Visited Somaemuldo (a small island accessable by ferry from Tongyong. It has an unfortunate resemblance to the fortress of doom when approaching by sea.)
Turned out to be well worth the trip. Mostly a bunch of hiking and admiring views, but still good fun. And it reacquainted me with various Korean habits. Mostly that the average Korean becomes very friendly on these sorts of outings and those posessing some knowledge of the English enjoy a friendly conversation, usually followed up by a picture session, and a ritual sharing of food. Today's most popular item was ginseng jellies. After a few of these sessions we struck out on our own and found a mountainous column inhabited by a family of black goats. Unfortunately the goats seemed enormously disturbed by our presence and they ran off. Their loss, because we enjoyed their mountain redoubt. Later the seas parted (due to the tide, but the brochure describes it as a miracle similar to Moses parting the seas), and we were able to explore the adjacent island, very originally named "lighthouse island."
The return ferry ride was executed in military style. It was a small rust bucket that somehow screamed "Indiana Jones", to me at least. They must have been in a hurry though, because it unloaded and we were all loaded on in about two minutes, with much yelling and carrying on, as well as marine style pushes to help us all get the nerve to jump on to the bobbing boat. This as well as loading the cargo for the various islanders heading back to the mainland. (This consisted mostly of old soju bottles filled with live eels. On the way in it was beet roots and soju bottles filled with soju) They didn't worry about such niceties as tickets either. At our next stop, the captain flipped his lid because some poor tourist family wasn't on time, and could be seen running down the beach, suitcases in tow. He was nice enough to wait for them, but he spent a good period of time yelling them down via loudspeaker, with shouts of "bali, bali". (hurry....) Fortunately, some intrepid villager helped them out with an ATV... For the next village he was determined not to repeat the experience, so he blared Korean folk tunes out the speakers for several minutes before our arrival as a warning. It seemed to work.
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