Korean Archipelago

Nulchado Island, 9:13am
My wife and son are sleeping and my brain is kind of fuzzy from the lack of sleep of a red-eye flight. Our hotel won’t be ready for a couple of hours, so I turn off the main road, cross a rickety looking bridge and end up on this islet that’s barley visible on the map. Choosing to explore in order to stave off my drowsiness I follow the road right along the shoreline, passing through the shadow of the main bridge high above. It’s not until we come back into the light that my brain start firing properly and I start to pay attention to my surroundings: all along the left side of the road are mounds of scallop shells. Thousands upon thousands of them, each neatly strung up onto a nylon rope; long rows of them organized into rough cubes, seemingly dumped just at the water’s edge. Do they serve a purpose – wave breakers perhaps – or is this just a convenient way of getting rid of scallop farm trash?

Yuho Observatory, 10:14am
Driving over the bridge felt like crossing a kind of boundary, we’ve left the mainland and are actually in the archipelago. The view while coming across was fantastic, the light blue sea, the green hills of Geoje island in the distance, a series of tiny islets poking out of the water, maybe a hundred meters off the side of the road, feeling so close like you could reach out and touch them. Within seconds they recede behind us. Somehow I got the sense of wind in my hair despite the car windows being closed. No place on the bridge to stop and take photos, this lookout point is only second best. Looking down at the bridge, perhaps you can imagine driving across?

Geojebuk Road, North-west Coast, 11:01am
Fly to Busan, rent a car, drive to the archipelago. That was the extent of our plans for this trip, and we checked off step three an hour ago. Now we have no particular goal and all the time in the world to get there, so when we come around a long sweeping bend and a small cove opens up in front of us I slow down and pull over next to a pavilion right at the water’s edge. The day has started to heat up but here in the shadow of the pine trees it’s still cool. Not a soul in sight except for us three. I follow my son right to the edge of the embankment, sit down next to him, and simply listen to his observations of the world.

Gohyeon Market, 2:13pm
Sometimes when you’re traveling, you have to deal with practical matters. In this case we are on the hunt for a workable ATM, or possibly an exchange office. We park the car and as we are exiting the parking garage we find ourselves, to our great surprise, in the middle of a wet market. Fish caught earlier that day, laid out in neat rows on top of beds of crushed ice; orange buckets filled with live shellfish, piles of bright green leaf vegetables, pyramids of red onions and potatoes; the smell of pork and seafood permeating the air. My son is excitedly running around and pointing at everything – “Papa, take a picture of that one.”

The Hotel Pool, 5:38pm
It’s not a particularly fancy hotel, it’s not an infinity pool or anything like that, the view is nice but not spectacular. As far as hotel pools go, it’s quite ordinary. But here’s the thing, those details don’t matter. Relaxing in the sun, playing in the water, taking in the view and and really just taking it easy at the end of a long first day, is all that matters.

Hakdong Beach, 10:02am
The drizzle hangs in the air but has yet to start falling. The air feels cool but far from unpleasant. The beach lies deserted save us three. There’s no sand here, only black and grey pebbles, smooth and round from rolling in the waves. As each wave washes up on the shore it sends a cascade of little stones rattling down the incline towards the water, their noise mixing with wooshing of the ocean; filling the air with a slow rhythm. Being here when no one else is, listening to the crunch of your own footsteps as you’re strolling along, picking up a handful of pebbles – they’re perfect for throwing – and hurling them into the grey sea just to watch the splash and ripple, feels really meditative.

Walkway Over the Ocean 1:58pm
The walkway stretches out across the bay in a long sweeping curve, the endpoint somewhere on the far side. This was clearly designed for tourists but for some reason, wherever we go, we seem to be the only ones; I can’t help but wonder why. As soon as we set foot on the bridge, my son goes bounding off, laughing giddily all the way. I follow slowly, looking out at the surrounding landscape. The mist hangs low over the green hills around us. The water is dead calm, like a sheet of semi-translucent turquoise glass, forests of seaweed visible under the surface. Off to one side is a small harbor, a number of dormant fishing boats moored at the dock, and in the distance, the next village with its own sleepy harbor. I can’t quite put my finger on why – perhaps it’s the mist muffling the noises of human activity – but this place feels profoundly lonely…at least for a moment until my son, brimming with playful energy, comes rushing back, asking me to chase him.

Guenpo Village Cave, 3:14pm
The cave, likely man-made, cuts about 15 meters into the cliff face; long enough that if you stand by the back wall you can see the trail of light spilling in from the opening, as if you’re looking out through a long tunnel. The opening, framed by bright green vines, is facing the ocean, and in the distance, the verdant hills of the other side of the bay. You could take really great photos here if the weather was good – a proper Instagram destination – but today a light drizzle has turned the sky gray and flattened all colors. We’ve been out and about the whole day, but the rain and mist hasn’t bothered me much, in fact I’ve kind of enjoyed it. Only now that it turns the background of my pictures white and lifeless does it irk me.

Myungsa Beach, 4:02pm
The rain has stopped and the fog has lifted somewhat but it’s still too cold to actually go swimming. However, sometimes in life you have to make compromises, which is why I’m dressed in swim trunks, standing knee deep in the chill water hunting for sea creatures. There’s surprisingly many this close to shore: clusters of blackish blue mussels – I could pick enough for a meal if I wanted to – crabs too big and aggressive for me to catch with my bare hands; and finally this starfish. Both me and my son watch in fascination as it wiggles its tentacles then slowly crawls away when we flip it the right way up.

