Beach trip

I went to GangNeung, a city located at the Eastern coast of the Korean peninsula, with my mom.
We took a bus at a large terminal, then took the taxi once we arrived in the other city.

We stayed there for three days and two nights.
Since there were no restaurants located at a convenient distance from where we were staying, we packed most of our food, consisting of ramen, instant rice and stew and such.
We tried to take as little luggage as possible - stuffed everything into one suitcase - and since food made up most of the weight, our return journey was made a lot easier after we ate that all up.

The city of GangNeung is where parts of the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics will take place.
In fact, ice-related sports events (such as skating) will be hosted there, while the snow-related sports (such as skiing and snowboarding) take place in PyeongChang, a city right next to it.

I saw statues of the mascots during the bus ride.


There was a small war memorial near the base of the mountain we stayed in.
Some of the tanks were open so that people could actually climb in and see.
Apparently the beach was subject to North Korean attacks at one point.
(They also had a memorial hall, part of which contained wax figures in military uniforms which, unfortunately, strongly suggested that their creators didn't have a good understanding of human anatomy. They freaked out my mom.)


Our room was not big but roomy, with a large window.
The photo is kinda badly taken so all you see is the window, but imagine it as a rectangular shape with that window as one wall.


Supernatural was playing on the TV one morning.




We had a pretty good view of the ocean.


Some tourists built a tower of rocks.
In Korea, there's a sort of lighthearted myth that if you put a rock on top of one of these, your wish will come true.
(I didn't touch it.)


Took a panorama atop an observation platform.


The ocean waves in the white patch were noticeably stronger. I suspect there was some sort of ridge or bump along the sea floor in that area.

On the third day, we got down to the beach before we left.

There was a weirdly shaped rock... Just saying.

Actually, make that two weirdly shaped rocks.


I kept staring at the sea and the waves for a really long time. Didn't go too close, though.
Also took loads of pictures of them. I hope I can draw them someday.


View from a nearby cafe


Seagull footprints


Seashells I picked up at the beach
(I mean, too cold to go in the water, no crabs, gravelly sand, what else was there to do?)
(Just kidding, the sand was really pretty up close. Still not good material for a sandcastle though.)

I threw a few of them away because my mom said they looked bad ("Trust me I used to take home a bag full of broken shells like that, never looked at them again"), but I got to keep the brush.
It seems to be in good enough condition to be used again.
I wonder where it came from.

When I came home, I found some dead water worm things in between the barnacles on one of the seashells.
I decided to dip all the shells in hot water for some time.

When I was there, I doodled a lot. A sketchbook, some pencils and a Star Wars novel were the only things I took (aside from clothes and stuff), and I didn't get around to reading the latter. I sketched out up to page 30 of my Steven Universe comic, and honestly, I wish I had done them by pencil sooner. It's so much easier - when I'm doing it digitally, the screen only shows me a part of the page when I'm zoomed in enough to draw, but on a sketchbook, I can see the whole page.

And... yeah, that about concludes it. It was a really fun time. It's good to be back though.
Gotta work on that art- *cracks every joint imaginable*