I boarded the AK charter bus early Saturday morning. There were about 45 people total on the trip from all different English-speaking countries. We drove about 2 hours southwest to the port city of Kunsan, in the province of Jeollabak-do. At Kunsan, we boarded our ferry and headed out to the islands! The ferry ride took about an hour and it was so cold. I stayed outside the whole time, but rarely left my seat. The Koreans on board had a grand time of throwing potato chips at seagulls. Apparently, seagulls do not have the same pesky reputation as they do back in the States. Hit "Keep reading" to hear the rest of the trip!
After we dropped our bags off at the "pension," we grabbed our bikes and started pedaling. Our tour guide (Seok-Jin, owner of AK) suggested we bike to Meonyudo first so that we could watch the sun set of Jangjado. I fell in with a big group of girls, most of whom were from Minnesota. It was a relaxing afternoon because we could cycle, but also take time to enjoy the scenery. Seonyudo has 1 large sandy beach and 3 (I think) pebble beaches. We spent the whole afternoon cycling around Meonyudo, Seonyudo, Jangjado, Daejando and back again. By around 5 o'clock, the tide was out and the town seemed very desolate. Fishing boats were stranded and residents seemed hunkered down for the night (kind of an eery change from Seoul).
My favorite part, though, was seeing how the landscape changed with the tide. Once the tide went out, the beach seemed to double. There was a little island off of the sandy beach; when the tide went out then it was possible to walk to the island. In the evening, a few families came out to the beach to dig up shellfish. I enjoyed seeing the "quality time."
Saturday night we enjoyed a group dinner at a local restaurant. The main course was Sundubu-Chigae (Spicy Tofu stew) and plenty of sidedishes. One of the sidedishes was a cooked fish...it was all there, cut into 3-4 chunks and stacked on the plate. We just had to take our chopsticks and eat it a little chunk at a time! It was really delicious though, and it didn't taste sea-foody at all.
Sunday morning, I got up early to watch the sunrise. However, it was overcast, and we didn't see much of anything (hence, the lack of photos). The day (luckily!) brightened up and turned out to be very sunny. After breakfast, we all headed down to the beach to try our hand at digging out shellfish. This is how you do it: find a hole (you can see little holes on the surface), dig a little bit and pour salt over the hole. When the shellfish emerges, grab it! The traditional method, though, kind of took a long time. Eventually, Seok-Jin just started digging out big piles of sand to root out the shellfish. This turned out to be much more profitable.
Our main activity Sunday was taking a hike up Mangjubong. Seok-Jin suggested this as an easy hike. However, when we were about a quarter from the top, the path turned into a craggy rock face that we had to somehow scramble up. If this is his definition of easy, I don't want to know what a "medium" hike is. Once we reached one peak, there was a path that led to another peak. The second peak offered some AMAZING views of the island. It was absolutely gorgeous...the type of view you could look at all day. The type of view that's just like, Thank-You God for letting me look at this (and be default, thank-you God that I did not fall off the mountain). 
On our way down, we stopped at a pebble beach and climbed on the rocks for a little bit. The tide was coming back, so I spent some time watching as the waves kept hitting a little bit higher and higher each time. By the time we headed back, the island I had walked to the night before was now surrounded by water again and the fishing boats were floating. I haven't gotten out of Seoul much, but this trip was really worth it. Saturday I was a little skeptical because it was colder and kind of overcast, but it was so gorgeous on Sunday, it was like being on a whole new island.
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