PARADISE ISLAND

So, desperately attempting to hit the 'reset' button on my body-clock for taking the edge off the jet-lag that I foresee in my very near future, I’ve decided to fight off the eye-droop by writing a new blog entry.  While pondering what to share with you guys, the excitement of my travels got the better of me, which is lucky for you otherwise you'd be reading about how in Korean public toilets you don't flush the poo-paper but instead toss it in a bin in the corner of the stall. No bait!! 

The surges of realising I will find myself in Africa very soon, combined with excited travel giddiness, got me thinking about previous intrepid adventures I have been on, and there is ONE particular tale that I want to share with you...

During my previous stint in SoKo (South Korea for those of you who still haven't figured that one out), a gang of friends and I decided to go on an impromptu little getaway.  Since we only had a long weekend free we opted to 'keep it local' and find a Korean retreat of sorts *. With great excitement and gusto, we convened at a central Korean restaurant armed with little more than enthusiasm and a Lonely Planet Korea.  For those of you who know me, you know that I am so indecisive that even the most mundane decisions are not easy to make.  So, to find myself with 5 other people, none of whom could even choose something off the menu let alone a weekend destination, it was an undertaking to say the least!  In the final slurps of whatever "국" ( guk >soup) it was we were chowing, Philly, the lovely, young farm-girl with the drinking capacity of a hardened pirate, finally convinced us of our destination: “Paradise Island”. Holy SMAKRIL she sold it to us like a pro, we took the pitch hook, line and sinker! Paraphrasing HEAVILY from her dog-eared Lonely Planet she declared 파라다이스 아일랜드 고고씽  (Paradise Island GO GO SING!!) was an adventure worthy of future story-telling.

With a spring in our step (and in a bit of a hurry because we stopped for Ben to buy the most ridiculously luminous shirt on the premise that every magical island holiday needs a ridiculous shirt, right?), we get to the train/bus station with minutes to spare. We line up and purchase our holiday extravaganza tickets: bus tickets... to an ISLAND.  That should have been the first warning sign that things were not about to go to plan!! *Danger Danger* Each person had to cough up a whopping 1700 Korean Won for their ticket (which is just less than $2 (US) or about R10 (ZAR) *DANGER *DANGER). 

Happily seated on the bus, travelling near the speed of light, we crossed over just about the longest bridge ever constructed.  It was round about then that Philly grew a little pale, and as it turns out, not just because she was fighting off the strong smell of 김치 (kim chi > fermented cabbage) in our economy (only) class seats. Why?? She read the second paragraph of the insert on “Paradise Island", which went a little something like this:

" Taking the ferry across to this rather heinous Island you will be swarmed by the rats of the sky.  Thousands of ravenous seagulls will black out the sun and fight over whatever you choose to throw overboard.  Please keep your children safe…"

Did she mention this? No, she just giggled a little as it was too late to turn back and she didn't want to spoil our excitement...not yet! 

After an epic 7 and a half minute bus ride we were at the port to take the ferry. It turns out the ferry fee was included in the 1700 Won...*DANGER DANGER*. True as BOB, the seagulls were there too waiting for the same ferry. Budget travel aside, the short trip across the water was rather pleasant, when we were able to ignore the septic tank stench rising from the water, the deafening drone of the engine (not even music on your MP3 could block it out), screaming children, and swarms of seagulls straight out of Hitchcock's "Birds".

Finally making landfall, it was time to continue with our epic island adventure, but first we needed a little something to calm our frayed nerves. Luckily for us, there was a ridiculous pub shaped like a Viking ship at the dock, convenient right? In hindsight islanders must have realize that people who visit need all the ‘Dutch courage’ they can muster to get through their stay. *DANGER DANGER*.

Able to explain away the weird pub as a tourist gimmick, we were met by another DANGER sign: more congestion and traffic jams than I have ever seen in my 26 years of existence. We thought that the island obviously had to be highly rated if traffic was crawling along at about 1km per 2 hours! Clearly something amazing was going down here if half of Korea had the same idea to come? This is where we may have found the 3^rd paragraph from the Lonely Planet useful… Paraphrasing again: If your ovaries have packed up or your little swimmers can make it to the egg this island is just for you!  A quick trip up the ‘penis mountain’ might be all it takes. This fertility island, overflowing with penis key rings and cock curios, has the magical power of making the barren fruitful again.

Yes friends, we found ourselves on a “fertility” island with droves of very desperate Koreans seeking to halt the birthrate nose-dive facing the nation. Secure in our belief that we needed no help with fertility, Megs, my insanely funny friend and I, decided to stay at the Viking ship and consume as much 막걸리(Makholi> Korean rice wine) as possible, while the rest of the crowd embarked on a hike up dick hill or cock mound or whatever it was called, just “for interest sake”. 

The rice wine that made everything OKAY!

Megz's willy keyring. Lucky girl! hahahaha

Four hours, 1 giant traffic jam, 4 bottles of rice wine and 3000 penis sightings later, we were all reunited at the Viking ship. Realising it was getting late and that there were thousands of Koreans on the island about put into practice the Island’s claim of fertility, we knew that it would be difficult to find a place to sleep that night. And difficult it WAS!

