Donghae 2008
The second long weekend of May we visited Donghae, a really small town for Korean standards (Only 100 thousand population) . It’s located in the east side of Korea, around 4 hours and a half from Seoul by bus. Instead of using the bus we choose to come here using the train because we already had the tickets. On the train, we enjoy the company of authentic Koreans and we were 7 hours surrounded by drunk people and kimchi.
We arrived at Donghae in the night and after a cab ride we arrived at Patrick’s home. Patrick and us were swapping our apartment that week (our first experience as hosts in Couchsurfing) so Patrick was in our appartment in Seoul while we were at his in Donghae. The next morning we visited Donguae’s caves. The caves are in the middle of the city, close to Dongae’s downtown and were discovered in 1991!!.
In the afternoon we went to the beach, we rented an ATV and were playing in the beach with it. It was cool although we has problems because we didn’t know how to start the engine after it stopped!. After coming home we went out for beers.
The next morning we were supposed to go to Ulleungdo Island far to the east (eastest point in Korea), a place that is supposed to be really interesting nature wise. We called the tourism information center and they told us that the ferry leaves the port at 10am, but when we arrived there, we discovered that the ferry had left at 8am because it was Sunday. This is an example of how Koreans treat foreigners, you need to have lots of patience with them sometimes.
Instead we went to the Mureung Valley, a mountain that was declared the main attraction of Korea in 1977 (and it was also declared the second one the same year, another example of the wierdiness of Korean people) and we were hiking in the forest for a few hours. Hiking seems to be the main physical sport here and there were lots and lots of medium age and old koreans wearing professional clothes. We reached a fall after 2km of hiking and visiting temples in the valley and then returned, not before chilling out for an hour in the big stone that served as bed for the valley.
Jumping in the Mureung Valley
David the explorer
After this trip, we have already visited the east, west and south of Korea so we only left North Korea.
We will be there soon!
