Two weeks ago we had our Summer Vacation at work--we got 3 whole days off! Ah, the life of a hagwon teacher...so, anyhow, we decided to take a trip to the beach on the east coast. We heard from several people that the east coast beaches are nicer (mostly because they are on the Japan side as opposed to the China side--less pollution), and one of my Korean co-workers told me about a nice beach that is not usually as crowded as the more popular ones, but was supposed to be nice, so I decided to do a little investigating. I discovered this article that tells about Jeongdongjin Beach. Read it for a little background knowledge (building schema--that's my job!). The train station in Jeongdongjin is in the Guiness Book of World Records for being the closest train station to the beach in the world. If you know me very well, you know I love to take photos of fun and silly things (I don't always have the best memories of things, so I try to take a lot of pictures, and then when I look at my photo albums the memories come floating back to me). After reading the article, I just KNEW that we had to go there for our vacation! So, we decided that we would pack ahead of time so that we could leave work Tuesday evening and go straight to Seoul to the train station, which would take us on the sunrise train to Jeongdongjin. The train (1661) left Seoul at 9:50 pm and was scheduled to arrive at Jeongdongjin at 4:08 am. This way we didn't have to pay for a night in a hotel, and we could get to the beach in time to watch the sun rise! I was very excited, because growing up in San Diego on the west coast, I was able to go to the beach often and watch the sun set. However, I never got to see the sun RISE over the ocean there since the sun rises in the east...so I was really looking forward to it. I love a good sunrise. The last really good sunrise I remember seeing was in 2004 when Amber and I drove to the Grand Canyon overnight so that we would get there as the sun was rising--it was magnificent!
We rode the train and didn't get much sleep. You would think an overnight train would be conducive to sleeping, but they left the overhead lights on the entire time, and all of the passengers were really noisy. Needless to say, when we got to our stop, we were pretty tired. So, if we look haggard, excuse that. :)
So, here are the photos from the first part of our trip to the coast and the sunrise. We took lots of other pictures at the beach and our fun hotel, etc. but those will come in a later post. Just enjoy the beauty of the sunrise on the East Sea/Sea of Japan/Pacific Ocean!
~Leslie
Go here to view more photos from our trip on Shutterfly.
2 comments:
Nice pictures!
It really is a beautiful beach- how cool to see a sunrise over the ocean. I just love all the fun experiences you guys are doing together. :)
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