Geoje Shipbuilding Marine Culture Center, 10:44am
When you’re traveling you of course hope for great weather the entire trip, but you can’t always get what you wish for. So when the forecast predicted heavy rain the entire third day, we had to come up with a contingency plan. Luckily a bit of searching on Google maps revealed a shipbuilding museum not far from our hotel. Our son loves all kinds of machines so this should suit us perfectly. Let’s check it out.

Sacheon Gaksan Peak, 4:42pm
How do you capture a landscape like this? Try as I might, I can’t find an angle or combination of camera settings that accurately mimics the experience of taking in the view from here. Whichever direction you face, there’s something worthwhile to look at. Behind me are the blueish peaks of the Korean mainland. Straight in front are the dark green hills of Namhae island. Up above, light, fluffy clouds move across a perfect blue sky, rays of sunlight lancing down through the gaps in the cloud cover, like god shining his flashlight. On all sides, the ocean is dotted with little islands; too many to focus on each, yet too distant from each other to frame them all in a wide shot. Only human eyes, darting from target to target, can assemble the complete picture.

Nangdo Beach, 1:02pm
Being here reminds me of my childhood. As I remember it, my parents used to drag me and my brother to all kinds of places all around Europe, art museums, picturesque villages, clothing stores, churches and castles. We would in turn drag them to every beach we could find: the Mediterranean, the Atlantic coast of northern France, cold lakes high up in the Alp; going swimming was an integral part of our childhood vacations. I find myself now, some 30 odd years later, dragging my son to all kinds of places that I find interesting and as compensation, will spend hours with him, jumping in the waves and chasing crabs. It all works out in the end.

Jeoggeumdo Harbor, 2:44pm
The island is so small that it’s absolutely dominated by the two bridges that connect it to the rest of the archipelago, and yet there’s a village here. Naturally, any island village has a harbor, only big enough for a couple of fishing boats but still. The thing that strikes me, is that even though the style of the boats is slightly different than those in Europe, and the roofs of the houses have that characteristic Asian bend to them, the place looks, at least at a glance, like any small fishing harbor in the Swedish archipelago. I can’t quite put my finger on why – perhaps it is the nearly universal shape that harbors need to have in order to work as harbors – but I really have a strong feeling of archipelago deja vu.

Yeosu Reed Field, 5:07pm
I have a strange fasciation with remote roads; there’s something very intriguing about idea of a thin strip of civilization carving its way through the wilderness, only to disappear beyond the next bend, hinting at some distant goal. Despite only being a couple hundred meters long and within easy reach of a town, this walkway evokes the same fascination as those roads. It lazily curves its way through a sea of reeds that are as tall as a man. The only reason we can see over them is because the path sits on stilts in water so murky I can’t tell if it only a few inches deep, or deep enough to swallow a person. The wind sends waves rippling through the reeds, filling the air with the ghostly rustling of a thousand dry leaves. If I climb the fence I can see the exit at other end, but all I have to do is squat down, let the path disappear into the the rushes, to feel a vague sense of adventure.

Ungcheon Beach Park, 10:37am
I usually avoid taking this kind of voyeuristic pictures of people, but this time I couldn’t help myself. The morning has turned grey and it has started to rain. This group of, I assume, tourists are standing knee deep in the water, hiding under their umbrellas. I get tourists wanting to come here despite the rain, I’m here after all. What I fail to understand is why you would go out in the water while simultaneously avoiding the rain. If you’re gonna get yourself wet, why not go all the way and skip the umbrella? It’s some sort of tourism paradox. Personally I prefer to stay dry on a day like this, and since the rain is getting heavier I think it’s time to escape to the car.

Jinjuseong Fortress 2:32pm
This picture is nothing special, just a small boy looking at some insects on an old wall. The reason I posted it here is in the details. The fortress walls are hundreds of years old and have withstood attacks from foreign armies. If you pay attention to the background, you can see a bridge and several tower blocks, all belonging to the modern cityscape. I love this kind of contrast: the way the old remains and the new grows up around it; the way the cultural heritage is still visible despite the inevitable march of progress. And next to all this, is a small boy; he’s here right now, but he belongs to the future.

Jinjuseong Fortress, 3:13pm
This place is too neat, too well preserved, too…sterile, like a museum. I prefer ruins where the passage of time is visible, moss and crumbling rock and little details that trigger the imagination. As I’m walking from one well-preserved building to the next, I spot these thing; grave stones/markers/ whatever they may be, and I’m immediately intrigued. I don’t know what they are or why they are standing here in such neat rows. I haven’t seen any of them anywhere else in the grounds, but unless they are graves, it seems strange to have so many in the same place. They’re much more worn down than the rest of the fortress, but I doubt they are older. It’s as if they’ve been forgotten while the rest of the place has been meticulously maintained, and only recently been unearthed and moved to this location. With thoughts like this flitting through my mind as I walk around photographing the stones, I can feel like an explorer for a couple of minutes.

Jeokgeumdaegyo Bridge, 3:39pm
The best place to get a photo of this landscap would be from the middle of one of the many bridges, ironically none of them have any place to stop, so that would be impossible. The closest you can get is a lookout point at either end of the bridge, but that’s not quite the same. Unless of course, you find a way to cheat. My wife grips the handle of the 360 camera, and sticks it out the open car window as far as it can go. I check the mirror, let the cars behind us pass, and slow down a bit, driving as smoothly as possible. Hopefully we can  capture something worth looking at.