Friday morning started out with a bang; literally. Bryan was knocking on my door before 9am, wanting to do a little snorkeling. I was resistant at first, just because I was groggy, but he finally talked me into it. We drove down to this spot in Bomok, 2 towns east where I ride my bike. It's kind of a peninsula that reaches out towards Seopsom, one of the islands where I dive. We geared up, and went in near the little boat launch area. The water was stirred close to shore, but the farther we go, the clearer it became. Visibility was 20m plus, and the snorkeling was amazing. We were diving down to reefs, looking under overhangs and finding tons of fish. There were more of these minnow-sized amazing neon blue fish than I'd ever seen before. Schools and schools of sardines and other small fish continuously surrounded us and moved on. There was so much to see, that we kept our swim going about 400-500m, all the way to the island, where we met up with Tanja and some of Big Blue 33's divers for the day. Bryan and I walked around the island a little bit just to relax, snuck a little fresh water from the dive crew, and then headed back.
Seogwipo and been getting rain for a few days at this point, and Friday was one of the first sunny and crystal clear days in awhile. I'd been to Eongtto Falls once previously, and it had not been falling. On a hunch, I decided to head out there. I ran into Rob, Marian and Brett, who decided to join Bryan and myself on the trip. After a short 10 minute drive up the mountain and west, we arrived at the parking lot which was full of cars. This had to be a good sign. And it was. Eongtto was falling with a good force. We climbed around taking pictures, and even made it into the cave where we encountered a couple bats. After we'd taken enough pictures, we scrambled over the fence, across the rocks and to the edge of the pool at the base of the falls. It was such a nice day that we really had no choice. We had to swim.
Hiking the volcano at night is highly frowned upon, and not allowed at all by Koreans. I knew that a few of my friends had already made the ascent, so I figured we'd give it a try. Justin (who was maybe even more into the idea than I was), Rob, Marian and myself, after much debate, decided to leave our building by 1:45am. We arrived at Songpannak, the longest trail around 2:15 and started the trek. <CLICK ON THE TINY 'READ MORE' BELOW TO CONTINUE>