Byeonsan Peninsula National Park

Sunday my 5 closest Gwangju friends (Brian, Emily, Alex, Alli, and Gabe) and I went to Byeonsan Peninsula National Park. We've been talking about going to the coast for a while, so we were able to actually make it happen.

We decided to meet at the bus terminal at 10, and decide where/how to get there. Luckily, Emily was prepared, and she had asked her co-teacher for some of the best beaches in the area. We decided to go to Byeonsan because it had nice beaches and was relatively close.

Our bus ticket cost only 6,600 won. Thats about $5 for an hour and a half ride on a coach bus. Some of us were tired from the night before, but we didn't sleep on the bus because we were too busy talking and goofing around. We got to Buan without a problem, and from there the ticket man took us to the local bus stop where we boarded another bus to the beach. This ride was much shorter, I saw a sign that said 15 km.

We got to the beach, and the tide was out. The sand seem to stretch for ages. There were thousands of shells and rocks to look at, and we had fun with a jellyfish type creature.

We layed around the beach for a while until we realized the tide was coming in. Alex and Brian tossed around a frisbee and the girls took a walk around town. It was a very sleepy, quiet town, but we were the only tourists. That was okay with us.

Around 3, we started to get hungry. Luckily, we had spotted a restaurant up by the main road. They were serving FRESH seafood. It took us about 10 minutes to order. We didn't have a phrasebook (thanks, Gabe), and the little old owner didn't speak any English. Finally, Alex was able to communicate to her what we wanted (fresh clams). We were just praying that we were going to have enough food for the 6 of us.

The food came out, and our first though was, "I need a beer!" Don't get me wrong, the food looked great, but it was going to take a little bit of liquid courage to get through it. The food just kept coming!

Here's a picture of some of the food. It may not look appetizing to you, but it was great. It was the best seafood I ever had. And we had plenty of it, too! We also ordered 2 servings of noodles, and went through 6 large bottles of Hite. By the end of the meal, we were stuffed, but we didn't stop eating until every last clam was gone.

This is our group after the meal. We raved the entire meal about how delicious it was. You can't tell from this picture, but the beach was right behind me. What a pretty view. I took plenty of pictures, and you can click on this link to look at the rest of the pictures in my Facebook album.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=2203179&id=59501140&page=2

Overall, it was a great day at the beach. We told other EPIK teachers on Monday that we had gone over the weekend, and now everyone wants to go back before it gets cold. Our group was so happy that we made it there and back without any problems.