Oryukdo Islets

Had a nice, relaxing 3 day holiday weekend. The Korean National Foundation Day (Gaecheonjeol 개천절/ 开天日) which literally translates to 'Opening of the Sky Day' falls on today. It celebrates the creation of Ancient Korea (Gojoseon) by the first king, Dangun Wanggeom in 2333BC.

Woke up late for the past two days, spent the mornings lying in bed and reading the book "The Girl Who Played With Fire", cooked some noodles with shrimp wantan in the room, snacked on peaches and green tea and mooncake bought for me by my parents whenever I felt like it, watched a sad Korean movie called "Come Rain Come Shine" by Hyun Bin, and took a hike to Igidae (이기대/ 二妓台) in the evening just now.  

At first I thought it would be an easy hike today, cos the walk uphill at Igidae and the coastal path is quite leisurely and more of a scenic walk. Then we reached the signboard and changed our minds. The two new Malaysians (one boy and one girl) I went with are very young and active. So the boy was like "Let's go! 3km hike to Oryukdo"... and I was feeling very excited too cos I had never been to Oryukdo yet. Oryukdo (오육도 / 五六岛) is a group of small islets which is named the 'five, six islands' cos sometimes when the tide is high we can only see 5 islands and sometimes we can see six. Oryukdo had always been kinda a mystery to me so I wanted to see with my own eyes how many islets there were....

Me & YK among a bunch of pine trees

Tired after hiking 3.8km uphill........

After following the sign for 3.8km, we reached a junction and again walked 1.5km to see the Oryukdo islets........... By the time we reached we had missed the orange red sunset............. but it was still beautiful, all the same. Had a stick of red bean (팥) icecream halfway through the hike, the feeling is so nice to eat a cold stick of icecream in cold autumn weather! *^^*

Oryukdo islets, from this view still unable to see clearly how many islets are there... There are some beautiful apartments called SK View, overlooking the coastal area.

Beautiful silhouette of the accompanying islands backlit by the sunset

Luckily we didn't have to hike all the way back cos we could easily just take bus no.22 back to the dormitory... was so famished by then... went to eat samgyupsal for dinner omg all the hiking effort gone...... :P

Anyway, it was a really enjoyable time... haven't felt this healthy in a long, long while.

P/S: Some fruits that I eat now... peach and giant pear. Peach is free, given to me by professor and giant pear costs only 1,000won, bigger than my fist!