GOLO or Gabby Adventure Time Now: 흑산도 aka An Island Hopping Adventure~

Hello, world.

This week is my last week in Hwacheon before summer vacation! Yay! That means I don't have any more lessons to plan for a while and can actually write some more blog posts for you lovely beings.

Let's see... Today is Day 374. The new baby ETAs all arrived yesterday to begin their orientation in the marble prison just as I did many moons past.

It was really really really miserably hot last week, but yesterday it started raining and it hasn't stopped.

It's still pretty warm, but the breezes are actually cool-ish now. And it's raining so I'm happy. Ah. Yes.

Important information about the author:
I
LOVE
RAIN

Now onto the blogging!

Today I would like to share a story of an adventure I went on last month with some good friends. Something that had been on my Korean bucket list for a while was to go "island hopping." Island hopping is An apparently popular activity among foreigners and Koreans who live in the south south part of the country. Leanndra (the Hwacheon middle school ETA and my go-to adventure partner) and I made the long trek down to the Southwest tip of the Korean peninsula to meet our other two super-awesome adventure companions. Our point of convergence? Mokpo.

Mokpo is basically on the opposite end of Korea from Hwacheon. It was not exactly easy to get there.

We arrived in Mokpo very late on a Friday night after school. Then we woke up bright and early to meet at the Mokpo ferry port Saturday morning. We had backpacks, sleeping bags, tents, one giant bag of food**, and a heart full of excitement for the unknown. We set out for the elusive 흑산도 (Heuksando) the red dotted island on the right, closer inland.

Why this island? I mean, there are many many islands as you can tell from this map... But Heuksando is far enough out that we can pretend we are brave adventurers sailing the open seas, and the islands are part of a national park, meaning there should be lots of trees :)

Note this is not Heuksando. This is Nepal, where they set the world record for the most tree huggers.

Another important fact about the author:
I
LOVE
TREES

So what did we do on this island? ... well we first went to drop all our stuff off at the "camping grounds" (Several wooden platforms on the higher ground of the only sand beach on the island). And to do that we needed to take the bus. Yes, The bus. Because there's only one bus.
We had a nice little tour of Heuksando as we circumnavigated the island and even stopped to take photos.

Then when we were dropped off we set up our tents, only to discover that seashore winds were perfectly strong enough to throw our tents around like a toddler throws dinner in a temper tantrum.
I ingeniously discovered that giant rocks helped keep the tents in place, though my companions scoffed at me, asking why I had to put such big rocks in... Duh~ if they are bigger they're heavier and the tent won't fly away! We deconstructed them for the afternoon just in case (but I'm sure my rocks would've protected them for the day)

We ate some food.

We discovered a bird sculpture garden.

Went on a hike (that wasn't a real hike... maybe there's another real trail, but all we could do was follow the curvy road up and up and up).

Our "trail" ^

Happy summit photo

A towering mountain 230m tall!

And we all took a break.

As we rested we heard a familiar song. Apparently Heuksando has a theme song. When we first got off the ferry we heard it triumphantly blaring from some speakers. And on our small mountain there was this spot where you could press a button and listen to it. So we heard it again and again. We even sang along the chorus. Here is the good old version of it: "흑산도 아가씨" or "The Girl of Heuksando"; Korean trot at its best:

We ate more of our food back at the beach.
Explored the island a bit.
As it started to get darker we decided we must have a fire (for warmth but also just because we needed to feel like real survivors of the island). We were pretty bad at this whole "making a fire" thing. In our defense it was really windy. The twigs were not good enough for kindling so I grabbed my planner

and started ripping out pages from January and Feburary (trying to save the more beautiful Ghibli illustrations..). It still wasn't working for us. Our bodies couldn't block the wind so again I ran back to camp and grabbed my umbrella to block the wind. We started having some more success but our baby flames never lasted longer than a minute. Then the great genius of David striked. We put the kindling in a cup and our fire grew and we were so excited and tried to go get the slightly bigger sticks... and it went out again..
Then great engineer David ripped out the bottom of another paper cup and stabbed holes in the side of it too. This was the final form of the might Kindle 2.0 and we knew this would be an important moment so we prepared all the drift wood for stage two of fire building. David's poor thumb was numb and burnt dozens of times from flicking the lighter on. We knew this was it. Flame or bust.
And... see for yourself.
Witness the triumph of Kindle 2.0

We piled on more and more wood, debating the most effective structuring, and the fire grew and grew. As it grew, the flames became more wild as well. The strong winds whipped the flames towards our toes. The flames stretched and flicked and we quickly stood up to get to a safer distance. Of course standing close enough to feel the sweet heat of our creation. But we could never stay in one spot long because the fire went everywhere.

