Beyond the end of the world (2 of 5)

a tale of 5 SKCs*

So, yes: after all, we made it! We felt happy and proud crossing the Empire from West to East, then ferrying South to Korea. Yeah! But while the whole journey to and through Russia had been planned and prepared quite thoroughly (bookings, dates, tickets, visas, places and such), the rest was a blank page in front of us. Walking out of the ferry terminal in Donghae, we had a vague idea of where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see. But we had no clue about how to, how long, how much or, just, how? It was the beginning of a series of exciting South Korean Challenges:

the Korean, analog Craigslist: you write it, you post it and you wait for an answer!

SKC#1: make South Korea smaller, one bus at a time!

From Donghae, our first mission was to get to Gangneung, about one hour North. And to do it by bus. It was supposed to be a bigger town with more services, nicer beaches AND "a great wonderful and free campground right by the beach!" This promise of "a great, wonderful and free campground" has been the most recurrent tale - or myth, or lie, or simply plain bullsh--, depending on how you want to look at it - during our whole time in South Korea**. The bus stop was just in front of the ferry terminal and we had been told that "all basses go citibass telminal". So we waved at every single bus that passed along until the fifth one eventually stopped and let us on. First mystery, first unanswered question: why this one and not the others? No clue. Be watel, my fliend.

one of many "citybass telminals"; note the slight overpopulation of  extinguishers.

In South Korea, you get on the bus at the back and down at the front. You pay when you leave, according to the duration of your ride. Logical. For this you need coins: many many many coins, to feed a machine located just by the driver. He has to look carefully so as to count all the coins you insert in the plexiglas box (just like a ballot box), before allowing you to go down (once you've thrown enough coins in). In case you fail to do that right away, he just stares at you awkwardly. But doesn't get involved, ever. Unless maybe by sighing loudly and making you feel miserable when you either don't have enough coins or don't insert them fast enough. public shaming is an efficient leverage to increase one's performance and the South Koreans do have it assumed. First similarity with the Japanese society: shame as a tool for social control, check!

SKC#2: read (or at least decipher) the Hangul alphabet!
Don't expect anybody to speak English (rare exceptions to be found here and there) out of the main cities (Seoul and Busan). Some stuff might be written in English here and there, but not out of the main cities (Seoul and Busan). So, if you want to survive in the country, you'll have to learn the Hangul alphabet. Good news is: it was created long ago by a wise king who wanted to get rid of the Chinese ideograms so as to raise the rates of alphabetization and the proportion of educated people. He had a smart guy working on a brand new syllabic system. And the smart guy came up with a brilliant one. One you can learn how to read and write with in about twenty minutes. True thing. One sign, one sound. Sounds are usually grouped by two (consonant+vowel), sometimes three (consonant+vowel+another consonant), in a way that allows you to easily and quickly recognize a whole syllable. Let's have a look. Got it already? Good!

Hangul alphabet 101: a consonant + a vowel = a sign = a sound. easy, isn't it?

Richer of this new and exciting skill, we deciphered (well, actually, Wallis did) the word "Gangneung" written on the big big analog board in the middle of the citibass telminal, understood the timetable and platform, then successfully bought our first intercity ticket. SKC#2: R.

We felt so happy that we ran into a café and bought two iced coffees with milk to celebrate. We then missed two buses headed to Gangneung - on purpose - before getting on the third one. At that point, we need to say the intercity bus network is very impressive. Stunning! At first, it seems you can go from any city/town to any other city/town with either one direct bus or a maximum of two transfers. At most intercity bus terminals, you'll find a vending machine with the cheapest coffee with milk (hot or ice and generally really decent), some average free wifi (almost always working and reasonably fast) and a waiting-room with aircond (in case you want to get a sore throat to spice things up a bit). What else could you possibly ask for? Just a few days from now, we'll learn that not any place is easily reachable by intercity bus and some Natural Parks are so remote it's all an SKC to get there. But hey! Let's live in the present and on that sweet illusion for a while, we've only just arrived. Summary of our pleasant bus ride: spent an hour day-dreaming through the window, looking at some green hills covered with forests and paddy fields with rice. There was, actually, a river running through it, but there was no fly-fishing Brad Pitt in rubbers to be seen. Maybe there's no such thing as Korean trout? Suddenly, we were in Gangneung, surrounded by buildings and concrete again. SKC#1: R.

a bunch of cool college students taking their inflatable-Dolphin break from class.

