DAY 190 MONDAY OCTOBER 1 SONGDO BEACH

A beautiful sunny day with 24 C so we decided to walk to the park on Yeongdu-Gu Island as the newspaper promised outdoor concerts every day in October.  We reached the island after an hour of walking through fairly unpleasant streets.  There were bags of garbage everywhere and a strong fishy smell from the waterfront. Looks good though.

  Maybe the garbos are on holiday like everyone else.  Not a single park was in evidence and we were not prepared to spend another hour searching, as our tourist maps had none shown.

Just as we were about to give up we found our favourite morning tea cafe Paris Baguette which became our oasis while replanning.  Songdo beach looked good on the map but still some distance away so we stepped outside and raised an arm and a taxi appeared like magic.  We sat in luxury for 10 minutes,  paid the driver $3 (!!)  and stepped out onto this:




All this and a lovely artificial waterfall as well.

We thought: "Why don't we move down here and lie on the beach?  After all this is a public holiday, a perfect day, and only a handful of people on the sand.  In Sydney this place would be packed out."

There were pretty sculptures of dolphins and whales out in the harbour and a walkway out along the rocks, protected from typhoons by these funny lumps of concrete.

We followed the steel boardwalk along the rocks past many men fishing and found many families doing the walk as well. We could see a lot of cars in the distance and when we got to them we found even more men fishing.

At the far end of the car park was a market

which specialised in shellfish

and there were men playing a Korean form of croquet which we had read about in a brochure.

There were tennis courts and free gym equipment with people doing chinups.

We followed the track up a steep hill and found a rack containing air hose which people used to clean their shoes.  We never found out why but it looked like the fungus cleaning stations they have in W.A.

Even good for cleaning doggy shoes.

But then they let him run wild back up the track.

  Little dogs are as popular as in Japan.
At the top of the big hill we stopped to rest and watched a big squirrel circumnavigate us in the trees above. There were also a lot of birds singing and flying around. Quite a lovely bush scene.  Nearby a sculpture had been erected which presented  a message we could not gather.

When we got back to the beach we had some lunch at Mum's and walked past all the fish shops opposite the beach.  Not like English fish shops at all.  The fish are live in big tanks, they are taken out , cut up and served raw without chips.  The exact procedure with the sausage worms we did not pursue.

We decided to walk back to the motel following the seafront which dad 2.4metre wall protecting the land.

It was a long walk back and we were very tired but it had been a very good day.