West Sea Isles: Getting Away From It All

Tiring of the rain in Seoul, following a reliable Google forecast for further showers in Incheon, that's where we headed on Tuesday afternoon.

We took line 1 of the Seoul subway the full two hours to the last stop of Incheon to be greeted with a scorcher of a day. Shying of imminent sunburn we enjoyed a late lunch served by genuine Chinese people immersed in a sea of red in Incheon's China Town. I know they were Chinese because they weren't speaking Korean.

Full to the brim with pseudo-Chinese food (I hear that the popular 'Chinese' dish jajangmyun was invented here in Korea's China Town) we took a very slow crawl up to the top of Freedom Hill where we found a statue of US General MacArthur who led South Korea into victory against the North back in the days of the Korean War. Surrounded by flowers and a beaming sun, we spied on a nearby couple doing the couply thing of snapping posed pictures of beautiful girlfriend in front of beautiful flowers behind huge camera lens. People seem big on photography here, and nearly everyone has a big SLR camera. If you have a girlfriend I'm sure it's like an unwritten rule that you must photograph her, with as big a lens as possible. That's just what I've noticed.

Now by the time we'd taken our really slow wander round Incheon city walking off our really huge lunch and watching guys take photos of girls with really huge cameras, it was a bit late to make it to the islands off the coast. Instead we made the alleged twenty minute walk to Wolmido Port in around forty minutes. Being predominantly main road lined with factories I'd probably recommend the recommended five minute taxi ride next time.

Save the Korean drummers in drag bouncing up and down to Korean pop music, we could easily have been walking the sea front of Blackpool. I was impressed at how few the crowds were considering this is the Korean summer holiday (and they generally don't get a whole lot of that). Maybe this just isn't a prime holiday spot, but that works for me.

Having heard a rather large downpour overnight we took a lazy start on Wednesday morning before pouring hot water into our instant coffees at the nearest convenience store. We took the 3000 won ferry (with Koreans intent on feeding their corn chips to the gulls) across to Yeongjongdo (home to Incheon International Airport), waited a half hour before swiping our T-money cards on bus 222 to take us to Jamjindo wharf before getting another 3000 won ferry over to the little island of Muuido.

We were lucky that it was only intermittently spitting during the day and was otherwise a pleasant sort of overcast. We hopped on the local bus across the island to Hanagae beach where - after a huge bowl of kalguksu (shellfish and noodle soup) - we flitted between frolicking in the water and lazing on the sand. We were definitely the only foreigners to be seen, but no one seemed to mind I wasn't swimming in my clothes like many of the other women. The evening brought low tide where the water seemed to instantly disappear, leaving behind a huge stretch of shellfish ridden wet sand. It was absolutely beautiful to walk across and to look confusedly at the various crawling sea life between our toes.

We were offered a lift back to the ferry port by an eager university student (and his less eager girlfriend) ready to practise his English. It was very kind of him and saved us a bus journey. Back on Yeongjongdo we justified the 13000 won Airport City Limousine Bus that would take us right to our doorstep by the fact that we'd have otherwise had to fork out for accommodation for the night. Escaping the sounds of Seoul, not seeing another white person for two days and breathing in fresh sea air, it really did feel as though we were well and truly Getting Away From It All.