the ISLAND OF DESTINY!

On the way down to Mokpo from Seoul I looked at my two companions, Brad and Matt, and we realized that this was the spirit of true adventure. Without much of a 'plan' per se, we were heading to one the many island dotting the south coast of South Korea. This trip was an exercise in going with the flow and getting as far as you can for free! So here's how it went.

So, we had paid for the regular train, which is SLOW. It takes almost 6 hours, and costs around 20,000W. We hopped on the KTX for free (normally about 40,000), luckily the ticket girl was okay (or didn't want the trouble of kicking three free-loading foreigners off the train!) The KTX is a sweet ride, topping 300km/hr in straight stretches, and making it to Mokpo in under 3hrs. Awesome! We had planned to get the ferry from the Ferry Terminal, hoping there were some running in the evening. It was now about 6.30. Sunset was golden. There was no ferry. As we jumped out of the taxi and old guy cut us off with his rusty bike saying 'its closed! its closed! come to my hotel!' and gave us his card. But we wouldn't be so easily defeated. Nothing would stand in our way to THE ISLAND. I only found out about coming the night before, and as we had stayed out far too late we almost didn't even get going. But now we had, it was as if the ISLAND was calling us. We couldn't go back!

Plan B: Find a fisherman to take us there.

This would prove more difficult than we imagined. We went down to the dock but the only people there were not up for going back out tonight. Getting a taxi we ended up in Bukhan, and even though we were told this was the place to go for boats, it wasn't. It was empty. Sitting on the dock with Matt and Brad, things seemed bleak. Matt was losing all hope. Me and Brad were eating, distracting ourselves while we hoped a boat would arrive. Then low and behold! One did. A fisherman! With people on the boat!! He was landing!!! We asked him to take us out, how hard could it be? He was going there anyway. Just the three of us. No big deal. He said no. Our boat powered away into the night. We were truly stranded in Mokpo. Mokpo is actually quite beautiful, right on the sea, its mountains are lit by night and people are really friendly and warm. It's an okay place to be stranded... But NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We had to get out of there!!!!!!!!!!

Plan C: Give up all hope. Camp in Mokpo.

NO WAY!!!!!!!!!!! There was suddenly and unexpectedly a...

Plan D: Go to the police for help!

Okay. This might not seem the first thing that would come to mind at this time, but the policestation was right in front of us. Crime is so low in Korea that these guys probably have nothing to do anyway, so maybe they could get us to the ISLAND OF DESTINY. They were very cool guys, and yeah, they had nothing to do. Soon, after chilling out in the policestation drinking free coffee and planning our route to the island, we had a boat. We had to pay 50,000W which was twice the price of the ferry, but hey, we were getting out there! Everyone told us it was impossible until the morning. Everything is possible. Funny thing is the boat we got was the same one that had turned us down earlier leaving us stranded on the dock.

Blasting our way along at top speed, we were finally on the way to the ISLAND! We had a private boat and a whole island to ourselves to explore. First thing we needed to do was find a good beach to camp on. That was easy, the island is really small! We got a big fire going, fuelled by satan, and cooked some spagetti. Playing guitar under the big bright moon, while Matt and Brad aided erosion by throwing bigger and bigger rocks into the sea, I thought: Yeah man this is it! Beach life. Cooking over the fire was great too, everything was charred in seconds!

We had big plans for this island. It would be OWNED! In our bags we had a mini arsenal, air rifles and roman candles. When combined? Prepare for AWESOMENESS! Matt took off into the darkness and we hunted him around the beach. The tide decided that was the perfect time to come in, so we had to rescue our camp and abandon the area! The water had come up really far, and we had managed to pick the one area hemmed in by cliffs, so we had climb the rocks. With all the gear. A LOT of gear! Brad fell off the cliff. It was okay he landed on me...and the food bag...mostly on the eggs (the only breakable thing we brought...apart from Brad's butt). We moved on to the new and improved campsite! Then went to explore with our heavy firepower. The trek through the woods at 3am was like LOST. But we were by far the most dangerous thing out there! I saw forest crabs for the first time in my life. I guess they just made it up from the beach. But it looked weird!

Sleeping on the rocks at the lighthouse, the moon was setting. I've never watched the moon for the whole night, from moon-up to sun-up. It was really clear and lit up the whole sky. Heading back to the beach we crashed out for a few hours in the sunshine, then cooked breakfast, swam, got incredibly sunburned (the heat was intense!), and explored the island some more before we got ready to go back to Mokpo!

The way back was cool too, we managed to hop on the train for free again but this time we got stuck with the 6hr option. It was rough! We were very sunburned at this stage and having not slept at all really for two days, we were much in need of some well deserved rest! Arriving back in Seoul i would sleep most of the next day! We had answered the call of THE ISLAND OF DESTINY, and we ROCKED IT'S SOCKS OFF! Three good amigos, some good beach-food, air-soft guns duck tape and fireworks, sunshine and freedom...perfect combination.