Although this is a fiction blog, I occasionally do posts about real life: things that happen to me. This is one of those. Today, I went to Daecheon Beach with some friends. It is probably the most famous beach on Korea’s west coast and also hosts a very popular Mud Festival every year, although the beach itself is not muddy.

aka The Festival of a Million Gray Zombies

However, today we just went to swim. We got there about 11 in the morning, just as the sky was getting very dark.

A minute or so after we arrived, it started to rain. There were people swimming, but soon, as lightning flashed on the horizon and thunder rumbled, the lifeguards started ordering everyone out of the water.

I waited a long time to catch a picture of the lightning, but it was too quick for me.

At this point, the rain let up a little and I went out of the coffee shop where we were sheltering to find my friends who had come in another car. I had just found them when the storm really hit in earnest.

I had gone down to the beach to find a friend who had gone swimming and was forced to shelter under a pavilion while the wind picked up and the rain poured down in buckets. Emergencies sirens were going off and the lightning began to strike closer and more frequently. About the time when it struck on the beach itself, I realized that it probably wasn’t good we were hiding under a wet metal framework. I could imagine it getting struck at any moment.

The rain decreased for a moment and we made it back to the coffee shop to meet up with the others.

After a while of sitting around, we decided to go to a jjimjilbang nearby to at least do something interesting. The rain had let up a bit at this point, so we started walking. Of course, it was mostly clear before we got there, so in the end, we just went to beach anyway. After that, the weather was perfect. It just goes to show that you can never trust the weather in Korea, especially in the summer.

And a wonderful, tired, sunburnt time was had by all.