July 26th Waydaldo Trip

Me and my hubby doing the obligatory self-cam at the beach. Aren't we cute?

Joe and Shanna: hubby and wifey to be next year. Awww... how cute!

Since we are running out of time to be able to visit hot beaches with nice water to swim in without traveling to another state or across the country, Cody and I decided to go to Waydaldo with Joe and Shanna. We were worried about the weather, because often the weather in Mokpo will be iffy, and then it will either be the same on the islands, or it will be beautiful. Luckily for us, it turned out to be beautiful. We woke up early to get ready and I headed to E-mart to pick up our staple PB&J cheap lunch for when we go to beaches. Unfortunately, I went at about 9:15, and I forgot that E-mart doesn’t open until 10. Strange, I know. I’m used to things opening up at 8 or 9, not 10. Even being here a year, I am still not used to the opening and closing times of things here.

Anyway, so I go all the way to E-mart only to have it still be closed. I made the trip worth something by running into the Paris baguette to pick up some break for the sandwiches and some breakfast pastries. I took a cab back to our apartment and ran to the neighborhood grocery store (every neighborhood has a tiny grocery store that sells their main essentials for people who don’t want to go all the way to one of the big box stores), which open early luckily. Strangely, but not surprisingly really, the store had jam but no peanut butter. I bought the jam and ran to the Mini Stop next door to find one small jar of peanut butter for the same price as a large one from E-mart. Of Course. Oh well, I bought it anyway as it was now 9:45 and we needed to be leaving for the ferry terminal and I wasn’t ready to go. Luckily, I got everything done and we got to the ferry terminal to meet Joe and Shanna and get our tickets just in time. We were supposed to head out with Nick, Stephen and his girlfriend Su Nah. Nick made our ferry, but Stephen and Su nah missed the 10:30 ferry and so would have to catch up with us later.

When we got to Waydaldo, we headed to our usual beach and staked out a spot underneath the shaded tent area. After eating lunch and hanging out for a bit Stephen and Su Nah came to say hi, only to leave in favor of the water park on the island. We said we might join them, but at the time we weren’t quite sure about the quality of the park, so we decided to swim in the ocean for a bit. We played around and floated in some rented inner tubes for awhile, but we didn’t stay in too long because the water was a little cold, so we got out and prepared to head over to join Stephen in the water park.

We were really surprised by the park. There was a kid’s pool, a mixed pool, and an adult pool with water slides that are on every other hour for an hour. It was nice as well because the lifeguard was making sure all the little kids were staying out of the adult pool. We really liked it because the pools are just salt water with only a little bit of chlorine, so kids peeing in the pool seemed less appealing than in a usual normally chlorinated pool. The guys were really excited because the little store at the pool was selling Hite beer in chilled glasses. They were really excited to drink ice cold beer by the pool. I decided to be a nice wife and bought Cody a cold Hite (taking a sip or two myself though, hehe), and I got myself a Ramen cup to enjoy in the shade by the pools. We went down the slides a few times and Cody managed to scrape his elbow. I swear, one of us always manages to hurt ourselves on most outings. We are a klutzy pair, aren’t we? Haha. Anyway...we left on the 4:20 ferry in order to get back to Mokpo relatively early and have time to enjoy our night.

My hubby waiting in line for the big slide

Me pulling myself the last few feet. My tankini kept bunching up and slowing m down too much at the bottom. Boo.

It was all in all a good day and the pools weren’t that bad. As per usual Korean bad construction they did the pools wrong though. They painted the pools with regular blue pool paint, not thinking about the fact that they would fill them with salt water. We came out with the bottoms of our feet looking like Smurfs because the blue paint was being corroded by the salt and so just rubbed off on our feet. It was quite funny.