Sunday, 17 January 2010

Chuja-do part 1: Wind-riding and a pink dolphin






On Saturday Cobain and I decided to give Chuja-do another try. Chuja-do is a string of quiet islands halfway between Jeju and the mainland. Up early, we got the 5-16 bus (the old left and right express) up to JC for a Mcdonalds breakfast. Being both resourceful and foolish, I filled up a bag with spare McMuffins for later consumption, a terrible decision. The ferry to Chuja is majestically named "Pink Dolphin". My old band had a song about a pink dolphin that lived in pants, but that's a story for another day. As we steamed out of the harbor, the Jeju City skyline was a jumbled mess, and was mercifully soon out of sight. There's a secret reason why it's always cloudy in Jeju City. While all the Koreans stayed inside and slept for the duration of the ferry ride (except the 2 kids that passed out on deck, knocked out by seasickness meds), we spent the trip up on deck. It was insanely windy. It was peak-of-Halla-san-wind-passing-across-your-nostrils-sucking-the-air-from-your-lungs windy. So windy that I invented a deliriously fun new sport I call 'wind-riding'. I'm by far the best wind-rider in all of Jeju. At one point I was leaning backwards into the wind, knees bent back 45 degrees like Keanu in The Matrix. I know Kung Fu. Weee it was super fun, but also crazy cold, and I got knocked around a lot. We passed a few mysterious uninhabited islets on the way, and one or two little islands boasting only a handful of houses. Rugged individualists I suppose.

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