After a couple of hair-raising and unfruitful taxi rides to nearby hotels, we ourselves became desperate and finally made our way to the less exclusive “love motels”. The first one we entered had a high school boy offer his translation abilities to us, telling us that there were “ABSOLUTELY no more rooms available”. In retrospect this was immediately after he jumped the queue to translate for us and sneakily booking the last room for himself.

Starting to feel like a biblical bunch of inn-seekers, and ready to throw our bags down in places even less comfortable than a stable, we finally found some luck. This luck was in the form of a very dodgy motel with the angriest lady you have ever come across behind the counter. She actually reminded me of the lady who reads the News on the North Korean propaganda channels *DANGER DANGER*, but that’s a story for another time. (If you don’t know what I am talking about 'youtube' it, it is HILARIOUS). Beggars can’t be choosers right? And making our way down the corridors stacked with bookshelves full of naughty VCR cases, it started to dawn on us that this was not the holiday we thought it would be.

By this time we were hungry, and quite baffled with how Philly had managed to sell this holiday to us, so we decided to go for dinner. Now, most restaurants were as packed as the hotels, but we managed to find a place that had space for us to eat. *DANGER DANGER* The place smelled more like a pet shop than a restaurant. After our “meal” we desperately needed a drink, but since the restaurant wasn’t exactly top-notch dining, our hopes of finding a bar/pub capable of numbing the senses a bit was looking slim. Good thing we didn’t get our hopes up either, because there was NO pub anywhere.  The only form of entertainment that was not related to procreation were “claw machines” with their array of tacky prizes. There were so many, in fact, that we started to wonder whether they were somehow related to fertility!  Some being easy to amuse (TOM), threw half their salaries at the yellow monstrosities. And considering they only cost 200 Won per go, that’s quite a lot of entertainment/disappointment.

Crazed by the machine

In a last beat attempt to make the most out of our trip, we opted to go convenient store hopping. In Korea it’s perfectly legal to sell beer, makholi, wine, as well as the infamous magical green bottles of slightly diluted ethanol known as소주 (Soju). Better yet, these convenience stores also offer snacks, noodles, free use of their kettle and microwave, and plastic seating outside within arms’ reach of the claw machines. After all, it’s not called “Family Mart” for nothing.

This is where the fun and games all began...finally!! 

Finally with things looking a bit better (everything looks at least a bit better after some soju), we started to relax and enjoy ourselves. Drinks, games and claw machine championships were going just swell… until about 3:30am. Round about that time two of the fertility seekers residing in one of the love motels emerged looking like they had been dragged out of a bush backwards.  After stocking up with soju and enough dried squid to feed a small village for a week, they decided to join us and we welcomed them with open arms. Only when the couple sat down did we all notice at the same time that the lady had FREAKISHLY small hands. It was like a baby’s hands had been attached to a tall, grown woman’s arms. We are not people to judge, but this caused a table-wide awkward glance at each other. 

Just then, breaking the awkwardness of involuntarily analysing the woman’s proportions, a guy ran past the store along the main road. A few seconds later another guy ran past, then another. Before we knew it there was a full on marathon going on. Disregarding the time, us “slightly” intoxicated penis island holiday makers took the opportunity to cheer and shout loudly, offering hearty support in our most fluent Korean.

Moved by our display of support, the lady with the freakishly small hands offered me some dried squid to nosh on. This is when things took a turn for the worse. I politely declined, and explained to her that I was a vegetarian (I didn’t explain to her that her hands also freaked me out enough not to eat anything from them).  She did not care much for my excuses and wanted to me to eat squid. No. Matter. What.  After the 4^th time of saying “no thank you” in Korean, she used those little carni hands of hers to grip the squid and proceeded to beat me with it. Between the Soju and the shock, I was struck a few times on the head before I realized what was happening. Because I am a gentleman who would never strike a lady, especially one who couldn’t fight back with micro fists, my solution in that moment was to get up and sprint away. Not believing my eyes, she got up and gave chase!

And so there I was: 3:30 in the morning, pickled with soju, weaving my way through a maze of marathon runners (who thought I was mad for not knowing how to pace oneself in a marathon), trying my best to outrun a crazed squid-wielding, carni-handed woman. Who could ever have envisioned such a scene as we merrily agreed to descend on “Paradise Island” just that same day?

Suffice to say that there was no way we were staying another night, and that paradise island had lost its charm. The next day we were on the first gull-infested ferry back to the mainland and on the first bus back home. The weekend’s misfortunes were not finished following us though: the bus driver hit a guy on a scooter on the way home. In true Korean bus driver style, he got out of the bus, shouted at the guy he hit, got back in and drove us home.

Luckily for us we still had a full weekend to relax and recover after that!

 * In hindsight and with the guidance of "Cockdog" (that's her middle name, shame), I have realise that a weekend trip to China is more than doable, and should probably have also been on the cards. Although, if our luck panned out the way it did when in China, we’d probably still be there, earning the privilege to make our first phone call.