Ulleungdo and Dokdo Islands

The weekend of my birthday was also a holiday weekend in Korea. It was Chuseok, which is a holiday all about spending time with your family. I guess that Thanksgiving is the closest thing to compare it too, but take out the slaughter of the indigenous peoples. So, Maggie, Liz and I decided to go somewhere for the three day weekend. We decided on Ulleungdo Island, an island off the east coast of South Korea. We met in Seoul late Friday night, drove all night and arrived at a famous beach on the east coast of Korea just before sunrise. Liz and Maggie were too tired to get up, but I dragged myself down to the beach to get some great photos.

You can see the colors starting to change in the sky over the ocean, and the light is not the sun it is actually one of the squid fishing boats, the squid are attracted to the light. Don't ask me why. Below you can see the squid they caught hanging out to dry. It looked so eerie in the predawn light that I had to take a picture. Very alien.
Sunrise started to approach over the still waters and it was so amazingly pretty I had to take a million pictures of it, this is my favorite. I do like sunrises, I do. I just don't like getting up for them. They are great if I haven't gone to bed yet.
The Koreans on the other hand, seem to love to get up early. There were tons of people at this beach before six a.m. There was one family with little kids who were playing in the sand, even though it was so early. They were so cute, I had to take a picture of them.
After that we took the ferry out to the island. It took two and a half hours and much nervousness from a lot of people about motion sickness. I figured if I could stand the tiny ferry to the Aran Islands that bucked like a spooked horse, I could handle this massive pleasure liner. The trip was plenty smooth, only a few people lost their cookies. Once we caught a few more hours sleep on the boat, we arrived at the island and headed off on our first adventure, a hike to the lighthouse. We climbed these funny twirly stairs to get up to the path.
The hike out to the lighthouse twined around the cliffs right above the ocean, it was a beautiful walk and gave us some exercise without torturing us like the mountains do. It was a gorgeous day, high-seventies and sunny and in September!
At one point there was a bridge over some deep water, perfect for bridge jumping. So our group stopped and went in the gorgeous clear blue water. Here is Maggie.
And me...
And Liz... I think she was trying out for the 2012 Olympics, making the rest of us feel bad.
As we got closer to the lighthouse, we started going up the cliffs. Got some beautiful views of the whole island. As you can tell I was still wet from swimming so I opted to wear the sarong I picked up in Thailand.
I didn't post any pictures of the lighthouse cause it wasn't that impressive to be honest, just looks like a modern white building really. But on the way back down we took the shortcut through the bamboo forest. That was really cool. Liz and Maggie liked it too. It was so cool and green in there and so dense you could not even see the sky in some parts.
Back down by the water there was a fisherman with some of his catches in big plastic tubs of water to keep them fresh. He let us hold a sea urchin which was so cool. It would walk along your hand using its spikes for mobility and you could feel its little sucker mouth investigating your hand. We made friends.
So we were all a bit shocked when the guy grabbed it, hacked it in two and scooped out the middle. He did it so fast I almost did not get a picture. Then he gave us all a bite. Consistency of tofu, tastes like ocean. Not something I would make a point to eat, but it was ok.
That night we walked up to the cable car and took it all the way up to the top of the tallest mountain on the island for the sunset. It is a rare day I am up for a sunrise and a sunset. Maggie and Liz getting ready to get in the creaky cable car.
The moon was just starting to come out and it was almost full. No haze at all so I had to take a picture of it, ok like 30 pictures of it, and this one came out the best.
We could see the whole little harbor town we were staying in from the top of the mountain. It was so colorful that it looked like childrens' toys nestled in the valley.
And of course, we wouldn't be girls if we didn't pose for a group shop up on the top of the mountain. We were so tired by this point.
As the dusk continued to fall the lights along the path we had walked earlier in the day winked on in the gloom. Almost like little torches ringing the island, it was a really cool sight to see.
After that we had dinner and crashed almost immediately. It was a really long day and we just didn't have any party left in us. The next morning of course, was the best day of the weekend. It was my birthday! We took a ferry about 90 minutes east to Dokdo. Dokdo is a tiny little rock of an island, but very important over here. Check it out.Only two people live on Dokdo, a married couple who are fishermen. They live in this little house and other fishermen occasionally stay there as well when they are this far out to sea. It used to be that no one lived here, but now the Koreans have to make sure that they keep the Japanese away.The Koreans and the Japanese fight endlessly over Dokdo. It all goes back to the treaty made after the Japanese were ousted from their occupation of Korea post-WWII. The Koreans are still quite sore that the Japanese ever managed to conquer them in the first place. So only 200 people a day are allowed to set foot on Dokdo, it has become sort of a nationalist pilgrimmage thing. We were quite lucky to get to go. Check out all the Koreans feeling their nationalism.
There were Korean coast guard guys all over, this one even had a dog. Though the dog seemed more friendly than intimidating. Liz made with the dog immediately, however the cute coast guard guy was not as friendly.

This rock was kinda random, well really the whole island is a big rock, but I liked it. It was interesting. All my kids always ask me, "Teacher, you know Dokdo?" Now I have photographic proof that I not only know it, I have been there, with my girls Maggie and Liz of course.
I was totally and completely in awe of the water here, I have never seen water so clear and blue. I mean, people in California dye their pools this color. I think it is cause they are volcanic islands so there is no silt in the water. You could see through to the bottom everywhere we went. It was so clear I could take pictures of this school of fish.
Back on Ulleungdo, we took a little bus tour around the island. At one of our stops Liz and I decided to climb up the rock face. It was real easy cause it is volcanic and full of pitting and holes for climbing. I was wearing a skirt, but I figured it was my birthday so screw it. Makes for good pics!
There was this one cave that was the color of Cheetos on one side of it. I know it is just like oxidized iron but it is crazy bright and came off on your hands if you touched it. You were supposed to build little rock towers on the ground in front of it and in the crevices. Not sure why, some sort of Buddhist thing.
Maggie and Liz posing at the juxtapostion of the green side and the orange side. They were trying to look tough and gangsta.
Then we climbed up the mountain on this metal stairway that was half modern art and half death trap. I am sure it was more sturdy than it appears, but it was trippy climbing it. Totally worth it though, great views from the top of the cliffs.
Check out the color palatte from the top, the bleached cliffs and that blue, blue water. Looks like those pictures of Greece. I just couldn't get over the water here.
Maggie was contemplating existence and the horizon from the top of the cliff. So I had to make her turn around and pose for a cheesy picture....
That brought us to sunset on my birthday, a lovely evening on the ocean once again. But anyone who knows me knows that when the sun sets that just time to get started.

So we got a big group of girls together and hit the makeoli store. Makeoli is Korean Rice Wine which is really cheap and pretty good. We had tons of fun. Liz liked this idea too.
There was a big group of girls (and Matt) who we got along with that were in our tour group so we all hung out after dinner, had a few drinks, took a walk down to the ocean and generally had a good old time.

So since the weather was still in the 70s and it was so gorgeous, we decided we needed to go swimming in the ocean at night. So we headed back to the bridge and all jumped in the water. We had a fantastic time until the police made us get out. They can be kinda uptight here sometimes.But I had a fantastic birthday and sooo much fun on the trip. The next day we headed back to the mainland. There are not any pics from Monday cause we were all recovering from the birthday festivities. Patrick from couchsurfing was kind enough to let us crash at his house in Donghae and I made it back just in time to go to work on Tuesday.