It was, indeed, a nice and busy city, full of students and high-schoolers enjoying the summertime. Mostly smiling at us, staring at us, laughing (at us?) and texting all the time on their smartphones. We won't reinforce the cliché that it's a similarity with the Japanese, because it's pretty much the same anywhere in the western world too. #it'snotthesame! So, okay, fair enough: the smartphone addiction, real world vs. virtual world, blablaba and such. Gangneung was also quite bigger than we thought and it took us another hour on another local bus (all the way to its terminus) to get to the beach area, quite difficult to miss:

To get to the beach? Oh, of course! It's fairly easy: follow the weirdos in swimsuits with a floating killer whale and a green doughnut!

SKC#3: find the "amazing free campground by the beach"!
With many facilities and services, the beach looked nice and clean. It was crowded, but not too much. We quickly located a couple of convenient stores for rice balls, instant noodles and more coffee with milk. But we also quickly realized the narrow strip of pine trees between the first row of shops and night bars and the sandy beach was this "great wonderful and free campground right by the beach". No kidding! There was absolutely no way we'd pitch a tent on this ten meter wide garden patch where small groups of people were spending the afternoon in the shade... Maybe in winter, or with a typhoon, one might be able to stay there overnight without being noticed, chased or fined. But at the end of August, it was impossible: with our super big and heavy backpacks, just walking around already made it clear we were looking for a place to crash and camp. The feeling was (did I say it already?) clearly a "no way" feeling...

the infamous "Petate con patas" (two-legged rucksack)... levitating without legs!

We decided to stop, relax, change clothes, take turns to go swimming and to go hunting some food at the convenies. Even though it was only around 5:00pm, the question of "where the H--- are we gonna camp tonight?" was slowly becoming a trending (and urgent) topic. So yes, the water was delicious, the rice balls (let's start calling them onigiris if you don't mind and although it's a Japanese word) and coffee with milk too, and it was really nice to be chilling in the shade of some pine trees by the beach at the end of August... But the trending topic was progressively becoming a source of argument.  SKC#3: £ it's a fail!

We packed and decided to go and explore the park around the lake, just a mile away from here, or so. There was supposedly an "auto-campground" somewhere. As we soon discovered, "auto-campground" does not only mean that you get there with your car and pitch your tent by your car. It also means that you're not allowed to get in and camp unless you have a car. We thought of trying the "indeed we do have a car, ma'am! Only that we've left it home today. But we own one, true thing!" We then reckoned this kind of humor wouldn't get us very far in South Korea. Well, it never got us anywhere in any country. But we'll keep trying and we'll let you know about the results!

SKC#4: invent a B plan, set camp and cook dinner before it's dark!
Now let's talk about a REAL challenge... walk our way across this beach suburb of Gangneung between the sea and the lake, eventually running into a supermarket, then finding a neat, flat, hidden, remote-but-not-too-much place to spend the night. At some point, we were there: some woods (well, at least some trees) could be seen not too far away. There was a supermarket round the corner. It was dusk already but not night yet. In a few words: we were doing great!

between the sea and the lake: civilization everywhere and getting darker...

