Zing To Oz!: The Long and Hard Journey...

August 13th, Scott and I set out to Samcheok, home of the infamous Penis Park (officially Haesindang Park) and the biggest cave in Korea. Coincidence? Hmmm...

A few days before my student had brought me a farm-picked cucumber and a pepper. It's like he knew...

(tidbit: the slang for penis here is "gochu" which means pepper)

Fair warning: this blog contains numerous penis photos and even more terrible puns. I hope you can leave with your delicate mind fully intact. ;)

We hopped a bus from Seoul and headed East on a 3 day weekend of beach, cave, and dong fun! The journey was meant to be 3 hours but with the holiday traffic (Korea's independence day) It ran closer to 5 or 6. We got off a stop too early but no big deal, they just threw us on the next bus 15 minutes later. All. Cool.

Waiting for the next bus:

It's around 9 when we arrive and start looking for a motel room. The Jasmine Motel has only one room and it's 80 bucks. We scoff at the price (double the normal rates) and leave, not knowing the trouble that awaits us. We check numerous motels, at each in Korean we get, "No rooms, No rooms, No rooms!" We are hopeful though and keep on trekking. They can't ALL be full we think. We walk away from the center of town towards the beach and pass a no mans land of small houses and closed shops. A mangy untethered dog guarded his territory, a gas station lot, baring his teeth and barking. This is not a usual in Korea so it was surprising. Also we notice... bugs! Bugs everywhere. In a good way. Beautiful spider webs and flying moths and butterflies, and of course the summer staple: cicadas. Cicadas are the most life you'll ever see in Seoul(or hear rather, they are mighty shy) and they only come once a year and split your ear drums with their incessant clicking. You don't see many other bugs in Seoul but I didn't realize how bad it was until I was in a place that had them. In Seoul, trucks come by spraying pesticides, which explains part of it though I'm sure there are other factors. Hurray dead streets. A Samcheok resident cicada:

In any case, after much walking we made it to the harbor and still nothing. No life save teenagers huddled, smoking outside a convenience store. We walked along the road that followed the shoreline and found a couple odd motels. No rooms. We walked up a giant hill to an actual fancy hotel, prepared to pay whatever it took to get into a room. No rooms. We took a taxi back to the heart of town and looked in vain some more. No rooms. We ate some meaty soup and then took a taxi to the town we'd originally accidentally gotten off the bus at. The fair looked like only 9 bucks, sweet, but then the taxi driver pressed a button and it leapt to 19. I argued with the driver and Scott explained it was probably a fee for crossing city lines, even though we hadn't gone far at all. I threw the money at the driver and slammed the door. Then I breathed in some new hope. No way this whole town is full too! I thought. We came to an area of 6-7 large motels. All no rooms. Even Don Quixote was full. I was wishing so badly it had a room for a nice poetic ending.

Finally I cried some tears of frustrations at our last attempt. It was 3 am. We'd be walking all that time, Scott graciously carrying my bag full of camera junk. I felt like an idiot for not taking that first room, and for underestimating the overpopulation of this place. We finally gave up and found a jimjilbang (sauna). All the sleep mats were occupied so we laid our tired selves on my towel on the matted floor of a defunct child's playroom, "relaxing" to the stereo sounds of ajushis snoring. I figured it was best we beat ourselves to exhaustion beforehand, or else we wouldn't have been able to sleep.

The next morning (Sunday) we hopped a bus back to Samcheok and booked a room at the first place we walked in to. We couldn't check in until 3 so we left our bags and headed out. On the way to the main road, I saw the motel my coworker had blogged about that we hadn't seen the night before (despite feeling like we'd checked every motel in the city we apparently missed the one we were kinda looking for). "Motel Very 6 Six". The name reminds me of when the kids here say "vvveerrry verrry yesterday" to mean "a long time ago." Like they were shooting to be a Motel 8, but they could only get out "Veeeeerrrry 6". According to my coworker's blog, it had vibrating beds and jacuzzi's in the room. Such an "Oh Dang!" moment. Our place only had a round bed, but I was glad for it.

We went to the beach a little while and just wandered the town. Not much to report from the beach. Typical overcrowded spot with giggling, fully clothed friends, throwing each other into the water.

Beach:

We happened upon this guy at the top of a big hill in front of a church. Look dad, I saw Brazil.

View of Samcheok, a small city by Korean standards:

We arrived back at the hotel around 4 to realize the cave and the penis park both closed too soon to make it that day. We had a bit of a scare thinking we couldn't see the Penis Park at all (one site said it was closed Mondays) but we did have time for that. The Park and the Cave were each 50 minutes away in different directions so we had to make a choice for our Monday. That was an obvious one though no?

Our digs (finally):

Monday morning we started on the 50 minute bus ride to the Penis Park. We passed all kinds of nice, underpopulated beaches with beachfront motels and thought... if we only knew... sigh... We arrived and had a time of walking around the Penis Park. Of most notable hilarity (aside from the obvious) was the "fishing museum's" boat ride simulation. A laughing ajuma (older woman) and her daughter came off of it, insisting in Korean that we check it out, pointing excitedly at the entrance. Scott and I sat in as this old machine jostled us about with a projection of an ocean in front of us. Wooo hoo. I sat there wondering how much it cost them to set this thing up back in in 87 and who thought it was worth it... ah Korea.

The gist of the Penis Park legend I read mostly from other blogs:

In the fishing village, a couple goes out to sea by boat to pick seaweed. The man leaves his maiden on a rock island to go ashore. A storm hits before he can return and she drowns at sea with him looking on. (Oh and what lovely dioramas they had of the whole scene in the museum). The fish dry up and the town is hurting. Later, a man pisses in the sea and the fish come back. They think the site of his winky appeases her and brings the fish back and viola. Penis Park. And on with the pictures!

There is much to contemplate in such a sizable park.