So we get to Yangyang and call the guy that was directing the festival and find out that we are in yangyang CITY and the beach was somewhere in yangyang COUNTY. On the phone the guy made it seem like it was SUCH a big deal.. but it turned out we were only like 20 min away.. regardless we decided just to stay the night where we were and make the remainder of the trip the next day. We are starving cause we kinda skipped dinner so we sit down at this place for some soup (Koreans LOVE soup). Right after we sit down, this old, drunk Korean man starts trying to talk to us (probably the millionth time this has happened in Korea). We are being polite and nice and after a few minutes he asks us if we know where we are staying that night.. me and kimball exchange glances and answer a hesitant '...no...' Then this drink Korean tells us in broken English that he owns a motel and we can stay there FOR FREE. We werent sure if this 'motel' even existed.. or if it was a dump.. or if he was trying to kill us but we eventually decided.. what the hell. So we finish up our meal and then we follow the korean man a short walk away to his motel (which DID exist) and showed us our room (which was actually pretty sweet!). Here's me in our FREE room :) (I won the coin flip so i got to sleep on the bed too!)
Anyway, Kimball and I get settled and are just relax for a bit while we wait for two of our friends
(Quinn and Greg) to meet us at the hotel. Once they arrive, they decide that they are hungry and want to grab some food.. so we all walk out of the motel right past the owner korean guy that we met earlier. We tried to explain to him that our friends were staying with us too.. and at first he didnt seem too pleased. But he did point us in the right direction of a restaurant and even decided that he would join us!! So we sit down the 4 of us at a table.. and the korean at a table next to us.. and Quinn and Greg order food. After a few minutes, the korean has a pizza given to him from a restaurant across the street! And then he motions for Kimball and me to join him! So we do, and the pizza actually wasnt too bad.. And then he decides that he wants to buy us beers too! So there is me and kimball getting this free beer and pizza and chillin with the drunk korean motel owner.. and greg and quinn are just eating their soup haha. (The korean eventually bought beers for them too) After beer and pizza and a lot of laughs.. we crash back at the hotel.
The next day we hop in a cab that takes us to the beach. Once we get there, we drop our stuff off in a room and attend the opening ceremony for the event.. followed by lunch. The waves dont look so great and it is pretty cold.. but we are determined to surf! We decide it would probably be a little warmer if we drank a bit before so we grab some beers and chill on the beach and watch the other surfers. While we are chilling, we meet some of the other people attending the event. They are (like almost everyone i have met in Korea) really cool! They are, of course, english teachers and were just good people. We chill with them for a bit and get realllllyyy excited to actually surf and one of the dudes we met hooks us up with wetsuits and boards and then we are off! Heres us in our wetsuits. I know.. were pretty badass.
Anyway, then we hit the water! With the wetsuits it really wasnt so cold. And it was just awesome to be out in the water!! The waved kinda sucked but i caught a few and it was still just really fun to be out there. After a bit, my toes started to get numb and i decided to get outta there.. So i had a nice loooonnngggg warm shower (probably the most amazing shower of my life) and headed back to chill on the beach. They served dinner which was LOTS of chicken skewers and there was FREE BEER! There was music and one of the dudes that we met earlier performed and it was real cool/chill. So we all chilled around bonfires and ate our chicken and drank beer until we decided to go to sleep.. overall REALLY solid day!!
Heres some Korean cooking the skewers over one of the fires.
The next day we woke up.. grabbed some breakfast (kimchi mandoo and kimbob) and then headed back to the beach to try the waves again. The waves were MUCH better on sunday.. they still werent that great but were so so much better than the day before. So we get wet suited up and go back out there and it is AWESOME! We all catch a bunch of waves and just have an awesome time winter surfing in Korea!!! When our feet started to get numb again, we decided we were done and showered up and headed home..
The 4ish hour trip there turned into like an 8 hour trip home!!! Seoul weekend traffic SUCKS!!!!! It would have been no problem but my computer died like 3 hours in so i was stuck, The Wire-less, for the majority of the trip >:( But whatever.. we eventually made it home and the trip was well worth it. We got contact info for some of the people we met there and are hopefully gonna meet up with them again and go surfing another weekend!
This weekend is the FLAMING LIPS!!! Sooooo excited for that!! I cant believe that it is the middle of november.. this month has FLOWN by.
Hope all is well and thanks for keeping up with me while im over here
epic weekend
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