Suncheon Bay marsh

15.03.2013

This morning I could not get out of bed at all. I was up pretty late the night before trying to load Ubuntu up on my ol faithful lappytoppy. On Monday it completely stopped and I've been trying to fix it ever since. Looks like I'm in the market for a new (to me) one. Owen will be selling me his MacBook Air soon. Welcome to the 2000s Louise!

Alright so anyway, by the time I got to the bus station it was 8:30 am which is not too shabby anyway, considering the amount of moaning I was doing. I parked my bike and hopped the bus for Gwangju, then took another to Suncheon. Once again I made the mistake of telling the ticket lady exactly where I wanted to go. When I got to the bus station, at least four people including my bus driver were yelling at me TOUR YOU GO NOW! No thank you! I yelled back. You know how much I hate tour style anything. DON'T WORRY YOU PAY! they yelled back. At this point I was just plain startled and frightened, so I yelled goodbye behind me and took off as fast as possible without running down the street screaming.

By the time I got to the bus shelter that I needed, I realized what they were trying to say to me is that I had ALREADY PAID for some sort of tour of Suncheon Bay. Something I had not consented to, but I guess the ticket agent assumed she knew what was best for me. Again. I dunno what this tour entailed but it was only $9 so I decided not to go back and find out. The bus was coming anyway.

Suncheon bay is an interesting place to me. It is sold to people as a green travel destination and I can't say I disagree. If you need to know how important marshes are to the world's ecosystems, then this is the place to come. However, I don't know if it was the wrong time of year, but in all four or five hours I spent at this park, I think I can count the number of birds I saw there on two hands and feet, so less than 20.

In the museum, they say that land reclamation is threatening the world's marshes, but I guess building a massive boardwalk (which is packed (!!!) with people) through one is also a form of reclamation, is it not? This place didn't seem too popular with the birds and it's probably because of the thousands of people tromping through all the time! I won't even go into the "Eco boat tour" they had speeding through the reeds every hour. Maybe the birds come after everyone has gone to bed, I dunno.

Anyway, I felt kind of hypocritical visiting this place. At first I kind of felt disappointed, but after you walk around the boardwalk, there is an optional longer hike you can take out on the sea wall. If you are so inclined I imagine you could stay there and watch the tide come in. I walked out to the end of the wall and the sea was still a long ways away, so I opted out. It was pretty amazing to finally see the mud flats that everyone in the south goes on and on about. Stagnant water and mud like this was very important for evolution and the beginning of life as we know it! So that was totally cool. I just had trouble with the "Eco" label they stamped on everything in Suncheon.

It was also amazing to actually go somewhere that a million people were not for once. It was super peaceful and I realized I have not felt that much peace in a long time. No one was around because it was quite a difficult spot to get to. I had to hike up the mountain twice.

I came back to the bus station completely knackered, so i was satisfied with my adventure for this weekend.

I gave Dave a call to see where he was at. He was out biking so I told him I'd be over in about four hours. Haha, not joking that's how long it took me to get home. Luckily, Korean buses are so comfortable and relaxing. I mean it!

Suncheon Bay Eco Museum