Highlights of my Day... Monday, February 25

1. Did my duty... woke up early and made yummy chicken sandwiches, stuffed by bag full of tomatoes and threw in some juice bottles too. Q flew by around 9am and off we went to the KTX station. Today we were going on our little trip and so he was super giddy... very cute.

2. Q had bought us a tour package and so we met up with our tour group on the KTX. And, just like we had imagined, we were BY FAR the youngest couple... hehehe. Actually there was only one other couple on this tour trip and so we chummed around with them. So there we were, Q and I, and a whole whack of Korean ajjumas (older women).

3. Gotta love Korean ajjumas. They ALL have short perma hair. I laughed to Q about it and it was quite the joke until Q made mention that I am half ajjuma... I have the short hair. Oh my gosh... hehehe.

4. After the KTX train ride, we then all boarded a large ferry in Mokpo and headed to Hong Island. It took us a little over 3 hours to get there by boat and when we arrived, we were greeted by the local fishermen and the local street cookers, all urging us to try their seafood.

5. Discovered some info. about Hong Island:

- population: 450 people

- most of the people are either super young or super old cause of the fact that middle school and high school students have to move away from the island to go to school

- in the winter season, most locals go to the mainland to live with their children who are away attending school

- there is only one school and it's an elementary school

- main source of income: fishing and tourism

- during the peak of summer, there is an estimated 1,500 tourists a day.

- I saw only one PC room, one norrah bang (singing room), and one pink night club

6. When we first arrived on the island it had started to rain a bit and so most of our crew headed in doors, Q and I however, we put on our cheesy-cheap rain gear and decided to do some exploring. The island was so incredibly beautiful, peaceful and so relaxing. Motorists on their motorcycle/cars zoomed past us in the narrow steep pathways and besides the locals selling fish, the others didn't really pay much attention to us.

7. We roamed around, hiked up a mountain, strolled along the beach, played in the schoolyard, and then met up with our tour crew for dinner. Dinner was some kind of crap soup... I mean, CRAB soup (same thing basically though). I wasn't too impressed. I'm not one for seafood but having come to such an island as this one, I really was eager to try the local food. And so, after our crew finished dinner and went back to the hotel, Q and I went out to find some real local food.

8. We came across this one local seller. Her shady restaurant had been set up beside the waterfront. It consisted of a tent, some chairs, some tables, a kitchen counter, and lots of large bowls with things swimming around in it. Q told me to pick out my meal but I decided to let him use his judgement. After some slicing and dicing, the lady brought us a plate of food that Q tried to convince me was some kind of plant. I knew better though. Minus the slimy gooey pieces that looked like they were oozing with brain juice, it wasn't that bad. The best was the plate of raw fish though... delicious!!! Come to think of it, since I had arrived on the island, I hadn't eaten anything that had been cooked. They like it raw, apparently.

9. The lady at the shady restaurant sat down with us and so we stayed there for a couple of hours chatting with her. She had a good laugh at my reaction when I went to go pick up my food and it started to move. Turns out my meal wasn't quite dead... oh gosh. Q quickly scooped it up and fed it to me. Down the hatchet it went.

10. Turns out her husband drives one of the ferries and she dives for the food she sells. I was amazed. To think, she at an age well above retirement (probably pushing 65 at least), was the one who had gone out and collected our food... that's wild!

QUESTION OF THE DAY...
How far would you go to make someone happy?

QUOTE OF THE DAY...
They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
-- Carl W. Buechner