Chasing the Easter Sun: An Experiment in Public Transportation, Part Two

When Joy made my travel arrangements on Friday afternoon, I was a little bit nervous. I was scheduled to arrive in the east coast town of Jeongdongjin at 4:40 AM. I was worried that I would arrive there at that early hour, not know how to get to the beach, and not have anybody to ask for directions. Joy assured me that the beach was right next to the train station and that other people would be wanting to go to the beach at that time, too. Then I was nervous that I'd sleep on the train, miss my stop, and end up God-knows-where, not that that would be a huge catastrophe since it's impossible to take the train out of Korea, and it's not a huge obstacle to get back to Seoul from just about anywhere in the country. "Trust me," Joy said, "I think you have no problems." I was still nervous.

I woke up at about 4:30 AM, after nearly 6 hours of dozing as the train chugged its way around and through the mountains to the east coast. Other people in my train car were starting to stir and rustle bags. Exactly on schedule, there was an announcement that we were arriving in Jeongdongjin, and the train ground to a halt. Along with nearly everyone else in my train car (and the other five passenger cars on my train), I got off at Jeongdongjin Station which was immediately adjacent to the beach. (According to the Korean National Tourist Organization, in the whole world, Jeongdongjin Station is the nearest train station to the sea. Who knew?). There were about 200 other people standing on the platform, too. So Joy was correct on all counts: I didn't sleep through my stop, the beach was right there, and there were lots of other people doing the exact same thing.

I wasn't, however, prepared for the fact that there was almost no access to the beach, even though it was right there. The train tracks ran between the town and the beach, and there were some serious barbed wire fences on either side of the train tracks, dotted periodically by military guardposts with armed soldiers standing watch. When the train pulled away, all of us standing on the platform were ushered through the station and into the town, where we were greeted by representatives of tour companies and proprietors of inns and guesthouses. Since I wasn't interested in either, I simply said "No thanks" and walked past them, parallel to the shore, looking for a way to get to the other side of the train tracks and barbed wire. A short distance south of the station, there was an entrance to the beach under the tracks, but it was gated and locked. I walked along further, but there were no other entrances, so I turned around and headed back the way I came.

When I passed the gated entrance the second time, several armed soldiers were in the process of unlocking it. After they opened the gate, they stood on either side of the entrance. I wasn't sure if I should go in, so I just stood at a distance and watched for a while. Several other tourists went in and walked right past the soldiers, so I finally worked up the nerve to do the same. It's funny to me that even though I was born and raised an army brat and have seen more than my fair share of uniforms, military vehicles, and weapons, being in the the presence of military personnel makes me nervous. The soldiers, however, paid no more attention to me than anyone else walking through the gate.

I walked along the beach for a while, picked up seashells in the pre-dawn twilight, and then found a nice place to sit away from the crowd. As I was gazing off at the horizon, the soldiers started walking in two lines in my direction. I had ventured away from the crowd, but there were no visible signs that I was anywhere I shouldn't be, so I just stayed still. The soldiers approached me and then just kept walking--one passing directly in front of me and one passing directly behind me. I watched them as they marched north along the beach until they were out of sight. It was then that I realized that the military presence was likely due to the proximity to North Korea. Here are the soldiers walking away from me up the beach.Joy had told me that sunrise would be at 6:10 AM. She had been right about everything else, so I had no reason to disbelieve her, but even though the sky was getting lighter and lighter, there was no sun in sight. Finally, at about 6:30, the sun emerged from the clouds well above the horizon, casting a muted pink and purple hue over the whole shore. It was quite beautiful.As the light grew brighter, I walked south along the beach and came across these wooden sculptures of the characters in the Chinese zodiac.Here's a self-portrait with the character for my birth year--a monkey. I'll let you decide who is who.Just past the Chinese zodiac characters was this giant hourglass. The signs explaining it were all in Korean, but I could make out that it takes a whole year for the sand to empty from the top to the bottom. Apparently a Korean television drama called "The Hourglass" was filmed in Jeongdongjin. I imagine there is a connection between the drama and the giant hourglass. All the souvenir stalls sell hourglass souvenirs as well. (Yes, I bought one.) There is also a time museum somewhere in or near the town, but I didn't go looking for it. I decided I didn't need another reminder of how quickly time passes these days.I continued south along the beach and came across a place where someone had laid seaweed out to dry on wire mesh tables in the morning sun.There wasn't a barbed wire fence or railroad tracks at this point, so I left the beach and walked back north through the town. My camera battery was dead, and it was only 8 AM. I stopped at a convenience store that had a little snack bar, patio, and electrical outlet. I bought something to eat and asked the attendant if I could plug my camera in for a while. He shrugged and didn't seem to object, so I sat on the patio for the next hour, reading one of my Korea guidebooks and thinking of how I could spend the next six hours in Jeongdongjin. I had already seen the main sights in this small town. There were two buildings shaped like cruise ships on a hill overlooking the town. One is a luxury hotel and the other is a gramophone museum, but I didn't really want to go up to see them. I was, however, interested in the Unification Park 5 kilometers north of town.

