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We dabbled our naked feet in the Yellow Sea, so named for its proximity to China, I gathered, which is famous (in Korea at least) in part for its pollution and yellow dust. In March, 3 weeks of Chinese yellow sweep through Korea, giving even the natives serious respiratory infections. We had been discouraged by the Korean teachers here about going to Korea's west coast. They shrugged their shoulders, said it was yellow and freakish, and named the East Sea as the place for experiencing ocean. What they don't know is that I've spent a small lifetime next to Utah Lake, and I've found much beauty and peace there, though many have shrugged the lake off as a foul latrine. Hey, but it's a lake, right? In suburbia and urban sprawl, and in this land of concrete and neon, I take what I can get. And this was an ocean only 2 hours away--good enough. Besides, I was starting to feel a little boxed in and landlocked in this concrete and neon gothic town with orange glowing nights and lit red crosses for stars. So we crowded into a locals-only bus station early one morning, gathered what info we could from the foreign alphabet, bought tickets, and got out of town. I pressed my face into the glass, craning my neck to see every tree and every color of sky and land. The beach actually turned out to be beautiful, in its own way (as is most everything here), and warm enough for us to grip sand with our toes as we walked. Happy Korean families studded the beach--their adorable children distracting my attention from my riveted gaze on the sea. I was amazed to be so near China. I felt like I was standing on a little blue globe on the place marked "Yellow Sea," so far from my little desert home. It was delicious. We felt like we could breathe again--it helped just to get away from the students and the teachers and the school for a day. We dabbled our feet, as I said, but not for long. It's the type of cold that bites you and then hangs onto your toes for a minute afterwards. We did the little cold dance, begging for reprieve, and then tried to throw each other in. We lay for awhile on the sand, mesmerized by the sea, and gradually discerned more and more yellow on the horizon as the sun sunk into China. We walked the "boardwalk" of shops, which turned out to be one fish restaurant after another, each with giant tanks of live fish. These people love fish. Even fish that looks like swimming, swollen intestines. I used to like fish. (pause) I hope I do again one day. It's just that EVERYTHING is fishy, and it kind of throws you. We started a couple weeks ago even wrapping our own rice with seaweed, until the stuff started to stink up our whole apartment. Despite the cold, Scott panicked and ran around opening doors and windows, and I started to boil some aromatherapy oil, and we tossed the seaweed outside. We didn't want to risk getting grossed out. We can't start stomach-turning over seaweed, lest we eliminate most of our food choices here in Korea. For now, we're in love with the food. We'd like to keep it that way. The Sea and Seaweed, ck [2003-01-12]
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