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.

Incheon Pentaport Rock Festival 2008

It wasn't Glastonbury (and certainly wasn't supposing to be) but the heavens opening for the first two days of Pentaport was certainly reminiscent of true summer festival weather. Ian and I got ourselves a couple of day tickets for the final day of the weekend where we were graced with blue skies and sunshine ready to enjoy some live music.

I was very impressed with how they'd dealt with post-downpour mud issues, rather rendering all the wellie sellers redundant. The ground actually seemed to be chiefly sand which is always going to be a lot easier to walk on than wet grass, but crates were laid out to step across the particularly muddy areas making the walk from one stage to the other a lot less arduous.

Despite being a small festival, there was a decent amount of advertising going on with various stalls and activities set up. We especially enjoyed the Guitar Hero at the Microsoft stand before we were told to move on due to the queue forming behind us. They had a bit of ingenious cash system set up where you charge the chip on your wrist band, but since you'd still need to carry cash on your person it was a little irritating to have to trudge across the field for a top up when you needed more beer.

It seemed as though all the foreign acts had been called in from the UK with the likes of Travis, Kasabian and The Go! Team playing. I heard that The Vines were pretty patronising towards the Korean stage crew, but otherwise it was good to see the British rock scene being represented across the globe. I was pretty impressed to see the Korean crowds rocking out to the likes of Staines massive Hard Fi, but I guessed here would be one of the few places you'd find people moshing to Feeder.

There were also several Korean bands of varying genres. Oh! Brothers with their rock 'n' roll spin impressed us enough to buy their CD from the cheap Hot Tracks stall, but our favourites were definitely this Korean reggae band. They weren't playing on either of the main stages so weren't well advertised, but I have later found out these Asian Rastas to be called 우주히피 (Space Hippies?). Video to follow.

There wasn't anyone who I was particularly dying to see - apparently they had Muse in last year which would have excited me more - but the sunshine and chilled atmosphere made it a great venue for a few drinks and a few live bands.