Tag Archives: Beach

Students …everywhere

I do like being part of a community. That means that when I’m out and about, I might just run into one of my students.

Like today, when I went to the small beach in town, I was surprised to see dozens of kids in red shirts & red life jackets. Out swimming, I heard, Hi teacher (and my name!). It took me awhile to identify my wet students in the crowd. But then, got to splash and practice swimming with them and 38 of their church group friends.

Being an English speaker in Korea makes you the envy of most. Add to that, some basic swimming skill, and wow, you’re amazing!

 

Two of these kids are my students

Swimming in the sea

It’s beach season here so at least a few times a week, and sometimes even a couple times a day, I take a swim in the ocean.

This is a complete luxury that I don’t take for granted!

An easy 12-minute walk from my apartment is the smaller beach that has fewer people and gets deep quicker, so is a bit better for swimming.

It feels like magic to swim in the ocean. Even when I only swim for 20 minutes I fit in an array of liberating movement. I can dog paddle, seriously swimming freestyle or breaststroke, or float on my back and let the small waves move me purposelessly here and there. I’ll do porpoise dives half-way across the width of the beach, then decide to do a few handstands. Follow up with a couple front flips, and a backflip or two. Ahhh. Bliss

Therapeutic benefits of black sand?

Over the past few weeks the beach season has officially started. Umbrellas, wind surfers, a tented restaurant serving beer, soju and some food is now in action.

On Saturday morning, for the first time, I saw the older women (known here as ajjumas) burying themselves in the sand. It was an interesting sight to see this more traditional practice happening, while just behind is a hotel, and in front the school kids walked in a pack searching for trash to pick up before they were allowed to play.

Hamdeok Beach …15-minute bus ride to heaven

June 6th Monday was a day off for Korean Memorial Day.

We celebrated by taking the bus to Hamdeok Beach. Wow! Nice clear water. Not really warm enough weather or water for swimming, but that didn’t stop us! There were several people in the water and playing on the shore, but we were the only two actually wearing swimming suits!

It’s great seeing the kids playing too …catching and heaping seaweed in a pile, pouring water over it, all for no apparent reason. Just for fun!

 

My beach commute

From Colorado, it’s gotta be 1000 km to a beach in any direction! But from here, I walk about 40 steps from my apartment building, ride the elevator down to the subway station. Catch the subway, which runs every 10 minutes or less, and ride about 40 minutes to Haeundae. There I walk for about 10 minutes, down the hill past the shops and cafes and am at the beach! All for a cost of about $1 each way!

Beach Season …now the crowds are out at Haeundae Beach

Now, it’s officially beach season. Which means that last week, it was too early to come to the beach but today was just right. They say that at the peak, there are 1,000,000 people here at the beach. Today, it was probably several hundred thousand.

Lifeguards patrol the line of buoys to keep people in water that does not reach chest height, even when most small waves pass. There was really no way to swim today. Other days the waves were a bit bigger and the crowds less, so we body surfed. Today body surfing might have a definition that includes moving about the crowds.

The water is starting to suffer from the crowds too. Normally, the water feels pretty clean. But today, floating lighters, plastic bottles, and trash were common. Our most entertaining moments though were from floating jellyfish that we played with. No stingers, just round blobs that you can pick up!

We made friends with some guys from Indonesia that are coworkers. They work in Busan in a factory making car parts for Haeundae and Daewoo automobiles.

Haeundae Beach, Igidae Park

Though up to 1,000,000 people visit this beach during busiest times, very few people actually wear swimsuits!

Wow, living near the beach is such a treat! Growing up in Colorado, 1000km plus from any beach, this is a luxury that I savor here, where life in other areas has so many challenges.  Being near the beach is amazingly wonderful!

I can get to Haeundae Beach within 45 minutes by subway for about $1. It’s the perfect weekend activity, with fellow teachers and our Korean friends. And you can stop a passing vendor or use your cell phone to order food or beer to be delivered right to your spot on the beach.  You can rent an umbrella and mat for $5 for the day.

There are also nice walks along the coast, like Igidae and Oryukdo.

The ability to be around nature and just relax is very precious, living here in the big city where otherwise hints of nature are few and far between.