Yeosu Beach

Hello! It's Big Sis and I am going to tell you all about Yeosu Beach. It was an early morning in the little AirB&B and so after packing up and getting into the chaotic cars, we drove off to the rail park. The original plan was to ride the bikes then go to the beach which was literally right next to the bikes so we all thought that was a great idea. When we went to get the tickets, we realized that there was a long wait and that the price was really expensive (I'm not even going to say that price!) After the adults had a short 20 second conversation, we decided that it was best if we went straight to the beach and just ditched the bike idea. The vote was unanimous among the kids that they just wanted to go swimming. Since it was already really hot, the Walkers (the family that was with us) said that they were going to get ice creams and so we went with them. One of the littles from their family found little Korean hair clips that were windmills. Mom thought that they were so cute so all of the kids got one. After getting the clips in, we all ate our ice cream while walking to the docks to get a picture. I could hear the moms laughing behind us and saying "They are all so Korean now!"I guess we are officially part Korean now because it is like the one thing that Korean are always wearing, little cute funny hair clips. 

We got down to the docks and after we took a couple pictures, we were off to the beach. The view was really pretty. There were these huge cement jacks looking things.  They were pretty neat.

After walking to the beach, we quickly realized that since the sand was slightly black that it was super duper hot. It burned so bad so we hurried under the umbrellas. After putting on sunscreen, we hurried into the water. It was so cool to the touch, but after just jumping in, it felt glorious because it was so hot and the sky was clear. The moms started to walk off and after about 5 minutes, they returned with a HUGE flamingo water float and two water tubes. We all went crazy over them. Since I didn't have anything else to do, I thought "Why not push the little around on the flamingo?" Quinn is only 6 and can't swim very well so I volunteered to push her around the beach on the flamingo. She loved it. Little A and her friend Brynlee sat on the side and just jumped off of the floaty whenever they wanted to and just swam back to shore. M&M and her Best Friend Claire both claimed a tube and just floated around in the deeper parts. 

To swim around with Quinn, I just held unto the wing and frog kicked around the water. Since the water was a little murky, I didn't go more the 40 or so feet away from the shore, but Quinn just loved the ride in general. I managed to photobomb a few photo's along with the 2 older! LOL!

The Korean lifeguards were a sight to see.  They were covered head to toe.  It is so much different then America.  Even the people swimming were covered and in wet suits or even just normal long sleeve and pants.  The life guards had hats, glasses, scarfs, long sleeves, gloves, pants and socks and shoes.  I saw one life guard cover their ankle with their hand when a tiny bit of skin was showing.  They must really be afraid of the sun.

Monster, Talia, and the parents all just sat under the shade of the umbrella and just sat there watching us.

After eating and playing more in the water for another hour, mom told us it was time to go home. The bathroom was really small and really gross so we decided to just make a changing room between the cars. After the kids went in two at a time and changed (that took like 20 minutes) we finally were back on the road.

This weekend was so much fun and I know for a fact that I really loved helping Quinn more then I would have enjoyed my time alone in the water. I loved this adventure that we went on and I am excited for what new travel await us in our new chapter to our book of life, our time in Germany! 

Jeju Island: Hallim Park & Hyeopjae Beach

I’ve gotta be honest here, Hallim park was just OK, we could have skipped this and not have missed a thing. This could be because we have been to a lot of gardens in Korea already, or it could have been that this really is just a subpar place that was way over-priced.  The park was not kept up very well, the gardens were full of weeds and the over all feeling was frankly pretty sad. 

We started by looking at the map and trying to figure out how we wanted to use our time.  The girls were excited about bird exhibit, so we decided to walk towards the birds.  On the way there was saw the two lava tube cave entrance, so we made a pit stop in the lava tubes. It was crazy to walk through a tube made  by air holes during a lava flow.  I could just imagine the holt molten lava flowing and moving and creating air bubbles as it moved, which then cooled into these caves.

The caves are interesting because it is one of the only places in the world where a limestone and lava caves can be found together.  The shells from the ocean made it so the limestone was formed inside the lava tube.  

Caves aren’t really my thing.  After a few minutes, it all feels and looks the same- cold, dark, and damp areas with sometimes just a large cave, and sometimes it has weird rock formations. This one had one weird rock formation; it was a bear and a turtle.  Little A was scared of the rocks, so when I asked her to stand by it for a picture she had a fit.  I did get the picture in the end.

We left the cold cave tunnels and walked on to the birds.  It was a sorry site for sure.  There were huge cages stuffed with sad looking birds.  A lot of the birds were missing feathers.  There were peacocks in cages, and then there were some roaming free.  We all wondered how that roaming peacock won the lottery for being free.  

