Jindo Sea Parting Festival

Well, it has been exactly one year since I last posted, haha. I want to finish posting about my Korean adventures before I start my next adventure and also fill in my reading audience about some big life changes. So, I do apologize to my readers for the big break in posts, but I hope to get back into the swing of things again. So without further ado ...

Jindo Sea Parting Festival

When Warren, who leads the Seoul Hiking Group,  posted about a sea parting festival, I was super excited! Wow! The sea parts?!!?!?! I instantly had images of me reenacting Moses (Charlton Heston) at the Red Sea, haha. I was so excited, I was even able to sucker in my friends from Langcon to come with me. Score! haha Well, I still had fun especially because I was with my friends, and we definitely had an adventure I think. However, I think I was a bit let down especially because the ocean didn't peel back like a banana like in the movie, haha. 

So after a bit of a journey, we made it to the festival in the afternoon. Luckily, our pension was right next to the event. A Korean Pension is like a vacation house that you can rent. It usually is just a plain room with a bathroom and mats to sleep on. The most interesting part of the pension was the situation I found myself in. All my friends I had went with were lady friends. We weren't quick enough to grab the smaller rooms, and so, we ended up in one of the larger rooms shared by several groups. Ironically enough, I ended up being the only guy in this room of 15 or so women. Hahaha I can tell you the feeling is like the feeling of a third wheel mixed by the sensation as of if I'm wearing an american flag jump suit and just walked in the North Korean General Assembly meeting about the next nuclear testing.  Now none of the lovely ladies in the room were hostile or anything, but a few did give me the look of "this would work perfectly if you weren't alive". Its just the feeling when after it happens you think, "What just happened?" or maybe its the feeling of the thirteenth wheel: un-needed, in the way, and unlucky, haha. Of course, I'm not the usual sort of canned tuna, and so maybe for another male, they would be writing about how fortune struck them rich, haha.  Anyway, my lovely gal friends made me feel safe and eventually comfortable, haha. Thanks, ya'll.

So after we settled down, we all went to roam about the festival. 

This is my wonderful friend Eva (right) and her friend (sorry I forgot her name #megafail). The best news is that Eva just got married in May of this year (2013). Yay! I am really excited for Eva as she moves to Canada to be with her hubby :) Eva has helped me so many times in Korea, and I don't know how I would have survived without her help and all the other help all of my Korean friends have given me. I wish her all the best in her new life. 

Gotta love my comb-over look!!! ........ NOT : P

So this is the vendor portion of the festivals. Any Korean festival will look like this. There will be the event, and then there will be this, haha. The vendors are usually similar as well. They usually sell lots of health food items or things in that category. There will be some restaurants, and then there will be a couple odd ball vendors selling random things. The most terrifying vendor for me was the restaurant. Here, you were free to watch the kitchen staff chop up a live octopus. I didn't take a video just because I was really horrified from watching this. I have become a huge animal lover as of late, but I still eat meat and such. However, to see a creature just chopped alive in front of you is real culture shock, haha. However, I can't preach too loudly because I had been treated to live octopus, haha. It's definitely an acquired taste, haha.   

So this is it!!! This is the sea parting festival. As you can see, an ant trail of people follow a narrow land bridge to the adjacent island. While there was no Charlton Heston nor dramatic ocean being divided in two, it was still an interesting natural phenomenon to witness. This most interesting part of this event is that I was fully unprepared to experience this event. Like if you go camping, you make a list of all the things you need to prepare. Tent, wood, stove, food, blah blah. But what do you bring to a sea parting festival? Random voice pops up, "oh thats easy, magical stick, fish food for the sharks, camera to take a pictures of whales, ya know the usu." Haha, well, my great friend Becca and I definitely didn't get the sea parting preparation list memo when we approached. And as you will see, it turned into more of a survival reality show, haha. Maybe it was because we were the only gingers there. WAIT A MINUTE!!! Man, jokes on the gingers again, haha. 

Attempt one: protect expensive shoes from the mud and water with the most durable rubber/plastic in the world, and if that isn't available, use some little trash bags you find lying around, haha. 

Attempt two: Give up on the plastic bags and go barefoot. Make sure to drink some Makgeolli at the same time to numb the pain from the sharp rocks cutting your bare skin and the freezing cold from the spring ice melt. 

So if you ever want to prepare in the case of the Ocean splitting for you, here's what you need: thick rubber boots that go up to your knees at least, haha : D Now you know! 

So after that was all said and done, Rebecca and I felt more tough than Bear Grylls, haha, and we didn't even have to get naked once to prove it!!! hahaha 

*Yeah, I did that barefooted. Piece of cake. What's up? .... Is there a hospital nearby?*

So, all in all, it was a fun adventure and a great memory maker. There was definitely some more stories to share from that day, but I think I will leave that for another day. Thanks Eva, Eva's Friend, Rebecca, Nicky, and Stephanie for the great memories!! But don't click X just yet. There was a great surprise for all of us the next day. 

The Happy Shell

Nite nite, sea parting festival : )

So on the way back home, the weather was beautiful. The hiking group stopped at a hiking trail, but Stephanie, Nicky and I decided to break away to this hidden beach off the trail. A bit trashy, but we hardly noticed. The sun and scenery was so beautiful, especially after the long cruel winter. I really really didn't want our time on the beach that day to end. It is really just the simple times that surprise me and become my most treasured moments. 

Well, that is the Jindo Sea Parting Festival. I hope you enjoyed this tiny taste of it. There are many more experiences and stories my friends and I all shared from this time, and just for that reason of sharing an experience or story with a friend made it time well spent. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me. Till next time - Isaac