Back to the shore of the lake, we found a bushy area by a temple but the trail we were on was a dead end and there was a strange lady on a weird bike, talking on the phone. She kept looking at us, then finally came and spoke to us. Apparently, she understood we were looking for a place to spend the night (sick clever, the lady!). She allegedly had cycled thousands of miles around the world with her German husband and was blessed with so much generosity and hospitality in every possible country back then, that she wanted to "pay it back to the universe"... and we happened to be her cosmic coins. So she wanted us to stay at her place, to enjoy a warm shower, a Korean dinner and a comfy bed. Wow, taking un(t)raveling one step further, here! So she called her husband to ask him to come pick us with the car, while she'd ride her weird bike home. She talked to her husband on the phone for quite a while. Her body language was some kind of a torture. It looked like he was not that eager to pay back all this generosity to the universe. Well, at least not tonight, Josephine. He apparently had a bridge night with clients or some beers with friends. Or something. She was a bit uncomfortable but instead of hospitaliy, she gave us the URL of their website. Call it an acte manqué, we lost it and are unable to share it here. She smiled too much and left us in our dead end trail. After her weird bike had disappeared, we came back to the temple, found a lovely spot with a rain shelter where we cooked and put the mattresses and sleeping bags. We slept a first short bivy night sharing the place with mosquitoes, then with early joggers: at 6am we packed and hiked back to the beach for breakfast. SKC#4: R.

After arguing a little bit about a plan, we decided NOT to walk another 6 km to another beach with another amazing free campground by the beach. We're fast learners, I know! (Thank you, Wallis) Instead, we'd go straight to Sokcho, farther North, to go hike the famous Seoraksan Natural Park, the first and most famous of the country. Here came the:

SKC#5: get back to the citibass telminal without a won and with the ATMs refusing our VISA!
This is another fun fact about South Korea and another similarity with Japan: they have a "different" micro-chip standard for credit cards and therefore do not accept most of the international ones. Ha ha! What a fun fact! Hilarious. Especially when you discover that at 12 km out of the city center and away from the bass telminal and don't have a won left after a luxurious breakfast at a 7/11.

mystery ferry: is it a boat on the hill alla Fitzcaraldo, or are we below sea level?

We never thought getting cash from ATMs would be tricky (or just plain impossible!) and changed just about 20 euros at the ferry terminal the day before. Our VISA Premier (chosen for the travel insurance and for the allegedly premium services) proved useless in the three or four ATMs we found, including the one at the local post office. There though, a nice and English-speaking lady explained to us we needed an intelnashonal ATM and the only one was at one specific bank downtown. She told us to just take any bass headed to citibass telminal and to jump down when we'd see the bank". We answered that we didn't have enough money to take the bus, that was the reason why we needed an ATM so badly... So she stopped a taxi and said something to him. He took us onboard, drove us to that specific bank and waited there until we withdrew the cash and paid for the ride. He was nice, but left with our umbrella. It was sunny, so we thought "not a big deal". And we'd soon discover it was, indeed, quite the big deal. We got back on a bass headed to the citibass telminal (or so we thought) but after getting off Gangneung and passing along the airport, southbound, we realized something was wrong. Then we saw THIS and thought something was even wronger... Even though we couldn't see the sea, we knew we couldn't be lower than sea level. As a fake Chinese saying says (just made it up): "you need to flood the rice at some point, but high tide is not the answer". Getting lost was not a problem anymore since the bus was taking us straight to the boat on the hill and it was a purely, 100%, un(t)raveled situation. A bizarre place we reached by chance or based on a series of odd mistakes, not especially touristic, not famous at all and not even scenic: just plain weird.

the one and only love (boat) hotel on the hill, with Sergent Pepper's lonely hearts club band (watch your ears, ok?)

Second mystery, second unanswered question: how did IT get there? The big flood? Was it the one and only Korean Noah's arch? Was it pushed here by a tsunami? Taken up by an eccentric, visionary, opera-loving Klaus Kinski? Or built up this very hill on purpose? The answer is most probably the last option, as it happened to be a... love (boat) hotel! A fancy hotel for freak lovers and lover freaks alike. And another one we didn't stay at : at that point, the Siberian rain hadn't drained our intentions to sleep in the outdoors and the local one hadn't introduced itself yet. Soon, though...

