Memorial Day Weekend!

Korea is officially the country with the most holidays. We just got another long weekend. This past Friday was Memorial Day here in Korea, so that meant we got the day off. My friend Jenn, her friend Nicole and myself all headed to Doek-Jeok Island. Jenn and I had been there before, but we since we couldn't find a place in Busan for the weekend we decided to just head back there for the weekend. The weather forecast said that it was going to be rainy and cloudy all weekend, so we weren't looking forward to that. Plus, it's a lot of work to prepare for Doek-Jeok because we had to bring our own food. I spent a good 90 minutes cutting up vegetables at Jenn's house on Thursday night to prepare for the Island.

We took the 9:30 a.m. ferry into the Island and we were suppose to have the motel we made reservations at pick us up at the ferry terminal at 10:30 a.m. but no one showed. When I called them they didn't know who I was and they didn't have a reservation for us. We hitched a ride with Bri, Julian and Mary Anne because they were staying at the same motel. Well, when I told the lady my name she didn't have my reservation, which really stressed me out because Mrs. Kim called them on Wednesday to make the reservations and they called her Thursday to confirm our arrival time. We believe they gave our room away. I ended up having to call Mrs. Kim twice to speak to the motel owners because they didn't save our reservation and then I had to call her again when we arrived at the second motel to explain the situation. The second motel found us a room and we paid for two nights. Thank goodness Mrs. Kim was available and so helpful to us because I have no idea what we would have done otherwise.

Friday was a bit cloudy and cool for beach weather, but we decided to get settled in and then head down to the beach anyways. We stayed for about an hour or two and then headed back to the motel where we grabbed a bite to eat and decided to just chill. We all started to read our books and ended up falling asleep for about 3-4 hours. The naps were well needed and we felt refreshed afterwards. We got up and made ourselves more food and then headed to the beach for some late night drinking and campfires. I've decided to do away with alcohol for a while here in my attempt to lose some weight. I managed to survive the weekend, so I think I can survive longer. Left: Bri, Mel, Alexis and Mary Anne at the beach. Right: Some foreigner friends playing beach volleyball.

We lasted at the fire until about 11:30 p.m. and then we decided to head back to our room and get a good's night sleep. Well, the beds in the room are basically a thin mattress and a blanket, so my sleep was not very sound. It was very uncomfortable and I woke up quite a bit during the night needing to adjust.

Saturday was a better day weather wise. The day started off looking cloudy and dreary, but by around noon the sun started to shine. We slept in and headed to the beach in time to get some sun. It actually turned out to be very hot and the beach was far more enjoyable when it was hot out. We just hung out, read our books, chatted with other friends there and soaked up some sun. We headed back to the motel around dinnertime to eat and change for the evening festivities. Well, we ended up going for a walk around the Island to see what it had to offer and once we got back to the motel we decided we just wanted to be lazy and stay in for the night. We opened the bottle of wine we brought and we each had a glass and we enjoyed some snacks. We had another early night.

Today we had planned on climbing one of the many mountains on the Island, but we decided to be lazy in the morning reading our books, eating, showering and packing our stuff up. We had no idea how we were going to get to the ferry terminal because we had no ride and if we wanted a ride we had to leave at 2:00 p.m. and our ferry wasn't leaving until 4:10 p.m. We opted to go hang out at the beach for a bit and then take the 3:00 p.m. bus to the ferry terminal. We lasted on the beach about 45 minutes when it started to rain, so we gathered up or stuff as fast as we could and headed to shelter. Within minutes there was a terrential down pour and the wind was insane. I really felt like we were stuck in a tropical monsoon. There were loads of people waiting for the bus back to the ferry terminal, so we managed to snag a taxi van with a driver who was willing to drive us to the ferry terminal. Jenn, Nicole and I shared the van with four other people we didn't know. As the driver was about to take us this random Korean man came and took a picture of his van and they started yelling at each other. Then the driver told us we needed to get out and that he couldn't drive us, but we started yelling at the randome Korean man and then one of the guys we were sharing the van with slipped the driver 20,000 won to drive us and ignore the other guy. Well, the driver took the money walked over to the random Korean man and they yelled some more and then the driver pushed the man got in the van and drove us. We ended up having to hang out at the ferry terminal for well over an hour, but we managed to find shelter from the rain. This is Jenn's adorable dog Bailey that she brought all the way from Florida. This is him enjoying the ferry ride to the Island.

The ferry ride back didn't take that long and once we arrived back in Incheon the rain had vastly improved. It was just spitting and wasn't nearly as cold as the Island. Jenn, Nicole and I shared a taxi ride back to Yeonsu-dong where we seperated out the leftover food and each others things and then I grabbed a taxi home. Once I got home I emptied out my bags and met Alison for dinner just down the street. After dinner we headed to the grocery store, so Alison coul pick up some cereal and other neccessities. Then we parted ways and I sat down and blogged and caught up on my emails and face book. Now, I'm just doing some laundry, getting ready for bed and then hitting the sack after another great, but tiring weekend.