Last weekend I went on a trip with Adventure Korea to Seonyudo Island. When the weather report suggested that it might rain on both Saturday and Sunday, I started to fear for my beach island getaway. But (real shocker here) the weather reports were wrong and we had absolutely perfect weather the whole time. It was warm and beautiful and everyone was in such a good mood because we were all expecting the worst.
The area itself is small, and we were easily able to bike around the four connecting islands that Saturday afternoon. It was so much more beautiful than I had anticipated. I also read that it can get pretty busy with tourists in the summer, but perhaps since it is still spring the island was mostly empty, save for our group of 40 and the 200 inhabitants of the islands.
On Saturday we also took a hike up a little hill and had a beautiful view of the Yellow Sea (or if you ask a Korean, the West Sea).
We also got to see some rather unsightly squid drying. It was disgusting and black flies were occasionally swarming the squid. Thankfully it didn't smell quite as bas as the finished product does in the stores. It's a tough call as to whether the smell of kimchi/soju man sweat, beondegi (silkworm larvae), or dried squid smell the most putrid.
That evening I became Moses, parted the seas and allowed us to have a glorious sunset.
Later that day we went hiking and then .. get this.. we went shellfish catching. These shellfish were unlike any I have ever seen before. I don't even know what they were called.
Here is how you catch the fish:
1. Wait until low tide and then take a shovel and scoop back an extra layer of sand.
2. Take a handful of salt and slowly pour it into the holes where the shellfish are hiding.
3. Wait for the shellfish to pop out of the sand and snatch 'em up. BBQ them for about 10 minutes and then eat. (Eating not recommended as they aren't all that tasty).
Seonyudo Island makes me feel like this!