I theorize this is how the first fire dancing began. Someone made a really big fire on a really windy day and as they jumped from foot to foot and side to side they realized it was kinda fun and made a dance out of it*

*Note: the author has absolutely no former experience studying fire, fire dancing, or any tradition similar to it. So the author is most likely horribly wrong.

We were drinking some Soju and having a grand old time. We sang some songs. Told some campfire stories (I retold the Burfle Hunt, trying my best to channel Tim Carlisle's original telling that I still treasure to this day)

It became dark. Leanndra went to get some orange juice so we could alternate and compose ourselves better. When I saw a figure carrying a flashlight approach our blaze of glory I assumed it was Leanndra and shouted, "LADY BRING ME MY ORANGE JUICE!"

There was no response.

I shout again. "I SAY ORANGE JUICE! TO ME!"

Then David and Deborah start cautioning and I finally notice that the figure is... a man and not Leanndra... So I shrivel up and pretend I'm invisible as this guy talks with everyone else about the danger of fires on a National Park island. Yes, it was windy, but we were really far from the tree line and on a bunch of completely non-flammable rocks (and I LOVE TREES so no way would I ever risk forest fires) but we complied. David emptied his entire water bottle to murder the flames and the fire was still smoking slightly. This guy was suspicious we'd start another fire from the embers and started to look for more water, confounded by the bottles of liquor around instead. So he filled up bottles (or cups, I honestly don't remember) from the sea to douse the rest of the embers. Satisfied that the fire was most sincerely dead, he left us, though not without a good old "I'll be back" warning. Since, y'know, us foreigners are all such completely unpredictable conductors of chaos. (I know I know, I can't be convincingly sarcastic since I blindly demanded for OJ)

Without any more fire entertainment we started settling into our tents. Finished our drinks (soju and orange juice alike). And settled in for a nice sleep.

Not.

No sleep for Gabby.

You see... Leanndra borrowed this really great roomy tent from her host family for us three girls to sleep in. She'd never set it up/seen it unfolded before, so I don't really blame her. But, well... it kinda doesn't have a door... The tent is designed to have an entire side of mesh netting that zips up to make a door, for airflow and to keep the bugs out. It also is designed to have a large overhang of the vinyl tent fabric to make an entrance (so this sheet is cut square and not to match the shape of the side with the mesh "door zipper".
And.. well.... apparently her family's dogs ate the mesh door. So the mesh just kinda ends... and there's a large large hole of no door.
We tried to sorta tie the overhang down to be a replacement door, but in that wind it never stayed down for three minutes straight.
I slept right along that gaping hole of the tent, constantly getting slapped in the face with the corner of the overhang as it whipped in the wind. And there was a consistent oh-so-comforting lullaby of mosquitoes in my ear to boot. Thankfully the wind encouraged bundling up, so my entire body happily hide inside my sleeping bag, but my poor neck lay bare as feast the mosquito hoards.
I slept very fitfully to say the least.
See...

When the wind isn't blowing it looks like it could be a normal tent...

But then the wind comes~

One positive thing about not being able to sleep and lying against a tent with no door~ I had a perfect view of the sun rising! I didn't even have to move. All I needed to do was stay exactly where I was in my sleeping bag and open my eyes. Then BAM:

A purple world

I was awake way before anyone else that morning but felt perfectly energetic still. I explored a little on my own and then when everyone woke up, we packed up, finished the rest of our feast and taxi'd to the town for our ferry.

Well, one problem. There wasn't a ferry until 11 am. And even then it showed up late. Leanndra and I missed our first planned bus, and our next two or three alternative bus routes. And basically spent all of Sunday is a haze of transportation panic and stress. Yay.

Despite the lack of sleep and drama of racing home, this island was a really beautiful escape. We escaped lesson planning and facebook for over 24 hours. There were trees everywhere. As much as I love rain, it thankfully didn't pour on our dinky, doorless tent. And it was just nice to be with friends on an island far away from it all. So I say, mission accomplished.

Here are a few more photos as my 마지막 인사~ bye bye everyone