Honeymoon Island

So as promised, here's my entry on Jeju Island--the "Hawaii of Korea," the place where many Koreans go for their honeymoon. I'm not sure if it's quite as beautiful as Hawaii, which I've never been too, but it was definitely a worthwhile place to visit--we were lucky too with weather, especially with all the recent rain we were worried the rain would ruin our trip, especially because the weather report first reported our first day being "30% chance rain," second day being "100% chance rain," then third day being "90% chance rain." By the end of the first day, it said second day "50% chance rain" and third day "100% chance rain," and at the end of the second day it still insisted "100% chance rain" for our third day. Ironically the first day it rained a little, the second day it was just cloudy but very warm and no rain, and then the third day was a BEAUTIFUL sunny day. Just as we learned in Chapter 1 of 3B, the weather report is hardly ever right here thanks to Korea's temperamental weather ^_^.

So I don't have any offbeat commentary really to make other than Jeju's dialect which is quite different from the standard, so it was a bit of a struggle to understand, so I'm gonna jump right into picture summary of my trip with two Yale friends, Ryan and Becky, and a friend from my level in Sogang, Yoshiko, from Japan :).

We wake up bright and early to get to Gimpo Airport by 7:30 to catch our 8:40 flight. Sun's just rising and weather looks okay :). It's actually my first time planning a trip so I was a little worried that things would fall through. There's something a little insecure about buying tickets online and then just printing out a piece of paper as your ticket, but that's technology for you ^^;;.
Gimpo is a pretty nice airport--though from what I remember of Incheon--it was nicer.
Everybody's slightly tired but pumped and ready to relax and explore the island!
We get to Jeju and take a 50 minute cab ride to Seogwipo, the southern half of Jeju. Here's a modest part of the city of Seogwipo-si. When we got there it was completely empty o_o. I guess because it was a weekday afternoon everybody must have been at work, because it felt almost like a ghost town.
As empty as it is though, Seogwipo's pretty beautiful, even under the foreboding clouds :). The waves were pretty crazy that day too so we weren't able to make it to the beach haha.
These funny little guys are EVERYWHERE--they're 돌할으방 stone grandfathers (dol-hareubang as opposed to harabeoji, the Seoul dialect for grandpa) and I think are a sign of good luck on Jeju.
For our first lunch in Jeju I decided to have 전복죽 abalone rice porridge (congee) which was delicious after adding a bit of salt :)! Jeju's very famous for its abalone so I was intent on taking advantage of this.
More 돌할으방!
We made our way toward 천지연폭포 Cheonjiyeon Falls as our first touristy destination--saw some pretty carp and ducks along the way :).
Another famous figure, the 해녀 haenyeo--literally "sea woman." Jeju is traditionally a matriarchal society which makes it quite different from Korea which is very patriarchal because of Confucian values. The 해녀 are still around and they scuba dive in the sea to gather shellfish and whatnot to sell or for food--so women are actually the breadwinners in Jeju society ^^.
Haha here's Becky demonstrating another legend with the hareubang. It's said that if you want to become pregnant you should rub a hareubang--here's Becky being careful not to ACTUALLY rub the hareubang ;p.
We made it to the falls--which became much more full and prettier when...
It started to rain pretty hard! Here's Yoshiko and Becky getting soaked hehe.
Pictures of our AWESOME room which was such a steal for only W25,000 a night for each person (W50,000 for a room)! We expected it to be a dump but it was great! And yes that is a jacuzzi ^_^.
Bizarre Korean kids' TV show character haha. It's kind of sad that in the English teaching channels they show all the foreigners who are on the show don't know a word of Korean--and even sadder when there are foreigners speaking completely in English and then kids completely in Korean. It'd be a nice problem to remedy, and I don't want to go on a rant in this blog but there's just something a little unsettling to me about cultural and linguistic dominance with the large influx of English teachers who teach our language to Korea but don't bother to try learning their language even if they're here for years. Mm...
The clouds in Korea seem to always be changing and it's no different in Jeju-do. Check how beautiful they are this evening just before we eat our dinner :).
Becky advertises 흑돼지 literally "black pig." They're special little pigs that Jeju-do is famous for that have black fur. The meat isn't black of course, but the meat was absolutely DELICIOUS. Mm!
Mmmm, so good ^^. As were the mushrooms and onions! We were too scared to try 오겹살, which is the same as 삼겹살 but 오 means FIVE, meaning MORE fat aish!
After our meal we had some 식해, a sweet rice drink often drunk at Korean meals. Delicious end to a delicious meal!
