Suwoning Around: Trains, Ferries and Automobiles

How to: Get to the Beach in Korea.

First, take a 1/2 hour taxi to the subway station, then take two subways to Dongincheon. Perferably have some sunshine in your foreground, and ensure you pack your togs, sunblock and a very cheery mood - you're gonna need it!
Also helpful to have a loud and still semi-drunk Irishman along for the trip for entertainment value. Thank you Aidan.

Sunshine and we're going to the beach - hurrah!

From there it's a simple cab ride with a fabulous driver who plays you A-Ha 'Take On Me' and ABBA 'Honey Honey' on the way - this is his driving music. But do not, under any circumstances, over enthusiastically begin to sing in horrible non-melodic voices. He will tell you to shut up and threaten to kick you out.
Arrive at Woomuido (I can't spell Korean place names) and get on a boat. Sing the predictable "Never thought I'd be on a boat, it's a big blue watery road" lyrics - they are compulsory. Watch Korean families throw food at seagulls with gusto and enjoy hundreds of the scoundrels trailing along with your boat across to the island.

Poesidon - Look at me!

Next, wait 1/2 hour for a bus while reading your Korean phrasebook and being rather proud of being able to read the signs around you for the first time - EVER! Enjoy a Korean man squat down beside you, take said phrasebook and laugh hysterically to himself while pointing out particular words or phrases. I guess these must be in jokes, as I found it funny, but not as funny as he did.

After a 40min bus ride across Incheon (an island, where the Int'l airport is, where I flew in, funny to be back) enjoy a leisurely 15 min stroll across a causeway and around a road to another ferry.

Board ferry. Watch as ferry turns around, travels for two minutes (at most) and docks on the other side. Question need for ferry and the possibility of a bridge. Dismiss. You're on Muuido!

So now, pack yourself into another bus like cattle (or some very intensive bus ghosting - ghosting for beginners if you will) and enjoy another 15 min ride along very narrow but two-way roads through farm land. Be pleased you can only see your friends' armpits and not how close you come to running down SUVs, goats, and children.
And then, dear friends, you are AT THE BEACH!

Six hours of travelling was SO worth it for this!

How to: Have Fun at the Beach

1. Swim. Ignore the lack of other swimmers. Ignore the brown water from the silt pouring in to the China Sea from the Yellow River. Ignore the floating bandaid and itty bitty little dead crab. Put your head under for beachy hair. Rinse. Repeat.

2. Beer on the beach. Obviously.

3. As the tide receeds, follow it, and you'll end up walking for about an hour. On the return trip, splash annoyed friends and marvel at the weird and unique sealife dredged up in the mudflats and laugh at the Korean families wearing plastic yellow waders while digging for clams.

4. Watch the sunset. Pur-edy.

5. Eat galbi (Korean BBQ) on the beach front. Combine with soju.

We are very mini. But we are also having a

whole buncha fun with sparklers. Yippee!

6. Realise fireworks are sold alongside sunscreen and shampoo at the one and only store on the island. Buy a bundle. Write your name in the sky.

Laz's bike is so much cooler - it's pink and has a basket!

7. Borrow/steal childrens bikes and ride around on 'em until you tire of it/until you break them/until a Korean woman - likely the mother of the children who officially own the bikes - comes and scolds you and whacks you on the bum to get off (yes, this is from experience. Bad, bad Sophie!)