Anyway, the love boat hotel was at the end of the line. The driver looked at us with surprise as we stayed sitted and smiled to him. He seemed to want us down his bus but we explained - with a lot of drama in our voices - that we were lost and needed to go to citibass telminal. He didn't dare to ask us to leave, not even to pay for the whole ride and opted for a very Japanese alternative: he ignored us from that moment on. As if we weren't here at all. We enjoyed the ride back into town and gave the driver our warmest thanks upon arrival at the citibass telminal. SKC#5 and last: R.

losing our dignity with a grotesque souvenir picture: the un(t)ravelers as Korean bears!

At that point, feeling guilty or embarrassed is innecessary, he already did for the three of us! It was already early afternoon, so we looked for the next bus headed North, to Sokcho and the fantabulous Seoraksan Natural Park. Sokcho happened to be another big "mid-sized" town by the sea, where we didn't stay long enough to really get a precise idea of what there was to see and what could be skipped. We skipped everything, from the lighthouse to the marine museum, to the XXth century catholic church, to the fish market. After another two hours to decipher the local bus chart, hop on the right one and ride it until the end of the line, we were at the entry of South Korea's most beautiful place, losing our dignity forever with a grotesque souvenir picture. Voilà! The rain extended its warmest and wettest welcome at us as soon as we stepped down the bus, the campground we walked to (about a kilometer under the pouring rain without the umbrella the taxi driver kept the same morning - he was probably a fan of Georges Brassens) happened to be full and, well, sometimes even the most beautiful place and mountain paradise suck when you've spent half the day trying to get there and all of a sudden it's the big flood again, your stuff is all soaked, it's getting dark and you don't really know where to start in order to make things just a little less terrible...

"But hey, we chose all this, right? We came a pretty long way and it took us a month, and it took us thirty something years and it took life billions of years, just so we had a chance to live this very moment... Right here and now, you know? So complaining is not an option. Say thank you to the universe and to the lady on the weird bike because she really wanted to pay it back... Oh, come on! F--k your cheap, positive, quantic, the-power-of-now soup, will you? Heavy rain when you're camping beyond the end of the world is NOT cool, regardless of the perspective you intend to adopt!"

It went on like that, with thousand of celestial voices speaking in our heads as the storm got bigger, roaring like crazy above them... no hell below us, above us only rain... But, you know: it's getting better all the ti-i-ime, a little better, all the time. I want to hold your hand. Is there anybody going to listen to our story, etc. In short: more of the same, soon!

_____________________________

* you'll have understood by now that the SKCs are South Korean Challenges!
** according to the myth, South Korea is full of amazing free campgrounds, everywhere in the mountains, in the countryside, on the beach, close to the towns... We couldn't find ONE single free campground and actually only wild-camped a couple of nights. Everything else were expensive campgrounds designed for whole families to enjoy car-camping with huge tents and tons of gear. See *** below for more about the "tons of gear".
*** Laetitia (our dear A's younger sister) had warned us long before we set foot in the country: "you'll see hiking is the national sport in Korea ; people LOVE hiking, they go over-equipped and they'll probably look at you as if you were going absolutely unprepared." Ha ha ha! How true she was. Oh, these awkward moments along the trails! We can only agree with her, except for one thing (that we shall repeat again and again): they apparently make a huge confusion between being equipped and being prepared, and between hiking and hanging around in hiking clothes!

Beyond the end of the world (1 of 5)

...Vladivostok-Donghae: from Russia (to South Korea) with love (boat)!

Even though nothing nor nobody made it clear, suddenly - out a dark corridor onto a sun-bathed pier - we were out of Russia. The much talked-about light at the end of the tunnel? Midnight Express' final scene? Yes, kind of. The security check we walked through felt nothing like the one at the entry - much less muscle power, barb wire and automatic guns at least. Even something that might have looked like the idea of a smile. Exiting the Empire was sure enough less of a challenge than entering it, as if everybody were glad we finally left! Deep breath, bright smiles, eyes on the horizon.

The twice tiny Egersheld lighthouse: (i) when compared to the high voltage line pylon and (ii) once you discover Vladivostok in the background...

