Sokcho

Sokcho is a seaside town in the most rural of Korea’s provinces. Fifteen friends and I visited for the long weekend made up of Saturday, Sunday, Children’s Day Monday and Buddha’s Birthday Tuesday. The eight hour bus journey (usually three and a quarter hours) was made worse by Wine Friday but made better by a little friend I made on the bus.

Jaemo was a little toddler chappy who showed me his transformer-esque sports car, gave me an egg (while spitting some of his own on my leg during a particularly exciting counting game), and wouldn’t let me sleep.

This was after an attempted nap, which he woke me up from by poking me in the arm.

Our hostel was three rooms behind a café, with a cute little dog to play with. The café owners run the hostel so it was a nice atmosphere there. After checking out our rooms we headed to the seafront, where we had dinner and set off fireworks. After this we headed out to karaoke for a spot of singing and then back to the hostel to bed.

Day two started wonderfully, with some frankly magical sandwiches prepared by a lovely lady who didn’t even work in the café (she was visiting the owners, while doubling as foreign liaison for the duration of her stay as well as drinking lots of wine, at her own confession). These sandwiches were a major talking point of the holiday and Katy even suggested it was the best sandwich she has eaten in Korea. This reminds me of when I went through a ham sandwich phase last year, except it turned out it wasn’t pre-cooked ham and it was in fact raw bacon that I had been eating for days.

After breakfast we tried to find our way to a nearby lake to rent bikes. The bike rental seemingly didn’t exist so we went to the beach instead. After a dip in the cold sea, I made a beautiful sand face, ate a chip-covered bread-covered hot dog (covered in sauce) and went for a stroll along the beach, followed by some hula and hanging antics. Pictures below.

'Kimchi!'

Devoured. 

They bruise, they bruise. Oh, baby. when you spin, you spin.

Bats unmasked.

In the evening, we wandered around before finding a restaurant that had to call for family backup staff when they saw how many of us there were, and that is how we ruined Saturday night for two women whose parents own a restaurant. 

After dinner, we went back to our hostel where we played articulate. To be specific, it was British English articulate, so there were a lot of confused people.

Day three started with another fantastic sandwich, and another one in my bag for the hike ahead. We climbed to the Ulsan Bawi peak and on the way back down stopped for some celebratory soju and SANDWICHES (they were good, unsurprisingly). I also managed to have a little look around with the binoculars and at the same time earn myself a curious reputation.

Arriving back at the hostel, we were told by the owners that we could buy meat and cook it in the back room of the café, which we did and took it in turns playing chef. After this we played some games that not everyone understood (it wasn’t even a British version) and turned in to bed late.

Our final day started with a tea ceremony by the hostel/café owner followed by only a slightly delayed bus journey home.

Overall - a bloomin' good weekend!

Gamsahapnida for reading,

Bino Barlow.

P.S. K-Music by Lee Sora 이소라 with 나focus