We found a door to enter the canary cage, so we went in.  We didn’t have any food, but they all flew right to us.  The girls did love having birds fly and jump on them.  I walked away from the door and put my hand out to tell the girls to move, and had five birds fly straight for me and land on my outstretched arm.

Kevin and Monster ended up joining us in the cage and we all had birds landing all over our hands and arms.

We said good-bye to our feathered friends and saw a few more animals.  There were some Ostriches that were missing many feathers.  They were not very pretty to look at, but they were so weird as they moved their heads around.  It looked like their neck and head was a completely separate entity, almost like a snake.  

We decided that we saw enough and were on our way to the exit, we made a small detour through the water garden.  There was a pretty man-made waterfall that we enjoyed.  There were some huge fish in the ponds, and some lily pad on the ocean.

We quickly walked the loop, then called it good.  There were some pretty cool bushes in the water garden that were shaped as animals.  M&M's favorite animal is an elephant, so she was excited to see and elephant bush.

The kids still enjoyed the birds and the caves were interesting, so it wasn’t a complete failure, I just felt we could have used the money and time else-where.

We left Hallim Park and parked across the street at the parking lot for Hyeopjae Beach.  There were signs for the actual beach, but we ended up staying closer to the parking lot where there was part beach and park black volcanic rocks.

The rocks created little tidal pools that all the kids ran straight to.  They found seaweed, shells and some hermit crabs.  

Big Sis and M&M started digging in the tidal pools and found a few oysters fully intact.  They opened it expecting to find a pearl and instead found the muscles and goo from the inside.  Grossed out they tossed it and decided to collect hermit crabs instead. They made a large hill surrounded by a mote, and placed all the crabs they found on the hill.  

Even though there was a beautiful sandy beach just a few hundred meters away, all the kids opted to stay where we were.  They were having so much fun.  We stayed for a few hours, before we all got really hungry.  M&M really wanted to see the sunset on the beach, but we still had about an hour and a half, since the sun didn’t set until 7:33.  We walked down the road and found a pizza restaurant ad enjoyed some amazing brick oven pizza before heading back to the hotel.  

Jeju Island: Daepo Jusangjeolli Cliffs

We made a quick stop at the Jusengjeolli cliffs.  After paying the entrance fee, we walked just a few hundred yards and a few stairs and found ourselves on the cliffs edge.  There was a big wooden fence so visitors wouldn’t fall over the cliff, but it also obstructed the view of the cliffs.  

Seeing these cliffs was seeing something I have never seen before.  These cliffs are a cultural monument in Jeju and were formed from the eruption of the Hallasan Volcano as the lava erupted into the Sea.  It was beautiful to see the rock pillars, each are the shape of a cube or hexagon, and we learned that each of these pillars are a separate entity.  

We walked around the cliffs on the trail for about a half hour, taking in the sea and these dark black hexagon cliffs.  It was such a sight.

Jangho Beach and Samcheok Ocean Railbikes (with Grandma & Grandpa)

We decided to make an all day trip to the East coast of South Korea to Samcheok.  We woke up early and left around 6 am for the 3.5 hour drive.  We stopped at a rest stopped, got some donuts and arrived at Jangho Beach around 10:00.  We chose Jangho Beach, because it's supposed to be the best place to snorkel in South Korea.  We found a parking spot, and went on a recon mission to check out the snorkeling spot.

The snorkeling spot was a small hole on the side of the port surrounded by rocks. This was defiantly not what we were expecting to find.  The designated snorkeling spot was covered with every square yard with a human being.  There were so many people just swimming around backside up.  There wasn't a single fish or coral anywhere in the snorkel spot.  We asked the girls if they wanted to snorkel here or go over to the beach and snorkel at the beach.  The kids all wanted to go to the beach. I was happy about that because there wasn't a single place to sit and no sand in sight at the snorkel spot.

We walked down to the beach and set up our umbrellas and got out the sand toys.  Mom and dad sat in the shade under the sunshade.  They didn't bring suits (even though I told them too) and so they enjoyed the beach from afar.  

Little A and Monster had a blast under the umbrella with the sand toys.  They would fill the dump truck with sand and then dump it.  

M&M and Big Sis had a great time snorkeling at the beach.  We had all the kids wear a life vest since we weren't sure of the tide.  The kids had fun seeing the fish and shells in the wake of the waves.

After finishing with the dry sand, Monster and Little A moved to the wet sand and waves.  They had so much fun chasing the waves and playing with Kevin.