When my camera battery was fully charged again, I walked to the bus stop to catch a bus to the Unification Park. There was a small shrine and these beautiful cherry trees next to the bus stop, which made the 30 minute wait for the bus so much more enjoyable.The Unification Park was definitely an interesting place to visit. The small park grounds include an American battleship (CORRECTION 4/15/07: Dad says "destroyer," not battleship) and a captured North Korean infiltration submarine, facing each other. It's an awkward symbol of Korean unification, in my opinion, especially since the ship was transformed into an antisubmarine fighting ship in 1962.First, I visited the ship. It's the former USS Everett F. Larson, launched in 1945 in Maine. After serving all over the world (Asia, Caribbean, Mediterranean, North America), it was donated to the ROK Navy in 1972 and was decommissioned in 1999. Thanks to Dad, I've been exposed to a whole lot of military history stuff in my life, but this is the only ship I've toured on my own accord, and I enjoyed it. I was actually surprised by how small it is.From the starboard side of the ship, you can look down into the East Sea. There are these cement things that look like giant jacks along the shore. I'm guessing they're designed make it hard to come ashore at that spot. Again, given the proximity to North Korea, I guess that makes sense.The USS Everett F. Larson website includes a log about the ship from April 1945 to May 1946, so out of curiosity, I checked out what was happening on April 8, 1946. It was in Fukuoka, Japan and had just turned 1 year old. Here's what's written in the log about what happened exactly 61 years before I visited the ship: "The party resumed [in] full force today. The beer held out much longer today than was expected. All in all, we consumed 4200 cans of beer, 800 cokes, 1200 sandwiches, 10 gallon of pickles and olives, and 24 cases of peanuts. The old man was there the second evening and he was having a beer with all the seamen. The committee and Kelly got plastered. They took us back in an LCT for fear we would jump over the side. A lot of beer brought back on board." And there we have it.

Next, I visited the North Korean submarine. It was shipwrecked (submarinewrecked?) on some rocks in 1996. The commander burnt documents. Then he landed the submarine and unsuccessfully attempted to return to North Korea with 14 soldiers and agents. 17 South Koreans were killed trying to capture them, and 22 were injured. The 11 crew members were later found dead inside the submarine. I've heard that they committed suicide and that the commander shot them, but I'm not sure which is true. I was surprised by how small the ship is, but it's no comparison to how tiny the submarine is! I can't imagine being in there, underwater, with 25 other people.Here's the fire-blacked cabin inside the submarine where the documents were burnt.Here's the compartment with all the navigational instruments. Not that I know anything about submarines, but the instruments struck me as looking particularly out-of-date.Here's the fatal damage to the tail of the submarine.I then caught the bus back to Jeongdongjin. It was a little too chilly just to sit on the beach, so I went for another walk along the water. Here's the view from near Jeongdongjin Station, looking south to the cruise ship buildings on top of a hill. Here's the view looking due east across the East Sea (Sea of Japan):And the view looking north:And it was time for another self-portrait:It was only 10:45 AM, but I had seen just about everything I wanted to see in Jeongdongjin. If it had been a little warmer, I would have been happy just to sit on the beach until my 2:30 PM train, but as it was, I decided to go to the train station a little early. It turned out that there was a seat available on the 11:05 AM train, so I traded in my ticket and returned to Seoul a few hours early. Here's a final snapshot from the platform at Jeongdongjin station.The train ride back to Seoul was pleasant, except for the smelly guy who sat next to me for about an hour. The first thing he did when he sat down was unzip his pants. Then he dozed off and kept leaning in my direction. I compensated by scooting as close to the window as I could possibly sit. I was very happy when an elderly woman got on the train after about an hour and had a ticket for his seat and ousted him.

The scenery was very pretty on the trip home--lots of mountains and valleys and small villages along the way. I arrived back in Seoul at about 5 PM and decided I'd try to make it to the West Sea (known in the rest of the world as the Yellow Sea) to see the sunset. I figured that the quickest way there was to take the chartered bus to the airport, which is only about 7 miles from the sea. There was a lot of traffic, and the bus made several stops along the way, so the sun was already sinking as we rode along the Han River in Seoul. I decided I'd better take a picture then, as I very well may not make it before the sun went over the horizon.I was right. I did make it to the airport, 7 miles to the sea, before sunset, but that's as far as I could go with direct public transportation. There wasn't enough time to walk or take the circular route of the public bus. I think I could have made it in time if I had been willing to pay a taxi driver $40-$80 roundtrip, but I decided the expense really wasn't worth it. I was close enough to be satisfied. I grabbed dinner at the airport and then bought a ticket for the chartered bus back to my city. It was more expensive than taking the new rail line that now connects Incheon airport to Seoul, but it was much quicker and easier. I arrived back in my apartment at about 9 PM, very tired but also pleased with my whirlwind Easter trip.