told WJ that if she heard me yelling to yell back so we would know which way to walk. We walked about 50 yards to get to the ocean. As we moved on through the fog we saw that there were a lot more people at the surf's edge than there were at the seawall. AJ immediately found some kids to play with. They were catching some kind of salamander looking creature and jumping and playing in the surf. We hung out there for about 2 hours I guess. Then we headed back to the sea wall. WJ had already left. I figured that she would come on out to the surf before we left but I guessed wrong. As soon as we climbed over the little hill which was about 30 yards from the beach the clouds disappeared and the sun was out. It was really weird.

After we got out of our wet clothes AJ and I started scoping out a place for the tent. We quickly discovered that we only had two locations from which to choose. Either next to the porch or at the bottom of the stairs. We started putting it up next to the stairs but the tent was to big to fit. Here we go now dragging all this stuff back down the hill but AJ was a big help. After we got it staked down and poked the tent poles in the liner then we erected the thing in a jiffy. We even got the raincoat on it. That's what AJ called the rainfly. It actually went up easier than I thought it would since it was so big. I was glad that we did not get any wind or rain that night. This is the first tent that Ashley slept in that she can remember. She later asked me "Daddy, is this really camping?" to which I replied "It's as close as we'll get here.". I can't wait to take her to the Buffalo River in West TN. Now that is camping. Canoeing down the river stopping to swim or fish when the notion strikes. Cruising along and just listening to the sounds of the river. At the end of the day stopping on a gravel bar to pitch a tent and cook a steak and most of all talk with friends about things that make us happy or sometimes about things that don't...yep, that is camping. Mainly it's the camaraderie of family and friends and being in the country that I like most. We took out our air mattress and inflated it with our foot powered bellows. It took a while between AJ and I working the bellows but it worked pretty well aside from the irritating noise that it made. Before we even got it blown up all the way AJ wanted to jump on it. I let her turn flips on it but did not want her to bust it so I told her that there were to be no monkeys jumping on the air mattress this night. She wasted no time starting to invoke the one activity that I allowed her which was to turn flips. She has way to much energy but she was having a lot of fun and that's what counts.

WJ was actively involved in conducting an operational test on the sleeping apparatus. Involvement by AJ and I was not required since we were going to be sleeping in the tent. By the way, putting up a tent makes a person powerful hungry so we broke out the grill and started to cook those fatty steaks and the baby-back ribs with no barbecue sauce. The ribs turned out to be delicious. They had no fat on them at all and all we did was put black pepper and salt on them but they were really really good. Before we left we went and bought some more the next day. We also had some grilled potatoes since WJ also forgot the corn on the cob. We still ate like rich pioneers and even gave most of the steak to the dog so she ate well too.

After we ate then AJ and I went back to the beach. The fog had mostly cleared away by this time and we could even see the surf from the sea wall. Lifes little wonders are what make it so special. We headed off to paly on the beach, watch the sunset and take a few more pictures. AJ jumped off into the water lickety split and was jumping and playing in the surf. KK and I ambled up and down the beach and chased these tiny little crabs. Actually KK chased them while I chased after her trying to make sure that she had plenty of slack in the leash. These little crabs lived in little holes in the sand and rolled up these little sand balls all around their abode. Not sure whether they were just bored or needed these sand balls to impress all their other crab neighbors. I did notice that the bigger crabs had bigger balls...no pun intended. As the sun was setting the tide was slowly coming in and the waves were increasing in size. AJ started trying to jump over the waves and I saw an opportunity to maybe capture a few good pictures of her with the sunset in the background. Taking pictures of a sunset is not the easiest task to start with but when a moving person is throwed into the equation and at the same time the photographer is trying to hold a dog on a leash then it becomes even more difficult. Never fear because Super Photographer is here! I took a lot of pictures hoping that a few would come out clear enough to develope. Later, I was ecstatic when they appeared to turn out as well as they did. Here are a few of the better ones. I like the way that she is shadowed against the backdrop of the sunset and the reflection of the water. AJ was getting some pretty good height on her jumps and that made the shots even better. She had pants on over her bathing suit and since they were soaking wet they kept falling down. I kept having to tell her to pull them up. I hate the baggy pants falling down fad. We stuck around there for quite a while as she jumped and fell and jumped over and over again and again. I have since ordered some of these in 8x10 size and hope that they come out well.

We headed back to the camp site to hang out in the tent for a while before going to bed. The mosquitoes are the same here as they are every where else in the world. The little pests seem to like AJ a lot because she gets bit often and the bites always swell up into big red knots. We coat her in repellent and they still gang up on her. We hung out in the tent for a while and I told her some stories. After AJ went to sleep I read for a while. I'm reading a great book about the 1986 NY Mets called "The Bad Boys Won". The worst part about sleeping in a tent is having to get up in the middle of the night to go pee. We still slept cozy in the tent listening to the crickets and frogs. AJ slept in her sleeping bag but mine was to hot for me. A couple in a building across the parking lot stayed up late talking on their balcony and Koreans talk loud...I wished I could have understood them since I could not sleep with them virtually yelling at each other. I slept like a baby afterwards. We both woke up at about 5:30 am and had to go you know where. We went up to the pension and went to the bathroom and then back down to the tent. AJ started talking and I wanted to go back to sleep. In a bid to get me to stay awake she suggested that I start reading again. She finally went back to sleep and did not wake up again until about 9:30 am. I, mean while, woke back up at 8:00 am and fired up a nice cigar, grabbed my camera and went back to the beach. I figured that a cleaning crew had came in and cleaned the beach and hoped that the visibility was better so I could get some better pictures. At least one of my hopes proved to be true but unfortunatly it was the visibility. The beach was even dirtier and I would not have thought that possible. I don't know why Korean people think that it is okay to litter but they do and they don't care. Could you imagine if you were a tourist that paid money to come here and then this is what you found...I was pissed and I only had to go about 150 miles. Here is some more beach scenery.

The bad thing is that littering is not limited to the beaches here in Korea and is a huge problem for the country and it's image. It's routine for people to litter everywhere. If you finish a coke, cigarette, candy bar then just throw your trash on the ground where you stand...that is the general practice in Korea. Bottom line is that this is their country and if they want to trash it then more power to them but when Koreans wonder why the vast majority of tourists go to Thailand, Japan or China rather than come here on vacation, then I say this is just one of the shining reasons why.

We all ate breakfast and the pack up and trip home was rather uneventful. We were going to stop by and hike through the forest but missed it somehow. We did stop by Songtan and go to Chilies on Osan AB to eat supper. We finally got home and downloaded the van and once again I was reminded that I need to do some more exercising. I would like to go back to Anmyeon Island. It's quiet there and the Forrest and surrounding area is very pretty. As far as Kotji Beach goes though, I will not go back and would not recommend anybody else to travel there either until they get that place cleaned up.