BIGEUMDO

6:00 am //
 arrive at U-Square Bus Terminal

7:30 am //
 arrive in Mokpo, a port city on Korea's southwest coast

7:36 am /
 take a taxi to Mokpo's ferry station

7:50 am //
 take a ferry to Bigeumdo

8:50 am //
 arrive in Bigeumdo

8:51 am //
 ask ourselves why we're the only ones who got off the ferry

8:52 am //
 look at map

8:53 am //
 look around for a taxi. there are no taxis. there are no people.

8:54 am //
 i use my excellent charades skills to ask a nice gentleman to call us a taxi.
lots of Korean I don't understand... audi? (where)
heart-uh beach-ee. (the beaches proper name is Hanuneom)

8:58 am //
 a minivan taxi arrives and we pile in

9:12 am //
 taxi driver takes us to get our first view at the heart-uh beach-ee. we squeal. taxi driver motions for us to all get out of the car. he's very enthusiastic. he's done this before. smile.

9:17 am //
 we pile back in the car. taxi drives keeps driving. he keeps smiling. we decide to roll with the punches. we end up on a two hour tour of the island. we see four or five beaches. we see salt farms. we see cattle. we see old ladies farming, their bodies permanently hunched from long hours in the fields. and we eventually let him know we want to go back to the heart-uh beach-ee.

11: 20 am //
 we unpack our sack lunches, relax and proceed to comment at least 300 times that we are on a heart-uh shaped beach-ee in Korea.

4:20 pm //
 we rinse the sand from our bodies with a bit of salt water. the taxi driver arrives and is ready to take us back to the ferry terminal. we go home. we are happy.

This place was serene, breathtaking and peaceful. We saw a grand total of four other people during the five hours we spent on the beach. Low mountains provided spectacular views. There was nothing of consumer interest in walking distance. There wasn't even a small mart with water. Had we wanted to stay over night, we would have needed to camp and carry everything in.

And again I say, ohhhhh Korea.