Once I finished my time in the far south of South Korea, I woke up early and walked through the modern-but-worn town of Wando back to the bus station. I hadn’t been certain whether I would head for Mokpo early on or wait until noonish, but I figured I’d seen what I could of the small town, and it was best to go off an explore some place new. My traveler’s feet rarely stop itching, even when they ache.
So, I hoped on a bus around 9am and headed toward the city of Mokpo! Weeks before I’d negotiated this trip with friends, the Playgroup of Destiny naturally, and they were scheduled to come in some time around 6pm from Seoul. My bus got me to town somewhere around 11:30, and so I had loads of time to kill. The first few hours were spent in a good-old Starbucks cooling down to write as the weather was somewhere around 32 degrees Celsius (roughly 90F).
I had to hike across the city with all of my luggage to see that through. I went to see a local rock that looks like a hat. I’m unsure why Gatbawi is important enough to be designated a special tourist landmark – things look like other things all of the time – but local legends hold a lot of weight for the locals.
Once I was finished with Gatbawi, I chose to see whether the local museums were any good. I can’t give any references or personal photos right now – though I hope to do so in a few months – but in Shanghai there was a maritime museum I visited on a whim once and absolutely fell in love. In the 3 years I lived in Shanghai, I must have visited that museum four or five times; and it is sort of out of the way. I had the chance to go and see the Mokpo Maritime Museum and it was here that I realized I must be in love with the sea.
Here is a picture of an old ship and its contents that sunk off the coast of Sinan roughly 700 years ago. The thing is massive! The rest of the museum features two other discovered shipwrecks, their contents, as well as a historical description of how trade to this part of the world worked back in the day. I find something about the craftsmanship of exhibits at maritime museums rather evocative. Here you might walk into a room and be bathed in a light show simulating waves on the shore. Another room you’d be surrounded by a storm. And one other you’d walk up and find yourself on deck a modern naval vessel. I recall it being just as inspiring in Shanghai.
I also went to check out the natural history museum and local artistry museums, neither of which had the same level nor quality of English and exhibits. They were… fine, but the maritime museum was a real treat I recommend to anyone.
Around this time I was meant to go meet up with the playgroup. They bused over and I walked to our hotel which, for being pretty well located and inexpensive, was pretty nice. The Charmont Hotel was a good place to gather and relax. It didn’t take us long, but we headed out to see what we could of the city at night.
Our first stop was authentically Korean. The restaurant seemed like a person’s very old house converted into an eatery, we got makgeolli, and had what appeared to be local dishes. It was all amazing, save for the bones I had to pick out before swallowing. Then we headed off to grab desert, and that’s where we engaged in our group’s namesake.
You see, Magic: The Gathering has made a small shift in the last year or so. What began as an experimental crossover with The Walking Dead has ballooned into an entire subsection of the game referred to as “Universes Beyond.” They’ve done Stranger Things, Transformers, Street Fighter, Dungeons and Dragons (tabletop and movie), an entire series of decks modeled after Warhammer 40k, and they have now been tempted by The One Ring. An entire draftable set has been released for the game based on The Lord of the Rings.
We opened boxes to satiate the gamblers inside us. One of us got a $200 card, and I happened to pull a card that is causing a bit of an uproar in the discussions surrounding the Commander format; and I was the only one, at least for a few minutes. We came together because of Magic and so naturally had to play it while on vacation. While we didn’t play that first night, we got around the it and had one of the most epic games we can recall – all centered around that new card and how it impacts the game simply by sitting on board. I’m glad we got to play and am happy about the memories we were able to make together so close to the end of my time here we the game we all love.
While we like Magic, we didn’t want to spend our entire vacation far from home playing with cards. Renting a car was discussed and decided on so we wouldn’t be bound to the public transportation as I had been up until now. Just off the coast was another archipelago gathered into Sinan County. The majority of it is connected to the mainland via bridge, and we figured it was a worthwhile place to go and explore. They most farm salt here which isn’t something I’d come to consider a modern industry, but when you see how vast their tidal flats are at low tide it starts to make a lot more sense.
We first stopped at a Ramada Resort, simply because I like to see how people spend their money on resort vacations. We wandered around the hotel for a time before checking out the nearby rocks and shore, where the water was pretty warm. Lots of crabs scuttled from place to place, and we even saw a few fish leap into the air from a rocky outcropping we took a short hike to. Small critters that looked like a mix between a cockroach and a roly-poly skittered under us, and we tried to skip rocks (some as large as a fist). Looking out over the sea, we all agreed it was beautiful here.
Then we set off to Purple Island. This is a more modern tourist attraction, its inception being something I’ll clarify a little further down. Here they have worked meticulously to coat two islands in the color purple. Purple bridges, purple flowers, purple roofs, purple paths – you even get a free entry if you show up wearing purple! We took a long, hot, and some might say ill-advised walk around the larger island meeting locals and waving as the tourist trolly drove past us about three times. I quite enjoyed the entire experience and was astounded at the difference between the landscape between high and low tide. We arrived just as the tide started to go out, and came back at the lowest level, when salt rivers carved through the mud and flowed to the ocean.
Speaking of salt, we got an unexpected breakdown of recent local history once we returned to Seoul, courtesy of friends who pay attention to national scandals more than we. See, Purple Island is a part of a county nearby Mokpo called Sinan. Sinan happens to have a lot of salt farms, an industry that most South Koreans frankly are not eager to work themselves to the bone for. So, what’s the solution then? Modern slavery.
Legitimately, the solution for many of these salt farms was to kidnap disabled people from other parts of the country, import them, and then force them to stay on the islands with threats of being beaten with metal rods. The police were in on it. The locals were in on it. Worse yet, several of the locals defended the practice as either smart business or morally correct due to the idea that disabled people surely could never spend hard earned cash on anything of value. This slavery ring was only discovered in 2014, with nearly 200 people being found in bondage. This bad press is, ultimately, what led them to construct Purple Island – an attempt to improve their PR.
We also ate squid. Recently alive squid, too! It was as if they’d been caught that morning and thrown living into the pot with our stir fry. I really enjoyed this meal and nearly had the chance to pay off Francis – who hates seafood – to eat the head and brain. $50 and he’d have suffered through it, if only I hadn’t mentioned the eyes were still in place.
We finished the last of our nights there with drinking that dragged on into the early morning. I could have gone longer, but I’d already made promises to people back in Seoul about meeting up for more Magic games as it’d be my last Sunday in the area. I got myself three hours of sleep, rushed on over to the train station, made it back to Seoul, and then played commander with some other folks not yet mentioned here but who made significant impacts on my time here in this magic community.
That was the end of my time gallivanting about southern South Korea. I saw some amazing places and enjoyed quite a bit more of this part of the country than I did Seoul. I wasn’t quite done with the country yet, though, and a revelation helped me enjoy the last of my time more than the majority of my previous year. It’s a story for next time.
One comment
Comments are closed.