Muuido Island

This past weekend, Matt and I went out to Muuido Island, a small island off of Incheon.  Considering it's the middle of monsoon season, we got lucky and had only clouds in the sky.  We made it to the pier on Incheon and took a short ferry ride across to Muuido.  You could actually see the other side easily... I'm not sure why they didn't just build a bridge because you could easily walk.. but.. whatever works.  After a ferry ride and windy, bumpy bus ride across the island, we arrived at Hangaggae Beach and checked in to our little beach hut.  There are a couple rows of them along the edge of the beach... enough for max.  3 people to sleep in and they give you enough blankets to make a cocoon on the floor.  Like little minboks on stilts.

Row of Minboks on stilts

Here's ours!

It was low tide, and the interesting thing about Muuido is... when it's low tide, there is absolutely no sea.  It goes completely out.  You can walk all the way across the bay... out to about a kilometer.  It's pretty wild!  We took a long walk and saw all sorts of snails, crabs and sea cucumbers.  We got to the other side and it was beautiful.  Completely deserted.

No sea

The other side

We actually got lost coming back and went into complete panic mode, which is hilarious in retrospect. 
On our walk, we thought we were walking straight and went for about a mile... we were walking for at least 20 minutes until we found the other beach, which we thought was the other side.  When we started walking back where we thought we came from, the ocean started coming in fast.  It was actually pretty cool to see.  Anyway, we panicked because we had no idea how we were going to get back through the ocean without swimming... instead, we stopped at a beach that wasn't overtaken by the sea yet.  We didn't have shoes or any money so we figured we would have to beg someone for a ride.  As we walked up on to the beach, we were commenting on how similar it was to ours... and then it turned out that it was ours.  How stupid we felt! But also so relieved because we were starving.

We had lunch of some noodle soup with fresh clams and spent the rest of the day relaxing and playing black jack on the beach (the first and probably last time i beat matt- just need that on record).   It wasn't the best weather or the best beach, but it was nice to be at any beach at all and we had a lot of fun.  The next morning we woke up and it was monsooning (of course) so we had a trek getting back to Seoul.. which was definitely worth it because we ate a ridiculous amount of Taco Bell (definitely a novelty here) and watched Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind at a DVD bang. I wish we had those in the states!  You basically just rent a really cozy room with a big couch and pillows and they put on a DVD that you choose on a huge screen TV.  I love it.. you get to leave your house but still be lazy.

Other than that, I really missed the 4th of July!  Definitely my favorite holiday... I wish I could have been BBQing with my friends instead of working all day. Boo hoo.

That's about it!

How to get to Muuido:

-Take the Korail airport line from either Seoul Station, Hongik University or Digital Media City station
-Once at the airport, go to departure terminal (3rd floor), exit at gate 5
-Take bus 222 to reach the Jamjinnaru ferry terminal (the ferry runs every 15-30 mins) and you can literally see Muuido from the Incheon side and visa versa
-Buy a ticket at the hut to the right and board the ferry
-Once on the other side, there are buses waiting right at the terminal.. there aren't usually numbers but just ask the driver if it goes to Hangaggae Beach
-To rent the hut, just walk towards hanaggae beach and you'll see a building selling the minbok huts for 30,000 won.. they give you a key and you just head to the beach.  But be warned.. I didn't come across any showers while I was there.. just public bathrooms with toilets/sinks