A trip to... the End of the Land

Sounds dramatic but in reality myself and fellow adventurers Keri, Jen and Soju (our canine accomplice) did in fact take a trip to Land's End. This is the southern most point on the peninsula proper and the Korean name is literally Land's End - Ddang Kkeut (땅끝) or To Mal (토말). Towards the end of September was Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) which meant a five day holiday. We piled into Keri's time-shared car with the vague idea of heading to the southwest corner of the country. Our first stop was Boseong's tea fields:
Where the tea is truly green:
After that we meandered down to Land's End, an increasing sense of a cinematic significance opening before us as the distance to the End of the Land decreased. The surroundings seemed unusually beautiful and evocative, the sky higher and bluer, the trees and sea hinting at melancholy memories of summers past. When we finally reached the small town at the End of the Land a feeling of quiet destiny encompassed us.

There were the usual assortment of crass and obvious accomodations available, but we were drawn to a small ivy wrapped place which seemed more like a cottage than inn. We walked into the ground floor cafe in search of the proprietor and found a cozy room filled with tables, art and a fireplace comfortably surrounded in stone walls. Eventually we found him, a fit man with sharp features who, when I enquired about the availability a room replied derisively that there were no beds. His mood loosened when I replied that that was fine.
We took a room at the Cape Cafe in the late afternoon and decided that it was time for a celebratory vacation drink. We headed down to the cafe and got into some beers. After a while we invited our inn keeper over. His English was not magnificent but he was a good communicator and between that and my mangled Korean we soon realized we were all good people. He had created and run the inn alone for the past ten years and also operated a small fishing vessel; Kim Seok Ho - Inn Keeper, Sea Captain.

After a while we realized it was dinner time and so asked about a good place to eat. He said, 'You're hungry? I'll cook you up something.' So he did and we went to the Family Mart to pick up some wine. He cooked us up some abalone (a local speciality) and served it up with a few other random dishes. We tucked into our tasty mollusks and got into our cups. It was just us for quite a while but eventually other people started to trickle in. A pair of young Korean doctors down from Seoul joined our table and we whiled away the night joking, laughing, drinking. We made plans to go to the nearby island, Wando, the next day to hang out with our new doctor friends.

The next day we awoke at a comfortable hour, and eventually made a move for food. A restaurant across the road advertised jeong-sik (정식) or Korean course meal. This basically amounts to a million side dishes plus some rice and soup. Here's Keri going, 'Wow! Is it all for me?!'
Via text-message communique it became apparent that our doctor friends were too busy and unable to meet as planned. Our inn keeper, however, was unfazed. He was in his van at 3pm sharp ready to take us to Wando. The drive was pleasant, sitting shotgun I made small talk with Captain. Upon arriving in Wando he took us to a pier well populated with fishing enthusiasts. The gimmick here seemed to be a cooler filled with some sort of stinky fish bait. This was periodically chucked into the water by a fancy elongated spoon in order to attract unsuspecting fish.
This fasciniated Keri to the extent that she in fact asked a fishing ajeosshi if she could give it a go. She did a pretty good job:
Look at that fish bait fly!

After our walk along the pier we went to the fish market to pick up some raw fish for dinner. Markets have always interested me and it was really cool to go with Captain, who could explain about the various creatures on offer. They're all living until you order one of them, then the market ajumma chops, hacks and slices your request into a convenient package:
Check back later for the exciting conlusion to 'Land's End - the End of the Land'...