Be Fearless, Travel Solo

The Last Day and the Departure- We woke at dawn to catch an early-morning gondola ride to a mountain peak overlooking the island’s south side. It was an up-hill hike just to get to the loading point, but we passed some neat looking shops full of wood carvings and Buddhist goods that I hoped would be open by the time we got back. The 20 minute gondola ride was worth the uphill trek, and we unloaded at a deck that gave a 365 degree view from the peak. It took me a while to take in all the views it had to offer. It was cool seeing the ocean from up above, it had a different shade of blue all over again. I also never realized how big the port town was until I saw it from above. Megan and I walked around the overlooks and balconies built into the peak and took a load of pictures. After the gondola ride, we visited another Buddhist temple that was stunning- brightly colored sashes and painted buildings that shone like jewels. There was a giant steel bell with a dragon on top of th...

The Mysterious Island Adventures Continue. . . Megan and I boarded a bus full of other tourists, most all of them foreign, college-grad, English teachers like myself. We took a tour around the island for 4 hours, stopping to see giant rock formations, Buddhist temples, scenic outlooks, and Ullengdo’s other small fish towns. Looking out at the coast line was best part of the tour, because the line between the water and sky was blurred; the misty air on this island gave the illusion of an ocean that reached to the sky, or a sky that spanned to the bottom of the earth, whichever way you looked at it. This is why the island is fondly called Mysterious Island Ullengdo. It’s more of an Island up in the clouds, far removed from the water. We stopped at a small town up in the mountains and tried some homemade rice wine. It was good if you like essence of dirty sock soaking in dish water and the color of grey fog. We came back to the hotel for a dinner of fried fish (naturally...

Mysterious Island Ullengdo A beautiful and peaceful tropical island lies between Korea and Japan. You’ve never heard of it before. It’s a small volcanic island called Ullengdo, population of 10,000. Located off the coast of the state of Daego, a 5 hour drive from Seoul, it takes a 3 hour ferry boat across the East Sea . With the tour group Adventure Korea, my co-worker friend and I hopped on a bus for an all night journey to a coastal city in Daego. Not being one for sleeping on buses, or any other kind of moving transportation ( I’m still working on that) I stayed up all night looking out the window into the dark mountains of the Korean countryside. It was the first time I had been outside the city. I almost forgot what forests looked like. I forgot what clean air smelled like too until I stepped outside during one of rest stops and breathed in the clean moist air of the mountains. We stopped often during the road trip, which is actually a common Korean practice; to stop every...