Chuseok (추석)

Chuseok is Korea's harvest festival. It is a national holiday and falls in late September/early October every year. This year, the holiday was on October 3rd, and we got a 4-day weekend! (The day before and after Chuseok are also national holidays, and most schools give the teachers and students the next Monday off as well)

Check out this website to read more about Chuseok:
http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_6.jsp?cid=613421

Thus, having a 4-day weekend in front of us, Ben and I decided it would be a perfect time to get out of the Seoul/Siheung vicinity. We traveled with our friends Brendan, Carly, and Richard to a small island in the Yellow Sea called Deokjeok-do (덕적도)



We left mid-Saturday morning and first took a taxi to the neighboring port city of Daebu-do. From there, we took a 2 hour ferry ride to Deokjeok-do. Although it took 2 hours, the ride over was beautiful! We got to pass many other small islands in the Yellow Sea, the sun was shining, and i don't think we had left the port of Daebu-do before we cracked open several cans of Hite and Cass (2 popular Korean beers).



Once we landed on Deokjeok-do, we took a short bus ride to Seopori Beach, where we would spend the next couple of days swimming, hiking, eating, sleeping, and relaxing.



Brendan and Carly brought a tent along with them, so they decided to camp out on the beach, and when Ben and I asked Richard where he planned on spending the night, he replied, with his thick Scottish accent: "I didn't really think about where i would sleep... i just figured i would wake up somewhere..." Apparantly he planned on doing a bit more drinking than me and Ben.

Because we weren't exactly sure how cold it would get at night, or if it was supposed to rain, and I had begun to come down with a cold, Ben and I decided to stay at a minbak a block off of the beach for W30,000 per night. Minbak are similar to hostels, but rooms are small (this one was approx 9X9) and do not have anything in them except mats on the floor to sleep on.



Over the next couple days, we enjoyed the beach. It was a bit cold for swimming most of the time, but Ben and I did manage to get in a quick dip during the 2nd afternoon we were there! We also took a short hike up to one of the peaks on the island for an AMAZING view of Deokjeok-do and a few other Yellow Sea islands.