The Jindo Sea Parting Festival

Last weekend I took a trip to Jindo, an island in the southern part of Korea.  Once a year Jindo hosts the "Jindo Miracle Sea Festival".  What's so miraculous about this festival you ask?  Once a year the sea parts between Jindo and a neighboring island.  It parts for just about an hour, at which point you can walk from one island to another.  Pretty Moses-esque, right?

Needless to say, when I heard about this festival I knew I wanted to go.  However, by the time I had heard about it, most of the group tours though organizations were already full.  Jindo is really far from Jeomchon, and it would have taken forever to get there taking public transportation because there are no direct buses there.  Luckily, I discovered that our friends in our neighboring town of Sangju had decided to rent a bus and drive directly there.  Some of my friends from Jeomchon and I decided to get in on their trip, which worked out perfectly.

We were all excited for this weekend...but despite the perfectly warm and sunny weather in the forecast for the rest of the week, the weather for Saturday, the main day of the festival, was rainy.  Determined not to let some rain ruin our fun, we met up with our friends in Sangju and began our 5 hour trip to Jindo.

The bus ride down was long, but was actually really fun.  We finally arrived in Jindo around 5 or 6.  Once we arrived we got of the bus and started to explore...only to find not much of anything.  The rain had seriously put a damper on the festival activities, as we found only a few places to eat.  After finally finding some food, we stumbled across an empty tent.  The tent was being used the next day, and the man who was setting up said that we could sit in there if we wanted.  We brought in some chairs and made it our official hangout spot for the night.

Jindo's local Makgeolli

Hanging out in the tent we took over for the night. 

Later in the evening there were a wide variety of performances including traditional Korean singing and dancing to a K-pop show.  The K-pop show actually turned into quite the dance party, which was really fun.

Huge bonfire 

The sea was supposed to part at 5 AM, but we had to line up at 4 AM.  Since we knew we weren't going to sleep very much, most of us decided to rest on the bus for an hour or two before the festivities began.  I wasn't able to fall asleep though--getting comfortable on a bus can be quite the challenge.

At 4 AM we made our way over to the meeting place.  Earlier in the day we bought thigh-high boots to make our way through the sea.  People had torches to light the way (which was slightly terrifying considering the large majority of those people had been drinking all night).  But, regardless, we were ready to see this "miracle".

So many people! Note all the fire in the hands of people who for the most part intoxicated.  

As we started walking we realized there was still a considerable amount of water.  I thought maybe it was because it was still early--that the water would go down as we kept walking.  Unfortunately, that's not what happened. The water only got higher, and as we were halfway across the water, we were being told to turn around.  On our walk back they started to set off fireworks, which was nice, but left me wondering....where was the miracle?

Walking in the sea, definitely not supposed to be so much water still!

I don't know if it was because of the rain, or if they just calculated the tides wrong, but it definitely wasn't what was advertised.  I had seen a lot of pictures from the festival, so I was kind of disappointed that we had come all that way to wade in some cold water at 5 AM.

Following that adventure we got back on the bus and attempted to sleep.  I think I probably slept about 1 1/2-2 hours max.  The ride back home was definitely not as fun as the ride down, and I'm pretty sure there have been very few times I've been so happy to get home and take a shower.

I slept for a few hours in the afternoon, but once again staying up all night had messed up my sleep cycle, which is why I started off this week with a huge sleep deficit.

Overall the weekend wasn't what I was expecting, but it was an experience I'll never forget nonetheless.  Not every trip can be perfect, but that doesn't always mean it's a complete failure.  Spending time hanging out with good people is never a loss.  I'm sure this festival is awesome when it's not raining (and when the sea parts during the day), so who knows...maybe I'll give it another try if I'm around here next year.