The last song on our own Russian soundtrack was certainly our dear Samantha de Siena's Horizon, as we were eager to embark on this very new boat and sail towards new adventures...We were very much hoping that, as the lyrics suggest She'd be taking [us] for a ride; yes, She's taking [us] away. Hopefully She would, yes. Shortly after getting on board, finding our third-class open bunks and leaving the backpacks there, She (a.k.a. Eastern Dream) actually took off. We went back out and up on the main deck only to see the docks and the Zolotoy bridge getting smaller at the rear and to wave a long, silent goodbye to the Egersheld lighthouse and its little strip of sand closing half the long and narrow bay between Vladivostok DF and Russky island. Seagulls and shags (cormorants?) dancing around us, the day was bright and warm, the breeze refreshin - but seemingly not as much as our neighbour's Bear Beer, a local deli.

our neighbour's Bear beer, remarkably tuned to the white-and-blue mood of the day.

We spent a long while with M.-S. on the upper deck, chasing wrecked and stranded ships, trying to guess which parts of the distant coast were Russian, Chinese or North Korean, sharing our impressions and feelings about Russia and trying to give her last minute tips on Japan, since she was going all the way to Sakai Minato, with two weeks to spend mainly between Kyoto and Tokyo. After disembarking in Donghae, South Korea, our plan was to explore a little bit of the country's mountain range on the East coast, visiting a few Natural Parks along the way and eventually reaching Busan, the second biggest city after Seoul, in order to take another ferry from there to Japan. Many stories to be lived and... told!

Wandering around the ferry, we felt curious about some odd passenger's data and tried to figure out where everybody was from, where they were going, why and so on. All this, mostly from mere observation, of course! We talked to a few random people when eye contact proved successful or every time M.-S. (obviously less shy than the two of us) broke the ice in the first place. Small groups of Russian citizens soon enough squatted the benches and picnic tables on the lower deck and started a pickle-and-vodka marathon which wouldn't end until they reached their destination. Generally young males, with the lovely exception of two young girls apparently determined to document their trip and bring some gorgeous pics back: a professional photo-shoot started soon enough, which let us all stunned and amazed. "Birch, the soul of the Russian woman!", the words from our CS host in Moscow popped back in our minds and all of a sudden it all made sense: bon sang mais c'est bien sûr! Right in front of us: a nice pair of tender and lushy birches. Sorry...

AFPS: amateuro-fessional photo-shoot: #naturalRussianbeauty and... remember the #fabulous fakes from Moscow? No? Catch up here...

More numerous and much quieter than the Russians, were some big groups of South Koreans: couples and families with their tour guides and their well-established, well-organized routines. These included some happy retired, laughing loudly while eating snacks in the sun of the upper deck and a bunch of kids with their ferry-nannies, playing games on the heliport. After a (short) period of distant staring at us, they soon came and asked to take selfies with us, started a proficient and random conversation in English, lasted about four minutes before eventually FB-friending us, then ran away even faster than they had arrived! Somehow detaching from the mass, we noticed and kept record of what had to be a high-profile South Korean figure: no less than John Wayne's Eastern-Asian doppelganger! Sure enough a movie star, pop singer or former political figure, he seemed to be bound to a heavy secret. He probably knew something we all ignored, like the fact that the world was doomed, the result of the US presidential election or both - which could actually be the same thing... Kim Wayne, as we secretly nick-named him, was carrying on his shoulder a burden he just couldn't pretend to ignore. A song-writer/poet maybe? Kim Dylan?

introducing the South Korean George Abitbol, allegedly the classiest man on Earth.

