After another night of less than stellar sleep, we got up early to catch a train. I was probably born outside of Seoul, in what Justin and I call "시골" (sigol) but has a connotation of being boondocks. Before you get think that Koreans are a bunch of bumpkins, Justin knew a missionary in Korea that had done a study abroad in Utah and informed him that Utah seemed to be all countryside. When he pointed out that Salt Lake was pretty big, she said, no Utah was all 시골. In comparison to Seoul with a population of 10.26 million, I guess yeah, most of the world seems pretty underpopulated.
I had a desire to leave the city at least once, and there are plenty of day trips you can do from Seoul, but I had heard about 나미섬 (Namiseom), an island in the middle of the Han river. It became an island in the 1940s when a dam had been built, and in 1965 was bought by a guy who turned it into a micronation. It has it's own currency (though KRW does just fine and all the prices are in KRW) and you can buy a passport (totally overpriced). Entrance includes a visa and ferry ride.
We took the subway to 용산 (Yongsan) station to catch the ITX train. The ITX is a high speed train that only makes makes a few stops between Seoul and 가평 (Gapyeong) making the total time only about 45 minutes instead of the usual hour and a half. We hadn't grabbed breakfast and I wasn't feeling too great by the time we got to the train station at 7:30 so we stopped in the convenience store for some banana milk and triangle kimbap. I downed the banana milk but kept feeling awful and was starting to feel nauseated. We finally boarded the train and I thought I would be okay, but took a bite of my kimbap and found out that it had a massive amount of chili paste in it. Normally would be fine, but not what an upset tummy wants. I found the bathroom to throw up. In fact, I actually cut in front of some really annoying girls who were standing in front of me, but left for a minute to see if there was another bathroom. Any other time I'd have let them go in front of me, but I figured that it would be ruder to puke on their shoes. Sorry gals, but I think you'd probably have agreed with me in you'd known. Anyway, after throwing up, I made it back to my seat and dozed off. I woke up shortly before we got to Gapyeong, feeling much better.
From Gapyeong, there's a bus that you can take to the dock but it leaves at odd times and not very often, so we just hopped into a taxi. It takes about 5 minutes and costs 4,000 KRW.
There are two ways to the island. The normal one is to pay the pay the entrance fee and take the ferry over. It ferry takes about 5 minutes and leaves every 5 minutes. We however took this way:
Yeah, it's really high.
If you know me at little bit, you'll know that I'm a crazy bad acrophobe, but I really wanted to give this a try. I'd read that this was the longest zipline in Asia at 940 m, but I think this is out of date because I know there's one in Nepal that's 1800 m. It costs 40,000 KRW per person (bit pricey) but that includes the entrance fee and ferry ride back. And a super fun way to the island. The ride wasn't very scary (standing at the top of the platform was terrifying) because the zipline doesn't have a huge drop. It just felt like a nice flight over the water. Highly recommend. We made it to the island by 9:30.
Namiseom is named for a Korean general. No one really knows where his grave is (it was 550 years ago), but the guy who bought the island is convinced this is where it is and built this tomb.
General Nami's tomb
중앙갓나무길 (Junganggat namu gil) I forgot what type of tree this was.
Wild ostriches. They are mean. They started running around while we were watching and then did this swaying dance with their wings. Very funny.
And a merlion. Which country am I in again?
By this time I was starving again, so we stopped by one of the restaurants for 삼겹살 (samgyupsal). It's thinly sliced pork belly grilled, then wrapped in lettuce with garlic and chili sauce. The staff did look at us a little crazy for ordering it at 10 in the morning. The green bottle is 사이다 (Cider). It's the first type of soda I had. The best I can describe it is like 7 up without the overpowering lime flavour.
Old type of kitchen
송파 (Song pa) Pine path
There's a hotel and small cabins that you can rent.
I think this was a water tower?
South point of the island. There was a mooring site, so I'm not sure if you can use your own boat to get out to the island. The water isn't very deep and it's not very far to shore.
The river walk was closed for repairs.
You can also rent pedalos.
Uh, so I have no idea why there was a giant graphic statue of a woman breast feeding, but it was VERY popular with the Chinese tourists. There were small statues of breastfeeding mothers everywhere.
There was a ginkgo tree somewhere in there. The rest of them are dawn redwood trees.
Sorry this picture is blurry. Lousy photographer.
North part of the island. This part looked like they were still working on it because the trees were young.
Squirrel!
One of the reasons Namiseom is famous because of a really old drama from 2002 called Winter Sonata. I haven't seen it, but it takes place in a nearby town of 춘천 (Chuncheon) but a few of the episodes, including the romantic ones took place on Namiseom. Apparently there was a famous kissing scene that involved snowmen, which is why there are snowmen all over the island.
After this, we caught the train back to Seoul, but all the assigned seats were taken so we had to stand for past of the way. This can be avoided if you buy tickets online. We were lucky as it was a weekday and we went early, By the time we left at noon, it was getting very crowded and I can't imagine what it would have been like in the summer and the weekend. We spent about two and a half hours on the island, which was plenty for us.
