One place that I really wanted to visit on Jeju Island was Samyang Beach. I wanted to check out the beach because it is well-known for its sand. Samyang beach has the darkest sand on the island and it turns jet-black when wet. The guidebook said that there might be people there even in the off-season because the sand is believed to have special properties. "Join the locals and bury yourself in the iron-rich sand for a therapeutic sand bath, said to relieve dermatitis, arthritis and athlete's foot."
Sure enough, when we arrived there were older people sitting around up to their knees in sand while chatting and just hanging out. The beach was really interesting because it was actually had two kinds of sand - tan sand and black sand. The black sand was a lot heavier and was always on the bottom while the lighter tan sand formed the top layer.
Why was I so interested in the sand on the beach? It's because of my dad. For those of you who don't know, my dad is kind of a sand connoisseur and has a large sand collection from all over the world. I've had a lot of fun snatching samples from wherever I travel (sometimes my friends have even collected some sand for him as well!). The most interesting samples are the unusual ones like the sand with little rubies from Montana or the samples from faraway places like the Galapagos Islands or Zanzibar island in Africa.
Sean and I had fun walking around the beach, gathering sand and writing our initials in it. The pictures don't really do it justice but it looked really cool in person as the outer layer was tan and the words came out dark black. Cheap thrills I guess. Anyway, checking out the beach was pretty interesting and I hope my dad enjoys the sand samples!
Sand rules! d