The Miracle of Jindo

"You pick it up first!" said Rebecca.  I reached down and gingerly plucked the starfish from the freshly exposed ocean floor.  I have no problem picking up random sea life...in fact, I was suddenly reminded of being 6 years old and playing with my big brother and 3 of his friends, the Chapman brothers, one hot summer day in Tennessee.  In the midst of our imaginative play, we stumbled upon one of the boy's koi fish, which had gotten a little too enthusiastic doing its jumping tricks and was now roasting on the hot, parched sidewalk.  The boys stared at it perplexed, wondering what to do.  Even though its skin was already drying out, its lips were blowing tiny kisses into the air.  It was still alive and I could practically hear it screaming for help as the 4 boys frantically discussed what should be done.  "What are you DOING?!" I shouted, horrified.  This wasn't time for discussion--it was time for action!  The solution was clear anyway.  I pushed through the boys, picked up the large fish using both of my little hands, and plopped him back into his pond.  The boys were relieved and the fish lived a long and happy life.  They even thanked me for saving their fish...and if you think 10 year old boys often thank 6 year old little girls, you're probably wrong.

Now, here I was, examining a starfish's underbelly with my two friends, Kim and Rebecca. "That's where the mouth is--that's where you don't want to touch it," I pointed out to them.

"It's like watching the Discovery Channel," laughed Kim.  A couple of snapshots later and we placed the small sea star back into the water, out of harm's way.

A little girl showing off the starfish she had found, just like ours

We, along with hundreds of other people, were walking along a small strip of land in Jindo, a small island in Korea, which has a sea-parting festival every year.  A strange phenomenon occurs during this time where adjacent tides are so low that the sea literally parts for about an hour and people can walk along the ridge to a nearby island.  It's a mini-adventure of Biblical proportions...or implications, at least!

I continued to walk along with the crowd towards the island.  We had gotten a bit of an early start, and were therefore treading water part of the way where the ocean hadn't completely parted.  Our thigh-high yellow rubber boots we had rented weren't much thicker than a pair of rubber gloves, allowing us to feel the sharp pokes and prods of various bits of coral rock and seashells.  I was ahead of Kim and Rebecca, who were clinging to each other as they struggled to forge ahead.

Kim and Rebecca 

"Look at Annie--she's like a pro!" Kim said, admiring my ability to move through the water with style and grace.  I realized then that the 5-year section of my early childhood spent in Tennessee was really paying off.  My brother and I, fascinated with nature, had spent many of our waking hours in our parents' oversized rubber boots, treading through rapidly flowing creeks and streams, foraging for salamanders and crawfish.  This felt like familiar territory.

All around us were people...tourists like us who had come to witness the "Moses Miracle," and locals who were taking advantage of the event as the perfect time to collect fresh clams and sea vegetables.  They crouched down over the sea floor with little picks, digging up tiny clams to take home.  Back on the island, some were eating them right there on the spot.  Even though the actual "festival" had been canceled, this was obviously a big event for this small town.  The rainbow-shaped path was a sea of rubber boots and empty clam shells.

Walking along the path before the seas are fully parted

The seas have parted!

A woman carrying the clams she collected

At some point I realized that one of my boots was leaking and my sock was getting quite soaked--but I didn't care.  I was breathing in the fresh sea air and enjoying every minute of this little excursion.  

I had even enjoyed the journey there.  All the stress from the previous work-week had gotten locked out with the slamming of the bus door.  I blasted the Yeah Yeah Yeah's in my iPod and zoned out to the music..."travel away, travel it all away...the road's gonna end on me!"

 As we departed the endlessly large city of Seoul, I soaked up the delicious views of the forgetfully dreary March morning.  I watched the soft, rolling hills float past, covered in tall brown grasses and mottled with varying deciduous and evergreen trees.  "We could be in North Carolina right now," I thought to myself, noticing the familiar terrain I had never before lain my eyes upon.  The occasional small houses with upturned roofs reminded me otherwise.  I smiled.

Enjoying the bus ride

On Jindo we found a small hotel on the 3rd story of a little building.  The city looked like Seoul miniaturized.  The woman in charge spotted us and smiled, speaking to us in Korean.  We, of course, didn't understand a word...but that didn't stop her from having a conversation with our smiling, hopeful faces.  "Room?" we said.  "Three people?" we pointed to ourselves, "One room?" We held up one finger.  The lady nodded, saying some more things we didn't understand.  She showed us a room.  It had a 46" LCD TV and a mat on the floor for a bed.  There were more mats in the closet which we could lay out. "Nay," we said, meaning, "Yes, we'll take it!"  We paid a total of just under $50 for the room.

Our hotel room :)

As soon as we got settled in, the lady came into our room to bring us towels and toothbrushes.  She spoke to us some more.  We tried to ask her about the bus to the sea-parting.  "Oh, buss-uh!" she understood.  She pointed at the grandfather clock on the wall, indicating it had already left.  "Taxi?" we asked her.  She understood that as well and took us downstairs to the street, joyfully jabbering away in Korean the entire time.  She had us wait inside while she found a cab driver.  When she returned with one, they had a loud, lively conversation in Korean.  I watched in pure joy as I witnessed her negotiate our ride to the sea.  It would cost $30 and he would take us there and back.  When we were ready to go back, we just had to call the number on his business card.  She also gave us her card, so we could call her in case something happened.  Somehow we communicated all of this without speaking a word of each others' languages. It was a real miracle...and it all worked out perfectly!  When we called the driver to come back and collect us, we could have said anything to him and he would have known who it was.  We laughed at the possibilities of raunchy, disgusting phrases we could use on the phone.  "Oh, there's the Americans I need to pick up," he would think to himself, hearing nonsensical English words.

Rebecca, Kim, and I after having walked the ocean's floor

Back at the hotel, I changed my socks and pants, which were wet, and we went out for dinner at a place called "Pasta" where you could get "spaghetties."  The menu was entirely in Korean, but another English-speaking couple came in and was able to decipher it for us.  I pointed to the Korean word for "vegetarian" in Rebecca's phrasebook to get something for myself.  She brought me spaghetties with tomato sauce and mushrooms.  Oh, and some kimchi!  Our bellies were happy.  Next, it was off to bed.

We rolled out the mats and settled in with our rock-hard bean-filled pillows.  Luckily, our beds at home are pretty hard and for me, at least, the sleep was only slightly uncomfortable.  I woke up a couple times with my crushed ears burning a bit, but went right back to sleep.

This morning we woke up early and walked back to the bus stop.  "Seoul," we told the man at the window.  He gave us our tickets and we made our way to the back of the bus.  I sat back, relaxed, and blasted the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on my iPod once again...."...Man, they like me, 'cause I'm a warrior, a warrior..."