The actual day, I just spent teaching. I thought about telling the kids it was my birthday but didn't really feel like announcing it to the school, so we just had a regular day. Sunyoung (the after-school coordinator who's my good friend) knew it was my birthday and sent me this cute e-mail during work:
After work, I ran to E-Mart to get a travel pillow for the trip and, while I was walking around, my phone started blowing up with calls and texts from ward-members from my church. It turns out the bishop had seen in my records that it was my birthday and had called or texted all the members to let them know. It was super sweet. One of the phone calls was from 3-year-old Sunny who just learned "What's your name" so we had that going back and forth for a minute before she broke into the "Happy Birthday" song and Brother Kim eventually grabbed the phone from her and invited me to dinner sometime to celebrate.
Then it was off to Jindo. The first sea-parting would happen at 5 in the morning so we had to take an overnight bus from Seoul. I met up with my friend, Brittney, and headed to Seoul where we met with our friends, Cindy and Darren, and the rest of the group. Cindy handed me this cute little birthday gift on the bus:
The bus ride wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. I've never been able to sleep in a bus or car but my travel pillow was crazy-soft so I at least dozed off a tiny bit.
Pepero!!
The bus ride wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. I've never been able to sleep in a bus or car but my travel pillow was crazy-soft so I at least dozed off a tiny bit.
It was still dark when we arrived so there wasn't much to see. I'd never been this far South so I was curious if it would be anything like the rest of Korea but it was 4:30 in the morning and the sun wouldn't be coming up for a couple hours. Our group leader herded us down to the Sea Front where we bought some pleasantly neon-tinted and attractive gum-boots, which we gladly rocked the entire day. Then we were given torches and waited a short while before the tide receded and the walking path appeared.
It wasn't exactly "Prince of Egypt" style with a huge wall of ocean on each side and whales and sharks swimming by. It was actually a muddy sand bar (thus the mud-boots) with a few patches of knee-deep water.
But we did encounter plenty of little sea creatures that had been beached by low-tide. Here are a couple little octopus friends we found:
And lots of starfish:
It was dark so the going was slow and we didn't quite make it to the island but we were so fixated on the sea critters and drum-players marching along that we didn't care much. We'd make the island the next time around. The walk is about 1.5 mile there so 3 miles total and it only parts for about an hour or two at a time (there are 3 partings all-together).
When we made it back to the Jindo side, we got to watch the path slowly get flooded again. Many of the locals were out digging for seaweed, kelp, mussels, and other various sea creatures to take home to eat. We watched some of them as dawn broke:
Everyone else went back to the bus to get some rest before the festival but I didn't feel like hanging in the bus so I sat outside reading and soaking in the scenery. I met a few people, like some dancers from the Ivory Coast and a few Ajumas and other foreigners all out for a nice walk.
Then the festival began. Probably my favorite part was "sireum" (Korean Wrestling). Here are some professional wrestlers on the Women's team:
It's a pretty intense sport, I got really into cheering on my favorite girl.
We also passed a lot of traditional singers and dancers and eventually a neat little parade:
And, of course, the Jindo dog show. Jindo dogs are a breed specific to Jindo island:
Eventually, we did make it to the island, Just in time to walk around and head back.
Bright-eyed and bushy tailed
It wasn't exactly "Prince of Egypt" style with a huge wall of ocean on each side and whales and sharks swimming by. It was actually a muddy sand bar (thus the mud-boots) with a few patches of knee-deep water.
But we did encounter plenty of little sea creatures that had been beached by low-tide. Here are a couple little octopus friends we found:
We released this guy back into the Ocean before anyone decided to snack on him.
And lots of starfish:
It was dark so the going was slow and we didn't quite make it to the island but we were so fixated on the sea critters and drum-players marching along that we didn't care much. We'd make the island the next time around. The walk is about 1.5 mile there so 3 miles total and it only parts for about an hour or two at a time (there are 3 partings all-together).
