No Times like Island Times

My friend Mickey was an exceedingly lucky individual; and he knew it. He could show up late, get lost or not put any planning into a trip. It didn't matter. Wherever he was....good times were sure to follow.

Me and Mickey had taken a small boat out to a rural island off the west coast of Korea one Summer and had a great time. Beach camping, swimming, drinking and hitch hiking around the island on the backs of pickup trucks led to a pretty memorable experience and we knew we should do it again.
However, for some reason we thought it would be a good idea to do this again in February.

 Last time we were there, we had noticed that lots of people had opened up their houses and rented out rooms to individuals or groups. At that time we had not taken advantage of this because we could just sleep on the beach, but we figured this would work out great for February.

I woke up still a bit drunk on Mickey's floor Saturday morning and put on my rucksack. Five minutes later Mickey, our mutual friend Gustav (who we just called "Philly") and myself piled into a cab headed to the bus station. We looked a bit rough, but no worse then usual for a Saturday morning.

We got off the bus and were just able to catch the last little boat out to our little island paradise. The first time the boat was kinda full, but this time there was only us and 4 farmers that were carrying boxes of fruit. The sky was dark outside, waves rolled up against the sides of the boat and then it began to snow. I normally like boats, but the chaos that ensued the night before weakened my body to the point where I actually got seasick for the first time in my life. I now understand where the "face turning green" reference comes from.

We finally arrived to the snow swept island and got off the boat into what was essentially a ghost town. Besides the ticket guy and the fours farmers piling into a bus, things were totally deserted. Before we could decide if we could hop on the bus or not, it took off up the hill. Me and Philly were a bit concerned but Mickey was chill so we just decided to milk his luck and just start walking down the road to see if we could sort something out.

Two hours later, after being directed off of a military facility by a couple of young soldiers, we finally saw a pickup truck and flagged him down. We told him that we wanted to get to this town and he said no problem. We felt pretty relieved and 15 minutes later we got dumped off into the middle of this little beach town. As the truck went speeding away though we realized that just like the port town, this town also appeared to be deserted.

After walking around the town and finding nothing opened, we eventually found a barrel on the beach and turned it into a makeshift grill to cook some hotdogs. As we were silently munching our discount tube steaks, I noticed a pair of footprints in the snow so I followed them and eventually saw a woman out near the water. I walked cautiously out to her, as to not spook her, and asked her if she knew of any places that we could stay. She seemed befuddled by my appearance and even jumped back a bit when my other two friends walked over to us. She thought for a bit, then motioned us to follow her which we gladly did. She took us over to a building that look deserted on the outside and opened the door into an open room with a small TV. She told us that we could stay there and then thanked her profusely.

Most Korean homes have a heated floor system, which is lovely in the Winter, so we stripped down to only our boxers, cracked a few beers and started cooking some noodles on our stove. It was during this moment that the nice lady opened the door again and appeared  before us with an array of Korean food. She stopped briefly  when she saw 3 pasty, mostly naked, bearded individuals that had already begun drinking, but even so she continued on and put down the food in front of us. We were so thankfully that we didn't know what to say. We kept trying to give her money, but she would not accept it and just smiled and left.

Besides the one old lady we scared, presumably the other lady's mother, we didn't see anyone else the whole time we were in the town. After a day of hiking and cruising around we prepared to make the long march back to the hopefully awaiting boat on the other side of the island. We couldn't find the lady before we left, so we wrote a little note and then stuffed it into an envelope we had filled a good chunk of money in the mailbox outside her house.

Mickey claimed that it was his luck that saved us, but I think it just came down to one nice lady who didn't feel like watching three westerners freeze to death. Thank you nice Korean lady.