I had a glorious time people watching.  When Koreans go to the beach they cover up from head to toe.  Another interesting fact was that almost all the Koreans had on a life vest.  This is much different then an American beach, where it seems like there is a skin competition for the most shown.  I think Big Sis was showing the most skin, and by American standards, she was very modest.

We had to cut our beach fun short to pack up and hurry to our 1:00 appointment at the Samcheok Ocean Railbikes.  The Ocean railbikes were the highlight of our entire day!  It was so incredibly fun.  We all loved it so much.  We found a parking spot and it was exactly 1:00.  According to the Korean standard time, we were ten minutes late.  Kevin went to check in, while we quickly made sandwiches for the starving kids, threw water bottles into our backpacks, and changed the Monster. Kevin and the Korean railbike worker came over and through a series of hand motions and facial expressions we interpreted that we were beyond late and needed to get to the bikes now.

As we start walking away from the car with backpacks unzipped and diapers, water bottles and food falling out, we realize we have no keys to lock the car.  Everyone starts ripping the car apart searching for the missing keys!  Everyone is getting frazzled and frustrations are becoming strong.  It even gets to a point that dad says he will stay in the car while we go.  No way! I yell for everyone to start walking to the bikes and just leave the car unlocked.  From what we have experienced, Korea is a pretty safe place, so I was banking on the safe factor and we all walked away from the car in hopes that we would come back to a car and all our belongs.

We got to the bikes, loaded up and took off!

It only took a minute on the bikes to leave the lost keys and craziness of getting to the bikes behind us.  The bikes were amazing and the trail was even better!  The path followed the ocean and we could smell and feel the salty ocean breeze!

Big Sis and M&M rode with mom and dad since we didn't know how physically exerting the bike ride would be.  The older girls really loved spending the time with grandma and grandpa!  Mom really loved the bike trails, and I think dad did too.  His look in this picture is more like, why am I doing this?

Little A and Monster rode with Kevin and I.  It was so wonderful to have seatbelts in every single seat.  I didn't have to worry about Monster getting out of his seat or falling out of the bike.  He absolutely loved the bike ride and being in the back with daddy!

The best part about being the last people to leave the railbike station was the huge space we had between us and the people ahead of us.  For the first half of the ride, we never saw a single bike except our own.  Kevin and I were in front and Mom and Dad and the older girls were behind up.  Straight from the beginning was downhill, so the bikes were cruising! It was wonderful going fast and not having to stop because a slow bike was in front of us.

After riding a few minutes, I went in my backpack to get water and a snack from Monster and Little A, and lo and behold, I sheepishly found the missing car keys at the bottom of my bag.  Oops!
It only took us about 15-20 minutes to get to the half way rest stop.  We caught up to the entire pack of people since everyone had to take a ten minute break.  There were ice cream shops and food and drinks to purchase.  There was also a great view of the ocean.  We spent our rest time just talking about how much fun the railbikes were already and looking out into the ocean.

Since all the bikes were parked, we were also able to get a rail bike employee to snap a picture of our whole group.

We got back on the bikes and were now in for a super special treat!  The last portion of the trail lead us through a few dark tunnels.  The only annoying part was having to watch our break because we were now going slow due to all the bikes in front of us.  It was still super fun, because we were able to yell back at mom and dad and the girls since they were so close.

The tunnels and the scenery were amazing!  We loved all the tunnels, they are defiantly Korean style tunnels filled with acts of randomness!  The first tunnel was in honor of a Korean olympian.  The tunnel had lights and pictures of the olympic runner along with facts and quotes.

The next tunnel was filled with lights and laser lights and played smooth elevator music.  The pulsing blue light was sensational.  All the kids were whooping and hollering at all the lights.  Monster loved that we were in a tunnel.

The next tunnel had lively music with lights everywhere!  There were lights that looked like falling stars and twinkling lights through the entire tunnel, even on the floor.

The lights and music then changed to lights and laser lights everywhere and of every color.  The kids were oohing and awing at the colorful display.  The tunnels were truly the best part of the ride!

We made it sadly to the end of the ride.  Everyone was all smiles and talking excitedly about the ride, scenery and tunnel lights.  We got off our bikes and found the shuttle bus right out of the station that took us back to our car.  We were very happy to find our car intact and all belongings accounted for!  Since we left in such a hot mess, we stopped at the sign and snapped a picture!  This was an awesome and super fun trip.  The Ocean Railbikes are like nothing we have ever done before and it was fabulous.  I highly recommend this to anyone and everyone.