Austin had a "long-off" at work, meaning he has quite a few days off in a row because he also works 7 days in a row sometimes. It is glorious. Last time, we explored Seoul. This time, we decided to go on a mini vacation to Sokcho, a town on the east coast of Korea. It is actually the last city on the east coast prior to hitting their neighbors to the north. To get there from our hotel in Seoul, we took 2 different metro trains for about an hour, then hopped on a REALLY nice bus for 2.5 hours, then took a city bus to our guesthouse here in Sokcho. The intercity bus from Seoul had wide comfy leather seats and plenty of leg room. It was seriously nicer than the seating on the international flights I have been on recently. Landon slept on the long bus ride thankfully. I enjoyed the amazing view out the window- mountains and little towns and farms.
When we got to the Sokcho bus terminal, who happened to walk by but the LDS missionaries. They were both American and so we talked to them for a little bit. They helped us find the city bus stop and gave us their "card" with their phone number in case we were stuck and needed help from someone who spoke English. They were great.
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| Boys on the jetty |
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| Lighthouse at Daepo Harbor |
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| The spaces in between the railings were a little unsettling |
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| Boys and the lighthouse |
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| Landon the Lookout! |
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| These were swimming in a tank, waiting to get eaten. |
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| Sokcho Beach |
The guesthouse where I booked us for cheap was actually south of Sokcho in a little harbor area called Daepo harbor. Unbeknownst to us it is famous for sushi. There were probably over 50 little sushi places in this harbor, along with a few convenience stores, 3 coffee shop/cafe type places, a Paris Baguette (bread and pastry store), and 1 restaurant that actually cooked the fish before serving it to you. All of the sushi places have tanks out in front with crabs, sea cucumbers, fish, octopi, squid, and shellfish in them. I guess the premise is that you pick your dinner, and then they kill it and cut it up for you and serve it with kimchi and lettuce. The crab and shellfish I think they might steam for you. Another regional specialty that some places had was a squid sundae, which is basically random squid parts stuffed inside of a squid hood (the top part of their body). They cook it I think then they cut it up into little rounds. NOT APPETIZING TO ME. Austin is going to guest blog on our food selections for this trip, so I will let him divulge what we did end up eating.
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| So excited about the shell! |
The first night we arrived, we looked around for something to eat and ended up getting a bunch of fried shrimp and peppers and potatoes for really cheap. We walked up on the concrete jetty out to a lighthouse that signaled that the harbor was starting. Then we walked to Sokcho beach, which was a little over 2 km from our guesthouse. A stray dog followed us there. It was a nice beach with a really steep incline from water to sand. That meant that the waves broke right into the sand, not the best for body surfing. I stayed out of the water and we let Landon play around in the sand for awhile. He found a shell that he loved scooping with, unfortunately the thing he loved most was scooping sand into his mouth.
On our way back up to the road, we met a couple that had also come from Seoul. They were Korean and he worked for the Ritz so his English was very good. He and Austin chatted for awhile and they ended up offering to give us a ride back to our guesthouse. The woman also gave Landon a whole bag of some sort of candy that said Vitamin C on it, so I don't know if it was lozenges or what, but he liked them. They laughed and were amazed that we had walked so far to get to the beach. We had time to kill and wanted Landon to walk and run around so it wasn't a big deal to us, but to them it was surprising. We decided on two adventures for our time in Sokcho- the beach and the mountains!
Great pics! What an amazing opportunity!
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