Last week I had my Summer Holiday.Unlike the 6 weeks I used to get in England, here it was only 3 days, but I still managed to pack in quite a lot, as next to the weekend, this made 5 days.On the Wednesday I spent the day relaxing, and doing very little.This was a real treat, and then we went to dinner at a friends' place in the evening.They live near to a Homeplus (which is a supermarket owned by Tesco's) so we decided to go along early and check out this supermarket.It was strange to see Tesco's filled with Korean products.They do have some of the Tesco's range added in there, so we shall be making a trip back there very soon. We had a great dinner on our friends' rooftop, and it was nice to see some traditional Korean houses from the roof, as in our area it is all apartment blocks.They also go around spraying mosquito repellent in their area and the truck came along whilst we were on the roof.It made us jealous again that we can't access our roof top, as it would be great to have parties up there.

On Thursday I took a trip with a friend to Daejeon.It was a week for exploring new supermarkets and finding western products, as the sole purpose of our trip was to go to Costco!We took the train, so this was my first experience on a Korean train - it was comfortable and cheap, but you don't get as much room as you do on the luxury buses.The train station was however right next to Costco, so perfect for our trip.You need to be a member to shop there, but my friend had a card, so I just gave her the money for my stuff.The only problem is that everything comes in bulk, so we know have a freezer full of meat and tortilla wraps, and I found some proper cheddar cheese.It is still a little plastic, not like crumbly mature cheddar, but better than the cheese slices we have been living on. They did have a variety of cheeses, but they were very expensive, so I decided we could wait until we return to England for this.We came home early evening and I had a relaxing evening to myself as Graham had gone to the baseball again.He had been given some free tickets from a Korean friend, and I was appreciative of some time alone, to get packed up for our weekend of camping.

We had been planning a camping trip for a while with some friends for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but on Friday morning it started to rain!Those of you who have followed the news will know that there have been many problems with flooding up in the north, near Seoul, but so far we had not had any problems.However, we looked at the weather forecast and it looked pretty bad for the whole weekend, with thunder, lightning and heavy rain forecast.So, we spent a couple of hours on Friday morning deciding what to do, but in the end we decided just to go for it, and I'm so pleased we did, and we didn't have a single drop of rain and no thunder or lightning!We too the bus to Mokpo, which is about 45 minutes away and cost us about 3.00GBP each.We then got a taxi to the nearby ferry terminal, and managed to get straight on a ferry (they run every hour on the half hour) which cost us about 5.00GBP each for the round trip.The boat took about 50 minutes to get us to Oedal-do Island, and on the way I had my picture taken with a group of friendly Koreans.Once at the island we found a nice beach to camp on, and there were some shelters on the beach which we set up underneath, just for extra protection in case it rained. They actually came in useful to protect us from the intense sun.

After setting up camp we went for a dip, but the tide was quite far out, and the ground was like clay underfoot, so we headed through the island to find the salt water pool.This was actually a mini waterpark, with 3 different pools and a few small slides (all of which were closed though).The pools were great though, and not too busy, as it was a Friday.There is apparently one hotel on the island, and a campsite, but most people just come for the day, so by late afternoon there are few people left.There were a couple of other tents set up on our beach, and the police did not seem to mind, so we camped there for free.We had taken much food and a cooker with us, so Pete made dinner and Graham made a fire.We had a fantastic evening, just chilling out on the beach and drinking some wine.

The night was very hot, so the next morning we decided to take off our fly sheet, which made it much better inside.The evening before, Katherine had buried some pork deep in the sand to keep it cool for the morning.She had then placed a stick to mark where it was, but when it came to digging it out again the stick must have been in slightly the wrong place, as it took about 30 minutes to find it!After breakfast we hired some inflatable tubes and spent the day between the beach and the pool.We all had some sunburn from the Friday, which was added to on the Saturday, so I spent much of the day in the shade.It was great to see so many Korean families having fun, but still strange to see most go in fully clothed and with huge hats on.There didn't appear to be much swimming going on, as I don't think many Koreans can swim.Whilst sitting by the pool, a Korean lady came over to us with 7 pots of rice, 3 Ramyan (like pot noodles) and 2 pitchers of beer.Her group were getting the ferry back and had this left over so gave it to us, which was very kind.

At sunset we made our way back to our camp and found that the tide had gone out so much that there was a walkway to the nearby Star Island.This is apparently only accessible 4 times a month as you are forbidden to swim out there.Graham, Pete and Katherine went to explore, as I stayed with all our things and to take pictures of them. We then all walked up to a high point of our island, where there is a big red, plastic heart.It was great to see the sun set from up here, and made for some cheesy photos too!That evening we had the rice with our dinner and Graham made another campfire, to keep the mosquitos away.We had more wine and then a much better sleep without the flysheet on!

On the Sunday the dark clouds started to form in the morning, so we decided to pack up and head for the ferry.We just made it, and were lucky to catch a connecting bus pretty quickly too.So, we got back home pretty early in the afternoon, which gave us plenty of time to get showered, put everything in the wash and then relax.

Maggie x