Geoje Island and Tongyeong

Liezle's mom is visiting from South Africa for 3 weeks. Kind of like when my mom was here, she has to work during the week and they're visiting other areas on weekends. Luckily we have a 4 day (plsu Liezle got an extra day) vacation next weekend for Chuseok (harvest festival), Korea's version of Thanksgiving. This past weekend I went with them to try and island hop.

Our idea was to go to Oedo - an island that was converted by the couple who own/live on it into a botanical garden. We got up early and were on a bus to Geoje Island by 7:30. We figured out how to get to the ferry terminal only to find out that there would be no ferries that day due to weather. We didn't understand why because the weather was perfectly fine where we were. Apparently there was a typhoon or something in Japan and I'm assuming they didn't go out just in case. Because our Oedu plans were messed up, we decided to stick around and tour Geoje. Liezle's friend Vera lives on the island and was out of town that weekend, so we were able to stay in her apartment. We dropped out stuff off and headed into town for lunch and to go to one of the harbors.

We had lunch at a little Italian place which reminded Liezle and I of a place in Jinju. One advantage of Geoje is that most people speak decent English because it's an island with a bunch of shipyards. So people from lots of countries live there and English is the most common language. We all split pasta and a pizza for lunch, then headed out to Okpo. It was the smaller of the 2 main harbors until Daewoo opened up their plant nearby. There is a "park" which is actually a wooden walkway around one side of the harbor. We walked most of the way, out to the point, and back. We opted not to climb this weird ladder thing. The views were really nice except for the boats. The other weird thing was the massive amounts of spiders, which we didn't really notice until the way back. That's was a good thing because Liezle is very afraid of spiders and might have turned around sooner had we seen how many there were.

Okpo harbor

Guys fishing in the harbor

Lonely fisherman on a rock outcrop

View of the outer harbor

Cool rock formation

Oyster shell "beach" next to the walkway

Wooden walkway around the "park"

These looked like trash floats to me, but they could be priceless treasures for all I know

Outer harbor with the lighthouse far in the distance

Liezle's best friend, Spidey

Icebean cafe napkin. We stopped here after the park and I had some lemon blueberry gelato which was awesome.

After Okpo we looked at a tourist map and decided to try and find a waterfall. We wanted to take a bus there and stopped by a hotel to ask directions. The desk lady told us that the waterfall isn't any good and that we should go to the "famous" pebble beach instead, but she didn't know the bus numbers either. So we ended up guessing a bus and got off at what we thought was the end of the bus route. We were wrong. We got off at Wahyon beach and just looked at it from above. Then we walked about 15 minutes to Gujora beach. The walk there took us through Hallyeohaesang National Park, which is just basically a bunch of trees. Geoje is surprising covered with pine and other huge trees. It's called the blue island, but should be called the green island. Anyway, once we got to Gujora, we figured we could just hop a cab to Hakdong (the pebble beach). We were wrong. In every other city, cabs are all over the place and you usually have them honking at you. Here, we saw 3 in over an hour and all had people in them. We ended up walking up a road and waiting for 30 minutes for a bus. We had actually started back down the hill because we thought the buses were done or something, when we saw one coming up the road. We ran back to the stop, but the driver was nice enough to stop and let us on before we got there.
 

Wayhon beach from above

Huge sunflower next to Gujora beach

We really wanted to get in but none of us had suits or towels

Beach from the road to the bus stop

Driveway next to the bus stop where we sat for 30 minutes

 It was somewhat good we got a bus because the trip was about another 20-30 minutes. When we got to Hakdong we were a bit disappointed because we had spent so much time trying to get there, but we sat out by the beach for awhile and got some drinks and had a nice time walking around.

Me with Mongdori and Mongsuni, the Geoje Island characters. The girl one has a huge butt.

Hakdong black pebble beach

Kneeling on these rocks made my legs look like lizard skin

We hopped on a bus back to the main city of Gohyeon and I was able to take some pictures out of the bus window. It was a nice tour of the island, but this ride was another 30-45 minutes. We got back to the city and went back towards Okpo to have dinner. We tried a Turkish place, but the prices were kind of high. We met some foreigners and they reccomended a little place nearby for pork bbq. It was really good meat, but the sides were a little weird for me. The lady was really nice. She gave us some coleslaw type stuff which was good, pickled radish, bean sprouts, kimchi, rice, gross seafood soup and hard-boiled eggs. None of us would eat the eggs. I wasn't sure if they were the eggs with the partially formed chicken, so I didn't even try to crack them open until after we all had finished eating. Then I poked one and found out it was just hard-boiled. Oh well. After dinner we went to Starbucks for a coffee and then home to sleep.

Sunset from the bus

Small fountain and duck boats!

Samgyeopsal and eggs (we think maybe quail?)

We got up early on Sunday again and called the ferry terminal. No boats to Oedo again. So we carried on with our original plan to go to Tongyeon. Somehow, between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, I got a full blown cold. I had horrible sinus pressure and lots of gunk. It made for a sucky day, but I decided to stay with them instead of just going home. We hopped on a bus to Tongyeong, which is only a 30 minute ride. We got there and got a local bus to Mireuksan so we could take a cable car up to the top of the mountain. This was another 30 minute bus ride. 30 minute rides with no stops don't feel that long. 30 minute rides where you stop every 3-5 minutes do. We then walked to the top of a hill to catch the cable car. I did pretty well on these cable cars because you get in/out of them inside a building with no gaps, so it's basically impossible to fall out of them (unlike the crazy ones in Switzerland).

View of Mireukdo from the cable car going up the mountain side

View of surround islands from the cable car

When we got to the top, I walked with them up to the lookout viewpoint. That's when my crazy heigh phobia kicked in. I was actually proud of myself for being able to take as many pictures and to get as close to the edge as I did. I couldn't go up further though, and I waited at a picnic table (and was later joined by a Korean family) while Liezle and her mom went to the summit. I could have done part of the climb, but most of it was on these sketchy wooden walkways. The parts with land on each side would have been managable, but there were parts with cliff on each side and that would have been my downfall.

View of Hallyeosudo from the mountain top

The look out from the skyview

The island and a small park from the cable car down

The cable cars operated much like a ski lift. They sat about 6-8 in a car so we were with Koreans who stared at us in both directions. The people on the way down were nicer about it though.

After reaching the summit and taking pictures, we grabbed the cable car back down and decided to call it a day. There are a few other things to do in Tongyeon, and I might go back, but if I don't, I still feel like I got the idea of the area. We grabbed a bus home and then I fell asleep for like 6 hours. Hopefully, I'll have a decent weekend to try Oedo before it closes. We still had a fun weekend though.