After dinner, we took a walk along the same place we walked along earlier, but there's something about lights that make things look that much prettier ^^. Plus I got to play around with my camera's slow shutter speed, capturing pretty night scenes.
As well as cool effects like this when I move along while letting the camera do its 30 second shutter speed work haha.
The next day we hit 중문 Jungmun Beach, a smallish but nice beach ^^. The water we were allowed to go in was very shallow but the waves and current were REALLY strong. It was a workout on our legs just to move in that water haha.
Yay for group pictures!
As you can see it was a cloudy day, but it didn't rain so we had a good time :).
Because the waves were so tiring though we didn't stay in for too long--maybe a bit more than an hour. Then we relaxed and headed back to our hotel to rest for the day ^^.
So this time for dinner I ordered abalone--a little on the pricey side but hey, I was in Jeju, why not splurge a bit ^^. I was REALLY surprised though when they brought it out and it was MOVING. Whoa! At least I didn't have to eat it alive.
It made me a little sad to watch it writhe and die though T_T. But it was really delicious...^^;;.
Just a cool picture of our hotel's elevator :). Also a cool thing about Korean elevators--you know how you press a button to activate a floor? You can also press the same button again to deactivate the floor o_o--pretty useful but can't it also be used for bad purposes? Like getting to your floor before people below you get to theirs? LOL. I guess Korean people are too nice for that though :).
The next day we headed to 한라산 Halla-san, on a beautiful day, but due to a misunderstanding with the taxi driver we ended up taking a different trail from what was intended ^^. I asked the taxi driver to bring us to the Eorimok trail, which our guide said was a 3-4 hour walk up and then down the Yeongsil, but he kept insisting it was 8-10 hours, which our guide said was the Seongpanak trail. I even showed him the map and he said no no! It's wrong, turn it upside-down! A little strange...but I was like all right, it's okay, just take us to the Eorimok trail. I thought he was just mistaken, which he was...but in a different way. Turns out he took us to the Seongpanak, which IS an 8 hour hike, thinking it was the Eorimok. So, even though the Eorimok and Yeongsil are supposed to have beautiful scenery, the Seongpanak goes to the peak, so we decided to try to tackle it!
An uprooted tree--there were a surprising number of these, I wonder from what?
Pretty vegetation on the mountain.
The clouds were moving really fast, but that's probably because we were closer to them. Beautiful day though--not a sign of rain!
Halla-san, being the tallest mountain in Korea, at almost 2000meters (a little more than a mile), was QUITE the workout--here's a map of where we got up to--the rest stop.
More pretty flowers.
And the beautiful rest stop area! It's a shame we couldn't get to the peak because we didn't want to risk missing our plane so we made our way down, being about an hour and a half away from the peak. Must've been a splendor to see! Also, Halla-san must be beautiful in the other seasons, with red and yellow leaves in the autumn, azaleas blooming in the spring, and snow in the winter! I'd love to come back and check it out some other time if I could and perhaps even make it to the peak :).
We had our yummy kimbap and some choco-pies before making our way back down.
Made the hike worthwhile ^^.
Of course the mandatory group picture (I should probably explain--Yoshiko was too tired to make the hike because she was feeling a little faint from the day before so she stuck around Seogwipo while we made it up the mountain :]).
Along Halla-san are some spring water pipes--which taste a lot like normal water haha.
While making our way down we even saw a deer! Though with the lighting and the movement it was hard to get a good picture and I didn't want to scare it away with flash.
While making our way to the bus stop...which we believed was a short walk from the mountain trail, we saw what probably was a dried up waterfall. After walking for FIFTY minutes in the heat, our feet KILLING us, with Ryan even being attacked by a SNAKE, we were about to give up and just walk back, not knowing how much further the bus stop could be. Every bend we thought might be the bus stop, but nope, we were just in a big, national park. So I was like "If I just wave out my hand do you think someone will stop?" Despite being a road where no one stopped because it would be way too dangerous to with all the curves and whatnot, a TAXI pulled up at that moment and we made our way back to Seogwipo, SWEET! And pretty awesome hehe.
Goodbye Jeju ^^.
Beautiful island--and yes, that's Halla-san in the distance :).
And mmm, yummy dinner in the airport. I had cuttlefish cold noodles while Yoshiko had sea urchin soup and Ryan and Becky decided to have fast food.

We got back to Gimpo with a 50 minute plane ride and simply took the subway home. Easy to plan, easy to get to, easy to get back, easygoing trip. Perfect :)!