When we made it back to the Jindo side, we got to watch the path slowly get flooded again. Many of the locals were out digging for seaweed, kelp, mussels, and other various sea creatures to take home to eat. We watched some of them as dawn broke:
Everyone else went back to the bus to get some rest before the festival but I didn't feel like hanging in the bus so I sat outside reading and soaking in the scenery. I met a few people, like some dancers from the Ivory Coast and a few Ajumas and other foreigners all out for a nice walk.
This was all land an hour before and now completely under water.
Then the festival began. Probably my favorite part was "sireum" (Korean Wrestling). Here are some professional wrestlers on the Women's team:
It's a pretty intense sport, I got really into cheering on my favorite girl.
The waygooks (foreigners) got a turn too. I was really tempted to try but chickened out. I definitely will do it next time.
We wandered along the waterfront for a bit.
We also passed a lot of traditional singers and dancers and eventually a neat little parade:
And, of course, the Jindo dog show. Jindo dogs are a breed specific to Jindo island:
They even painted some landscapes
During the dog show, we caught some boat shenanigans in the background as well:
We sat up on the hill on a little wooden bench to watch while some Ajumas and Ajushis were having a full-blown picnic. At one point they called us over and gave us some of their oranges to snack on. I love old people here, they're the coolest.
Eventually, it was time for the second sea-parting and were amped to make it to the island this time. Even if we had to push old ladies over (which was very much in the realm of possibilities. Ajumas are known to be aggressive).
(After the first sea-parting we were joined by Marissa from Cali and Rita and Orla from Ireland who have huge face-blocking heads.)
Instead of torches, we were handed balloons and followed the longest banner I'd ever seen carried by several people and accompanied by janggu drums. It felt a bit like we were on our way to storm a castle and made for a fun go.
Storming the castle.
Releasing the balloons (mine's the red one)
More sea-critters were molested.
The long way back
Wishing stones
Eventually, we did make it to the island, Just in time to walk around and head back.
The face of a champion.
And just as the sun was setting.
That night we had a show with K-Pop dancers, DJ's, and local bands but I didn't take any pictures. I was partly just super distracted watching the Turkish ice-cream man pranking little kids and Korean girls. If you haven't seen how Turkish ice-cream is served, here's a video of one:
It was the best. The World's Fair people were there so there was food from all over. I had Turkish Kebap, Japanese Takoyaki and all kinds of delicious treats. My favorite being Korean Seafood Jeon (veggie pancake with fresh seafood). I tried to share the Jeon with Cindy but I'm pretty sure I ate 75% of it. I'm not even sorry.
That night I was exhausted after going 24+ hours without sleeping but the other waygooks had other ideas so none of us slept. The night involved lots of noise and drunk shenanigans and at one point me Spartan-kicking a drunk guy out of our room when he kept trying to bust in and turn on the lights while me and 12 other girls were sleeping. I finally locked the door on him but inadvertantly locked another girl out. She didn't have kind words for me but I'm pretty sure she had the wrong room because when we got up in the morning we had no idea who she was.
The next morning, I strolled around the festival grounds with Brittney one last time and hung out with Grandma Ppong before catching the bus home:
Here's her story:
Legend says that Grandma Ppong made the parting of the sea possible, just like Moses 3,000 years ago. The legend states that a long time ago, the people of Jindo Island were frequently attacked and killed by tigers, so they took a raft and moved to the nearby Modo Island. However, an elderly woman named Grandma Ppong was accidentally left behind. The old lady longed to be reunited with her family and prayed for help night and day to the Dragon King of the Sea. Then, one night, the Dragon King appeared to her in a dream and told her to cross the sea by walking on the rainbow that he will provide for her. When she awoke the next morning, she ran to the sea and a rainbow-shaped opening appeared in the water between Hoedong-ri and Modo-ri. The people of Jindo Island still perform an annual ritual dubbed the Yongdung Festival for the Dragon King in remembrance of the sea-parting miracle and Grandma Ppong.
In the inscription on the statue that we read, Grandma Ppong actually died as soon as she was reunited with her family. Kind of a bummer :/ but a cool legend all the same.
The bus ride back gave us a great view of the Southern countryside. Overall it was a successful birthday and one of the coolest experiences I've had since coming to Korea.