Disappearing among the South Koreans was also a tiny amount of Japanese couples, recognizable to their subtle manners and their inability to communicate with the crew. Extremely shy and trying to sort what seemed to be extremely serious issues out, they spoke the ingloriously famous Ingurishu, the cryptic dialect that Japanese people often end up talking after spending years studying English (please, excuse my clichés!)... The last piece of the pie chart, but not the least, was made of Westerners, roughly belonging to three categories: some (relatively small amount of) Transsiberianers, like us, who planned to keep traveling to South Korea and/or Japan; some (quite a lot of) US expats and peace corps currently based in South Korea and/or Japan, who took the ferry round trip for a Vladivostok city break thanks to the recent 72-hour-no-visa permit and; some (scarce) tough and tanned jet-setters, mercenaries and hobos, who came from don't ever ask where and were on their way to ye don't wanna know, kid. Some of them reminded Futuna of the Greek and Polish fishermen he once met (long ago) in the twilight of some Galician bars and "massage salons" in Nouadhibou, Mauritania, in another life and another realm.

Belonging to this latest category, although on the happy-hippy side of it, was a shining, charismatic and seemingly father-&-daugther couple, but quite different from the one met on the Rossiya train. Futuna had already noticed their heavy motorcycle clothes, boots and helmets in Vladivostok and finally spotted their two classic BMW boxers around the ferry terminal. At some point, he dared to go and talk to them: another approximate 55-25 year-old team, these two came all the way from Amsterdam, Netherlands, on their motorcycles. They rode this whole 11.000+ km ride across Russia on average roads and decent-ish dirt roads, roughly following the Transsiberian railway, dodging floods, swamps and marshes, hunting gas-stations and counting birches. They told us they were headed to Japan, where they'd tour a little bit more (apparently nothing comparable to what they had just accomplished) before shipping their bikes "home" on a cargo and flying back to Amsterdam in about two weeks. They were both beautiful souls: peaceful and kind, with a special light in their eyes and warmth in their voices. Extremely humble too, in spite of taking on and completing such a huge challenge. The old man looked strong and his daughter, pretty tough too. After talking for another while, we wished them a safe journey and left them to their beers and silent sunset-gazing.

Love, exciting and new. Come aboard, we're expecting you... Can you spot Wallis? 

As the sun went down (the rapid tempo of the music fell*), we got the delikatessens out of the backpacks, found a nice spot on the upper deck, and by the time we were ready for our little romantic picnic/dinner, the moon - as full as can be - showed up on the other side of the boat. Our simple but very typically Russian menu was: fresh cucumber and smoked fish on brown organic bread. And of course, a bootleg flask of Vodka, which is actually if not cheaper than, at least as inexpensive as water in the country we had just left. It was our second go with vodka, after being invited on the train by Michail and Mr. James Bond's bad guy with gold teeth. Not that we don't like alcohol but... the experience of the methanol flowing in our system and the feeling we were progressively getting blind, deaf and mad all at once led us to wait and observe ourselves for some days. Ha ha ha! When we realized the night ride on this love boat would actually be lit by the full moon, we decided to give Vodka a second try and didn't regret it: it was lovely and warm, gently caressed our throats and eased the smoked fish and brown bread find their way down to the stomach. The fresh night breeze, the darkness of the skies and the moist from the ocean on the upper deck became some sort of blurry (Eastern) Dream-like experience. I guess you could say my faith was strong but I needed proof, and, you know, when I saw her bathing on the roof, well, her beauty in the moonlight overthrew me and such (but she didn't get to tie me to a kitchen chair nor to cut my hair, although that was part of the plan because it was getting way too long and messy; that would have to wait a little longer). So after watching the moon over the sea, the sea under the moon and the (love) boat rolling in between, we eventually reckoned we were drunk, stumbled back to the bunks and crashed there happy as partridges**.

smoked fish in oil with some vodka; full moon over the ocean wifh shome vodka; ghe nigth breezhe wifg shome womka; zhe jhlj... zzzzz!

With absolutely no sign of hangover and the vivid memories of night-long colourful (Eastern) Dreams, we woke up early to discover the Korean coastline was close enough to be seen, the day was beautiful and it looked like we were to land soon. We both took some time to try the boat's spa before (or after) the crowd. It was an Asian-style collective open bathroom with hot tubs and a sauna, what Japanese would call a sentou (public bath) rather than an actual onsen (hot spring) but: Hey! Where do you get a natural hot spring from on a ferry? It was, indeed, a bit bizarre to relax in a hot tub on a boat, with a view to the open sea, in the middle of eight or ten naked Korean old men, being the only Westerner and wearing long hair and a beard. But I'd better get used to it fast and smooth here, because the situation would probably happen again and again in the months to come...

what do you call a nice cliché: "Asia, land of contrasts", a.k.a waiting in colourama.

