Another Rainy Day in Korea (or Greg, Karmen and Dana Encounter Wild Ostriches)

Remember that previous post when we described how our weekend plans got rained out? We made a decision then that we would return to our original plan the next weekend. What are the chances that it would rain again next Saturday?

Pretty good, apparently. But we decided to go ahead and brave the weather (we are from BC, after all).

Fall is beautiful in Korea. The leaves change to the most brilliant shades of yellow, orange and red. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it in Canada.

Anyway, our plan was to head out of Seoul on the subway to a place called Nami Island, made famous by a Korean television drama, and then Chuncheon, known for its duk galbi (spicy chicken stirfry). I don't watch K-dramas, as they're known here in Korea, but I had heard about Nami and seen pictures of beautiful paths lined with trees whose leaves had turned completely gold.

This is the photo that inspired the trip.

So, we met up with Dana and did the two hour trek out to Nami Island on the subway. But I forgot one thing: there are a lot of people in Korea. Everywhere. When we arrived, we joined a line up for "Immigration" for the fictitious Naminara Republic.

That should have also been a clue as to what we were in for. We waited in another line to board a small ferry. The ferries were completely full; they looked like pictures of refugee boats that you see in the news.

We saw this poster on our voyage over:

Wild ostriches?! Are you kidding me?

The island itself, while nice, was not what I expected. It was very busy and full of tourist attractions, including restaurants, souvenir shops, museums, art displays, a train ride and of course, ostriches.

Don't they know ostriches are dangerous?

We found the path from the photos, but it also wasn't quite what we were hoping for.

Notice anything different? 

We did find some beautiful fall colours and enjoyed our walk around Nami Island.

When it started raining, we decided it was time to head back to the mainland. Unfortunately, so did everyone else. The line to return on the ferry stretched nearly halfway down the island! Oh, Korea.

After our Nami Island adventure, we continued on to Chuncheon. We had the taxi driver drop us off in the area that we had read about online: duk galbi central. We walked around, found a restaurant with a sign in the window that read "Good Restaurant" with a thumbs-up and thought "this is the place". Turned out to be some of the best duk galbi I've ever eaten!