Lost in Korea: My Journeys: Taean(태안)

While in Seoul my first trip was to a place called Taean(태안) which is in the western part of South Korea and its the seaside.

The area outlined in red is Taean(Tae-an, 태안)

One day my friend(언니) decided to go to the beach but it was already past 7pm. I said "No" but she persuaded me and I decided to go with her to the beach. All I was thinking was that the beach is near from Seoul so we will be back early. But she decided to leave at 12 midnight. So we went to get her car from the University parking lot at 12 and we were off to Taean. I was not sure where this place was. It took almost three hours to reach there. In between we stopped at a convenience store and had some Ramyun and Rice rolls. (The convenience store in Korea is open 24x7) After having our snack we decided to go the beach but it was too early(3am) so she drove us through the villages nearby. It was so quiet and dark unlike Seoul. By 4am we had reached the beach and the water was till the fence. We looked for a good place to park the car and waited inside the car. We slept off till 8 am inside the car. When we woke up there was slight drizzle so we drove to the nearest to sea and saw that the water had drained. This was something new to me. It was the low tide and high tide phenomenon.

The same place during low tide and high tide.

There were two islands called Anmyeon-do(안면도)which looked like two huge rocks or small hill surrounded by sand and stones. It becomes island when its high tide.

We saw 2~3 people picking something from between the rocks so we also decided to go down and see. There were small crabs and shell creatures. I caught a small crab just to get the feel of it. We started collecting some shell creatures so that we could boil it and have for a meal.

As it was continuously drizzling we decided to have breakfast and come back. All the restaurants there had seafood based menu. We went for Blue crab soup/curry. It was tasty but as I was not used to eating rice and seafood in the morning I had to force myself to eat it.(Koreans eat rice for all the three meals) By then the clouds cleared and we saw more people going in to collect shells and other creatures. Mostly there were Korean families. They had brought their children to experience picking up these shell creatures.

The local people were selling equipments for digging and some local snacks.

We also went in to enjoy the sea and take pictures. There was a line of wooden stumps leading into the sea.

We had gone very inside but by 12 noon they announced that the sea water is moving in. We were still inside and slowly our legs were getting wet with water and it rose till the ankle. I got onto the stump and started walking on it. The water was rising within seconds. I felt very strange and scary of the sea. The behaviour of the sea seemed very mysterious.

Tips:

* There is direct public transport from Seoul to Anmyeon-do. It takes 2~3hrs.