After a while, the ferry headed towards what had to be Donghae, South Korea. "Right on time", we thought. Then, we entered the port in ridiculously slow motion, then spent at least an hour getting the stuff anchored and the stairs set up and such, Another hour or so waiting for everybody to land, from priority, to first and special, to groups, Nationals and privileged. Looked like there was a "crappy backpacker with ultra-low priority" category and we belonged to it. When we finally could say goodbye to the crew, walk down the stair and say hello to South Korea, the line for the customs and immigration was obviously long as an English sunday. We were lucky that some of the young male Russians who spent their trip drinking vodka were so drunk and wasted that they started to shout and argue, dropping their luggage, going in and out the line before us until the immigration officers asked them to turn around and get back on the ship. They resisted for a moment, apparently insulting the officers in Russian, then gave up and left, apparently insulting the officers in Russian. We never knew whether they were going to Japan and only intended to go shight-seeing in Donghae for a few hours, or had just incidentally screwed their whole stay in South Korea right at the border... Not that we cared too much, though. Our turn came, we smiled to the officers, handed our passports, answered their questions with reasonable (if not accurate) informations: "we plan to spend about two-to-three weeks in your beautiful country, for tourism and sight-seeing and we plan to stay at hostels and campgrounds". We might have forgotten to mention our firm intention to do Helpx, stay at some Couchsurfers' and free camp anywhere we'd have a chance to...

in Donghae, waiting to disembark: "there is nothing at the end of patience, Buddhists say, at the end of patience, there is more patience."

Well, in about a minute we passed through immigration, customs and through the gates inside the ferry terminal in Donghae, South Korea. The lady from the tourist office greeted us with a warm welcome in a nice English, showed us the closest ATM and the bus stop and treated us with a map of Donghae. What else could we ask for? An ice-mokaccino, perhaps? It was two o'clock sharp as we walked off the terminal and through the parking lot: a good 38º C under the sun hit us and by the time we reached the bus stop, we were sweating like crazy. No rain, can you imagine? End of August and this was officially our first glimpse of summer! We'd love this country, but that'd be another story!

with love from us to you... a petite douceur from the good old times:

_______________________________


* not that we are particularly big fans of Mr. Springsteen, but sometimes you just have to grab your chance to quote a good old' classic Spanish joke by the horns and acknowledge he knows his trade: "Joder, el Boss ¡qué animado! It goes to show you NEVER can tell...

** as they say in Spanish: not because partridges are renowned as a specially happy species of bird, but most presumably because their Spanish name "perdiz" rhymes with happy: "feliz". Et voilà!

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20 cents per kilo

Our special section (hashtag 20 francs le kilo) for the accounting fans, the (tight) budget-stressed and those who would feel curious about - or attracted by - a plane-less journey. They'll find here and in this order: the truth, all the truth and nothing but the truth (rounded to the euro and with some minor memory lapses, possibly). But on the whole, this is what it costed us :

 - Vladivostok-Donghae: in third-class open bunks, tickets bought online directly from the DBS Cruise website (or from a global ferry booker such as AFerry which charges a small fee but may prove easier to use). It's a 19 hour overnight trip and it's by far NOT the cheapest part of the journey: 380 euros for 2 people.
 - There's a port tax to be paid (in roubles and in cash only!) whenever you intend to leave Vladivostok by sea: it's something like 760 roubles per person, so roughly (1500 r.) 21 euros for the two of us.

So, it sums up to sort of exactly 400 euros for two people: boat + port tax, to get from Russia to South Korea. You can add to this the 900+ r. (about 13 euros) we spent at a supermarket to set a romantic delikatessen picnic/dinner on the deck, under the stars and in the (full) moonlight. <3 <3 <3