Daecheon Beach and Boryeong-si.

This morning, I woke up without an alarm. 8 o'clock sharp. I had a brief conversation with mom via the internets and decided to explore Boryeong a little bit. I was determined to visit Daecheon Beach, despite the 10 km commute. (I was tempted to convert that into miles for the American types, but miles don't exist here. Neither do gallons or dollars or Fahrenheits. Considering this is an account of South Korea, I will uphold the integrity of its measuring systems. You may refer to the following to assist you in your conversions: 1 mile=1.61 km; 1 lb=2.2 kg; F=9/5C + 32; $1=1,375 won [today].) I first walked down the main road, which I believe is named Boryeongno. I crossed the bridge that separates the new side of town from the old side of town. I live in the new side of town--but keep your shirt on--the new side of town is pretty much just apartment buildings and a few grocery stores.

About twenty-five years ago, there was the apartment building boom/craze in all of SoKo. This happened for a few reasons: (a) Because mountains consume most of the Korean landscape, there is very limited space for habitation, so this is why you see dense urban centers in podunk towns like mine; (b) Korea has a very trendy culture that is obsessed with modernity and technology and high rise apartment buildings mimic the aesthetic of the fast-paced metropolises like NYC or Chicago; and (c) Koreans are a very social culture, (at least comparatively to America) who don't mind sharing space with other Koreans.

Anyway, I walked through downtown--which is essentially just billiard halls (the kind without pockets), restaurants and bars--and window shopped the brand name stores on main street. Also, western brand names (mainly from Britain) are huge here and if you pair that idea with the lack of copyright law here, you'll understand why I see so many "Abercombi" sweatshirts everywhere. Shoes here are also really expensive. My mom twisted my arm into getting snow-friendly shoes and I looked in a few stores and they averaged at 130,000 won (see above unit conversion legend).

So I was feeling a bit courageous after having my morning jaunt through the market,
and I decided to ride the public bus to Daecheon Beach. Keep in mind, there are no signs in English in the public transit system in my town, so I was pretty much winging it. I waited at the stop for about 10 minutes and the bus arrived. I walked up the courtesy stairs and didn't have to do much to inform the driver (a) I didn't know what I was doing and (b) I didn't know Korean. Luckily, I told me the fare was 1,100 won, which was dirt cheap, and I thanked him in the one word of Korean I do know and found a seat on the bus. We passed rice field after rice field with sporatic gas stations and restaurants. I finally got off the bus feeling accomplished and walked the beach for a while. It was nice to see home (or China, if we're splitting hairs here).

I asked a local if he could take my picture.
This one was probably my favorite.

For mum. This was an ad at the bus stop. Mum loves nativity scenes.