Muuido and Silmido islands

Hanagae beach on Muuido

After the World Cup game ended (around 7:30 am) I had some dukboki for breakfast and then caught the subway to Incheon and then a bus, a taxi and then a ferry to Muuido island. Then I crashed on the beach. On an island with no plans--that's the life. Saturday I laid out on the beach with my book until the sun started to hide behind clouds in the late afternoon. I found a minbak back in the woods that was 20,000 won with a friendly group of guys from Incheon sitting out front drinking soju and cooking samgapsal. I sat with them for awhile and chatted and played sam-youk-gu (3-6-9) in Korean and then gong gong chil bang (007 bang). I went to bed early to recover from the World Cup madness. They stayed up until 4 am.

Guys from Incheon staying at the same minbak

View of Muuido from Silmido

Sunday morning when the tide was low I walked over to Silmido island. Silmido was a training location for a group of soldiers trained to assassinate Kim Il-Sung in the 1960's and also the location of the movie, Silmido, based on those events. I walked along the rocky beach, sat on a large rock and watched two fishermen for awhile. They caught a couple fish and then I watched one of them skin them and cut them into bite-sized pieces of fresh sushi, which they then sat down to eat with soju. They called me down from my rock and tried to get me to eat a bite of raw fish. I declined, but at their insistence I took a shot of soju with them instead.

I walked back over to Muuido before the tide covered up the passway between the islands and slept, read and relaxed on the beach until around 3 pm when I started to make my way back to Seoul. Barbara and I had dinner at Everest and then we went to two plays at a small theatre in Hyewha, 'This is a Play' and 'Never Swim Alone'. After the plays were over, Barbara and I ran through the rain to the subway. She's catching a flight tonight back to Kansas...I can't believe how fast that month went! It's been fun...