We got to the bus station at around 10:30, and buses to Suncheon leave every 15-20 minutes, so it didn't really matter what time we got there. Within minutes we were on the bus and on our way. The ride was only about 1 hour and 20 minutes. However, that's an hour and twenty minutes to the bus terminal. It was only about 50 minutes to where we got off.
For some reason, the buses occasionally stop at local bus stations and drop people off. We almost got off once in Gwangju on our way back from Gwangyang, but decided to stay on, figuring it had to go to the U-Square terminal we know. Since we were in Suncheon, an unfamiliar city, when the bus stopped, we got off with nearly 1/3 of the bus. We were afraid of going all the way to Yeosu, which is another 40 minutes away. After a few minutes, we realized we weren't anywhere near the actual bus terminal. Since I'd read somewhere that Suncheon has a decent bus terminal with no decent food, I knew it existed. And we weren't there.
So we began to walk in the direction of other buses like the one we came on. If we followed in that direction, we would eventually get there, right? Also, I really take for granted the amount of English around Gwangju. The most important bus lines have English translations, and a lot of people on the street will stop you and say "Hi, nice to meet you." Suncheon didn't have that. About 15 minutes later, we passed by a man in a sash who looked like he was running for a political office. When he said "Hello" I jumped on the opportunity to ask him if he spoke English and where the bus terminal was. In no more than one minute of him greeting us with a gigantic smile and upbeat attitude, we were in his smiling wife's car on our way to the terminal. She spoke little English, only enough to ask us where we were going. We thanked her gratuitously and checked out a gigantic tourist map on the outside of the bus terminal. We were directly north of the bay area.
Once we decided against taking another chance of getting lost on the local buses, we took a cab. And I'm so glad we did. Our cab driver was an insanely happy, ex-manager of a hagwon 20 years previous. He offered to tell us about Suncheon as we went. His English was much better than a lot of my students. He put on a Beatles CD and told us all we needed to know as we drove. When he dropped us off right in front of the Eco-museum, he gave us his card and told us we could call him if we needed a ride home between 1:30 and 2:30.
As soon as we started walking into the entrance, another man came running up behind us and dragged us over to a tiny little shop across the street. He gave us tea and rice cakes, all in the hopes that we would buy some tea or little souvenirs from the store. We didn't really like the tea and the products he was selling was something you would buy at Lake Michigan, so we told him we would come back later. (We never did...)
The bay area was gorgeous, just like we'd heard. We walked along the wooden paths throughout the swamps, looking at little, muddy crabs scuttle into their holes.
We then walked up the mountain nearby. It was a beautiful, windy day. We took a rest at the observation platform, then made our way back down. This woman took a moment to take it all in when she reached the top.
Also, I'm still trying to find a good website to host our pictures rather than Facebook and Flickr. Stay tuned.
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