Trip to Samcheok - East South Korea - Part 1

Another weekend, another trip. This weekend, myself and four other teachers ventured to the small town of Samcheok, which is located on the eastern coast. We managed to squeeze quite a bit into one weekend, so in the interest of saving people from trying to read a gigantic brick of text in one shot (and also in the interest of giving me some rest), i'll split up this trip into two blog entries - i'll probably write the followup in the next two days.

In this entry, i'll focus on:
-the trip there
-stuff we did the first night
-our Saturday trip to Haesindang Park (aka Penis Park - seriously - that got your interest didn't it?)

The follow-up entry will include:
-our final night
-the trip to the beautiful Hwanseongul Cave
-the trip back

On with the show!

As I mentioned in the last entry, we had a long weekend, so we departed from the GEC dorm at around 8:20am on Friday. Our first task was to get to the Gangnam general bus station in Seoul, about an hour's bus ride. From there, we purchased our tickets to Samcheok, which were only 22,100 Won each (about 22$). Now, we all knew that Samcheok was on the East coast, but no one was entirely sure how long the bus ride would be - from what we'd been told, it'd be between an hour and a half to four hours. Ohhh, so wrong. The traffic to leave and enter Seoul appears to be permanently ridiculous, so after an hour, we were barely out of town. The second hour goes by. The third. Fourth. Fifth.

I really couldn't complain about the scenery though. Korea is beautiful, and very very mountainous. After each tunnel we passed, myself and Jonny (The token Auzzie we took along for the trip) were just crossing our fingers that we'd see the ocean when we left it. Finally, at quarter past the 5-hour point, we saw it. It couldn't be much further, right? Well, sure it could. It took another half an hour. But ahh. We made it, at around 5pm. Our first order of business was to secure a room at a motel; we found one very near the bus station, fortunately. It was 40$ a night for a very decent room.

We then had dinner at a terrific Galbi (Korean BBQ) place. It definitely had a stranger vibe than Incheon or Seoul, though - I think our ratio of being-stared-at increased quite a bit. Foreigners usually do get a fair bit of attention in Korea, but even moreso when you're in a small town.

Next on the agenda was to find the Samcheok Beach. We squeezed into a cab, and off we went - for a 10 minute ride, it cost about 3$. All forms of transportation are so, so cheap here - it's great. Anywho, it was nice to be able to relax (and drink!) next to the ocean. I can't remember the last time I sat down on a beach - and short of the trip to Busan last week, when i'd last even been to one. After a couple of hours, we took a cab back into town, and found an awesome bowling place, and I have to say... i'm getting to be half-decent at big-ball bowling.

We topped the night off by going to a Chicken Hof, which served great fried-chicken, but had crap for a toilet. I don't know if it was a.. traditional Korean restroom, but the toilet was literally on the floor, which did not make things too appealing for women. Katie, one of the teachers, didn't really know what to do, so in a shining moment of Foreigner brilliance, she peed in the first bowl she saw, not noticing that there was no flusher. In fact, that bowl was just in there being cleaned (Full of water... well, before she 'went' on it). As she put it, 'Some lady's gonna come back in there, and be like ''What the hell?! Someone peed in my goddamn bowl''.'

Ahhh, I guess you had to be there. We went to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast the following morning, and then we were off to Penis Park. I want to make it clear that i'm really not being crude when I call it that. I'll try to be as mature as I can be about a park filled with statues of Penises, but if you get offended by the notion of a Penis, or are afraid of them, you should probably stop reading for today.
The story behind Haesindang Park is, in short, that a woman who was due to get married, drowned while collecting Sea Weed. Afterwards, the fishing village thought that because of it, they became cursed. They thought her soul was bitter. So as a 'sacrifice', they carved wooden Phallics and placed them all around the village. Ever since then, the curse was lifted, and so many more were carved, and dozens of those statues were erected around town. (okay okay, bad pun, bad pun). If you want to read the full story, click on the picture below

I won't lie. It wasn't the most mature day i've ever experienced, but it was really fun. Every single Korean just had a giggly-face with whatever they touched (and oh, my, they liked to touch). This old man even took all of our hands and placed it on a statue, and told us to rub it for good luck. By my calculation, the girls got quite a bit of good-luck more than the two guys there. Seriously though, many of them were really cool, and incredibly artistic. There's one shaped after every animal used with the Chinese years (Year of the Rat, Goat, Snake, etc). Some are happy, some are angry. Some have a remarkable amount of detail on them. Evidently, there used to be a 'Penis Festival' that was celebrated there once a year, but it was recently shut down due to protests from Christian groups.

I bought a little ceramic Penis with a smile on it as a souvenir - although i'll probably pass it along to someone back at home when I ship some gifts over for Christmas. Dibs? Anyone?

Stay tuned for Part 2.