The Iceberg

I found this information on the KBS Global website:

Manseongni Beach, the only black sand beach in South Korea
Manseongni Beach, five kilometers off from the Yeosu station, is the only black sand beach in South Korea. Taking a sand bath in this beach is said to be particularly effective to alleviate neuralgia and a variety of gynecologic diseases. In particular, on April 20 in the lunar calendar, so-called “the day when the black sand open its eyes,” a tremendous number of people flock to the place because the effect of the sand bath is said to be the maximum at the moment. 

Black sand, huh?  Sounded cool, so I decided to check it out.  I never took any art classes in university so I hardly qualify as an expert in these matters, but the sand didn’t look black to me.

Okay, so the beach is a very light shade of black.  Still, it looks like it’ll be a lot of fun to hang out there in the summer.  Swim, suntan, barbeque sam gyup sal, drink soju, and eat fish.  Every locale in Korea has some food that it is famous for.  Yeosu’s specialty is “hoi” (sashimi).  The sign below displays the variety of fish in the waters near Yeosu and the best time of year to eat them.

If you travel up the road just a bit you can get some fantastic views of the beach and sea from an overlooking hillside.

Manseongni Beach was devoid of life on this day, presumably because the black sand’s eyes were closed.  I’ll return on April 20 (lunar calendar), when it awakes and the masses are alleviating their neuralgia and gynecologic diseases.  That should be somethin’.  Hope I don’t encounter any crabs.

I’m officially a bad-ass (in my own mind).

I bought myself a scooter the other day. Yeosu, being a relatively small city, doesn’t provide much in the way of public transportation. There is no subway and you usually find yourself waiting 15 or 20 minutes for a bus. Sure, there are taxis (and the meter starts at 1500 won), but it adds up when you take a taxi everywhere. So I did what most of the foreign community does down here and got myself a “hog”.

Okay, okay. It’s more like a piglet, but it gets me around. It has a 50cc engine, which means I don’t need to license it. The government considers anything that small a “toy”. This baby accelerates from 0-100 in, umm, in, well, check back with me later. Anyway, traffic in Yeosu is pretty reasonable, so I’m not too worried about being run over by a taxi or bus. I am a little worried about the wind though. God, the wind is strong here. Nearly blew me over this morning. So, if someday there are no further updates to this blog, you’ll know that I am either lying dead on the street somewhere in Yeosu - or I have taken a job delivering Chinese food.

Here are some more photos of the beast.