Songmo Island

As part of our GEC contracts, Foreign Teachers are entitled to four different Cultural Trips - outings to expose us further to Korean Culture. On Friday, we went to Songmo Island; a place about an hour and a half away, famous for a Buddhist Temple.

We had to take a ferry to reach the island, where we were actually encouraged to feed Seagulls. The gulls fly continously around the ship, expecting people to throw things their way - and they're quite good at catching them in mid-air. If you held out your hand with one, eventually, a seagull would actually snatch it straight out of your hand (Check out the video at the bottom). Very cool, and very fun! Surprisingly, only one unfortunate teacher got pooped-on.

The Buddhist temple was quite elevated, and involved a bit of an uphill walk. There were many depictions of Buddha, most being statues. Some in stone, some in gold. Inside the temple were several people praying (which I didn't take a picture of, out of respect).

There were also stairs that climbed all the way up the mountain (about a 10-15 minute walk), to reach a carving of Buddha, which was another prayer-area.

Finally, after we were done, we went down to a beach, which because of the low-tide, didn't lead to the water. There was a few hundred-meters worth of mud, where people evidently scour for clams, or some sort of sea-food. It was pretty cool (though a bit dirty) to walk on.

On the ferry, coming back, some of us couldn't help but go feed those sea-gulls again. It's surprisingly fun. Here's that video: