A Better Beach, Deokjeok-do

Deokjeok-do. Do - meaning island... "do" do, indeed. Although it took us an unnecessary 24 hours to arrive there.
With two three day weekend holidays back to back this month in Korea, I had planned only to participate in travel for one of them. Come Friday night, I was told of the big plan and it set my wheels turning. A really awesome little lady named Lindsay, a fellow SLP teacher, is always in the know and given that she would be leaving after this month I felt obliged to atleast turn my head and listen to her invitation. So come 11am Saturday morning, I receive solicitous text message number two and the truth is I really had no excuse not to go. Laundry and grocery shopping could wait (as could the previous holiday weekend's unpacking).

$10 taxi ride to meet Erica (my last minute partner in crime) at Yongsan station, each of us chiding the other to make record time... I left the instructions and basic reigns to Erica for the rest of our travels. We fumbled our way to Line 1 and looked for our final destination, we were on the correct train bound for Dongincheon. An hour and a half later with twenty to minutes to catch another taxi to the ferry, we realized we'd somehow missed the part where we were should have transferred trains. When and where and how and what, not so sure but we were o the opposite end of the line, an hour's drive from where we were supposed to be. Muggy and frustrated we called our friends who were already island-ing it up and blushed over our mishap. Gimbap and another two hours later we were back in Seoul and putting on our dancing shoes. We were going to get to Deokjeok-do but just a day late. Dance, dance, dance until 3am and then 6am alarm clock- not the smartest of combinations but there was a long ferry ride on today's calendar. Perfect for napping. We made it to the right train at the right time, hailed a cab after asking a few locals with broken Korean and a good flip through my handy dandy translation book.





Grabbing coffee and our friend Robert, who had cleverly decided to add Baileys to his morning cuppa joe, we began to board the ferry that was docking. Passport? Passport number? I haven't carried it with me since arriving and my European money belt has long since been thrown away. We were held up, no passport number, no ferry.
Erica being the electric and elusive etherean that she is jut batted her eyelashes and said the obvious, "I don't have it" and just kept walking. I on the other hand flipped out a little and briskly made up a number and signed illegibly. We were gonna make come hell or high water!

Surrounded by blue and not a Seoul in sight, I was beyond happy. The ferry locked up the bow but finally let us out onto the deck when we were about 3o minutes from the island.

I miss being afloat and getting all wind bitten by salt air. It was definitely different than the Larkspur ferry in the San Francisco Bay. Strange little green islands blurred past and there was something strange about the air.



We finally arrived and beached it up properly.

This was a beach and this was a holiday. Sunburns were prevalent and so was Cass, Hite, and Soju. Pregnant lesbian English teachers, drummers, acoustic strummers, Canadians, Californians, New Yorkers alike- and all of us cheaply, happily drifted along without much sleep and without much care or concern for anything.