A day of disappointment

So Matt and I made plans on Saturday to go to Marado 마라도 island early in the morning. Saturday rolls around and we get the 9:10 bus out of Shinsikaji heading for Sagye-ri harbour, where the ferry would take us to Marado; Matt and I count down the minutes on the clock, knowing that the ferry leaves for Marado at 10:00. Will we make it? Our only chance is that this bus gets us there in time.

The first sign of trouble: the bus rolls on past Sagye-ri, bypassing the harbour completely. That's OK, we can still take the ferry from Musselpo harbour.

We're dropped off in downtown Musselpo at 10:00 exactly, I'm already having my doubts. After trying to hail down several cabs, we eventually walk to the harbour in haste. We arrive 10 minutes later to see yet another sign of an impending doom: line-ups with lots of tourists.

After fighting our way through the crowds, we confront the attendant in a most dubious way, hoping that we can still take the next ferry out; turns out they're all booked. Crap.

Matt tries to play the "I don't understand" foreigner card in hopes of them giving us what we want. It doesn't work. They don't even have room to cram two extra people on the deck on a boat, how incredibly frustrating.

With our main plan completely foiled, we come up with an alternate strategy: grab a cab to the harbour near Chigwido, in hopes that we'll at least get to go on at least one other island today.

The taxi takes us right to the ferry terminal on the harbour. We have a brief period of hope, feeling that we may yet be able to get to do some island hopping today; how wrong we were.



As I take in the sights, Matt thinks he spots a rare bunting hanging out on some power lines:



Turns out it wasn't, just another disappointment to add to our growing collection. We hear the announcement for the next boat leaving to the island, we try to get a ticket, but again we're thwarted by evil tourists from the mainland.

Matt and I wander around the harbour a bit, trying to calm ourselves down and at least find something interesting. We come upon a small shrine, down near the fishermen's port.



Now we're stuck in an area with no bus routes, and no taxis in sight; a nearby shuttle bus driver offers to take us into Gosan, where we can catch a bus to Jeju-si. Having no other ideas but to head to the city a bit earlier than planned, we jump onto a bus going along the 1132 coastal route.

What follows will forever be referred to as the "bus ride through hell". It took us about an hour and forty-five minutes to traverse not even a quarter the length of the island; the bus was absolutely crammed full.

Upon reaching the city, Matt and I were delirious from the ride. Needless to say, we didn't look forward to the bus ride home later that evening.

To cheer ourselves up, we picked up a dominoes pizza and devoured it on a bench nearby. It was first thing we had go right all day.

As it was almost time for the Jeju United game to begin, we walked back to the bus terminal only to find a ridiculously long line waiting for us at the stadium:



There was a huge turnout for Buddha's birthday, and probably United's biggest crowd since its opening game.



Too bad it was for Jeju United's worst loss of the season: 5-0.

Once the game was over, a bunch of us went out for some dinner. Then I headed home, looking forward to putting a day filled with disappointment behind me.