Who cares if we had to wait until the 5th, a Saturday, to celebrate our holiday. We had one just the same. I joined a bunch of foreigner friends here for a beach picnic on the coast on Saturday. We had lots of bbq meats, including fish, ribs, steak, sausage and salad, and of course, lots of drinks.

From the left are Morgan (Maine), Nicola (UK) and Murray (Arkansas). We were the first to arrive and set up on the public tables at the beach. Notice the “table” style; no bench seats, just a flat surface. Koreans are used to sitting on the floor. So too, will they sit on these raised platforms around their grills. We put ours in the sand and ate standing up, foreigner-style. Sometimes, they don’t quite know what to think of us.

As usual, SaTang had a great time chasing the ball and making friends with everyone. Again, the Koreans broke out their cameras to take pictures of a dog that does more than yap. I had fun watching her try to shake the sand out of her mouth everytime she chased the tennis ball.

More friends, From left David (UK), Matty (UK), Ray in the red cap (South Africa), Dave (Canada) and Kim (Korea)

Caroline (Canada) and Jennifer and Leanne (Scotland).

Its always interesting to hang out with people from so many different places around the world. Hearing the different accents, stories as to why they came to Korea, what they like, don’t like and always, what we find funny about Korea.

At times throughout the day, the fog rolled in making the whole beach seem eerie.  I took this photo of the beach when visibility was down to just a couple hundred meters.

Being kind and generous foreigners in our host country doesn’t always net kind and generous in return. This old guy who came around to talk spoke no English at all and what few of us understand Korean could only grasp a little. We suspected most Koreans probably couldn’t understand him either and we learned that once we offered him some of our drinks his true nature emerged – that of beach lush. He hung on me for a while and I had to shake him loose onto one of the tables.  Shortly thereafter, he pounced on Caroline. After we wrestled him off, he tried to blame it on her, saying she was too beautiful. I’m not sure what his deal with me was.

We ran him off quick after that, earning a huge WTF from Nicola.

Despite the old drunk dude, we had a great time. We ate, we drank, we played soccer. I came home with a trophy, too. While playing around with the ball, my face collided with David’s foot and my lip bled for the better part of an hour. No problem – scars are just tattoos with better stories.

The only real bummer was that MyeongHee didn’t come; She wanted to go to work. Still, it was good to get out and speak English for a day.