Wonderful Jeju!

We finally made it to Jeju! We had wanted to go and we were starting worry that we wouldn’t make it, but we finally went.

On Tuesday the 28th we headed out to the ferry terminal loaded down with munchies and clothes at around 8:00. We needed to be there by 8:15 to get the tickets we had reserved and be ready to board the boat, which was scheduled to pull out at 9:00. They started boarding the boat at 8:30 and we were on quickly and in our cabin shared by probably 20 other people.

Fallon decided to lie down and take a nap because she hadn’t slept much the night before, and Chris, Cody, and I decided to explore the ferry a bit as it was huge. We found picnic tables and benches on the outside deck, as well as some statues that were an ad for Mini Mini World (we visited this later). We found some noraebang rooms in the ferry, a sauna for men and one for women, three video game rooms, a bar/café, a gift shop, a restaurant, and a GS25 (a kind of mini mart here in Korea).

Cody and Chris settled down in one of the game rooms to play some GoStop (also called Hwatu) on one of the video machines, instead of playing for free with the set Cody had brought, and I realized how tired I was still and settled down in the cabin next to Fallon with my iPod shuffle going to drown out the people. Chris soon came to join, as he was really tired as well, and we all proceeded to nap. Except for Cody, he decided to take some pictures outside because he had never been on a boat in the open ocean before. We were happy to find that he does not get seasick. Yay!

I got up after about an hour to join Cody and we decided to play some card games and get lunch and generally hang out. The boat trip ended uneventfully at 1:30 when we arrived at Jeju. We left and caught a cab, deciding the bus terminal was the best place to go. We got there and immediately had the feeling that we should have stayed at the waterfront area, because that seemed to be the most bustling place. We grabbed a map of Jeju Island and of Jeju-si (Jeju city) and hopped back into a cab to Dongmun market, near where we had just come from. We looked around for a hotel and almost immediately hit the jackpot. We found a really nice hotel for only 40,000 a night called Hotel Dae Dong. We were really happy because it was so nice and so cheap… we usually only get the cheap part with love motels… not the nice part.

After getting the hotel and dropping our stuff off we headed out to get a snack/lunch at Lotteria (a Japanese fast food chain) and then we checked out the underground market there. Fallon spotted a store that sold handmade jewelry made by the owner who was there when we were. Fallon bought some dangling earrings for her and her mom, and I found my first pair of long dangling earrings. They have a black cord loop with a small Lapis Lazuli leaf at the end. I’m trying to expand the jewelry types I like to wear and it’s hard sometimes because Cody has a strong opinion of what he likes on me, and most of the things he likes are the types of things he’s used to me wearing. The things that he likes on Fallon he hates on me. He usually says no to dangle earrings because ‘they are too long’ and then he’ll like longer ones that Fallon picks out for herself. I was happy to finally find a pair he likes. This way we can both get into different jewelry types for me. I am hoping to find a bunch of pretty things for cheap in Thailand. Anyway, so I got the earrings for only 5,000, and I also got a cure hair clip.

After the underground market, we headed into Dongmun market, a huge traditional market. We saw the usual live and dead fish, and some species were more prevalent than they were in Mokpo. We saw the usual steamed pig heads, hooves, innards, and random pieces. We saw stalls overflowing with pots, veggies, and clothing. I decided to buy some Jeju Chocolates. There were a bunch of different kinds that they had, but the most popular are Orange and Cactus chocolates.
After the market the rain that had been slowly, but steadily coming down started coming down harder, but we decided to head to Jeju Love Land anyway, since we had heard that some of it is indoors. We took a cab out there, armed with umbrellas and Fallon in just her rain jacket.

I have to say Love Land was pretty hilarious. All of the statures were inappropriate, so I can’t post pictures so the underage don’t accidentally come by them, but I wish I could post just a few.

For a country so sexually oppressed, it is so funny that they go against all cultural norms by displaying blatant sex figures in this park. Granted, kids aren’t allowed in, there is a video game area for them to hang out in outside the park so that they aren’t exposed, but it’s just surprising in this society.

I didn’t see any old Adjumas or Adjoshis in the park, until some came when we were leaving. I was kind of disappointed with that because I was kind of interested to see how they reacted to the displays of sex toys and the statues having sex. Oh well. It was funny to visit the gift shops because most of them actually only sold normal innocuous gifts, and Chris found some pretty handmade necklaces for his mom and sister, and I found a really pretty necklace for myself there. Cody got a really cool looking magnet as well. They even gave us dirt with each purchase from Mount Hallasan for good luck, which was hilarious.

When we left the park, we were all pretty soaked; as it poured the whole time we were in the park. We had to wait around for about a half hour in the kid’s area because we had to wait for the staff to call us a cab and for it to arrive.

We made it back to the hotel safe and sound and went to a nearby Galbi restaurant to get warmed up on grilled meat and then we all headed to bed early because we had booked a cab to come at 9am and drive us to sites around the island for the next day.

We all woke up bright and early the next day and Cody and I found a really yummy toast place (they made freshly cooked bacon and a normal egg for our toast instead of the usual scrambled egg cooked in a form with carrot and corn) and I grabbed some Dunkin Doughnuts and bagels for our breakfast and a snack. We were really happy to see that the day was looking like it was going to be pretty skies and no rain. We munched on our toast in the cab on our way to our first destination a half hour drive away… Mini Mini land!

Mini Mini Land is funny. It’s a park filled with miniatures of buildings and monuments, and statues of cartoon characters and funny displays. We saw everything from a Gulliver’s Travels display to The Smurfs, Niagara Falls, Mount Rushmore, and the Trevi Fountain. It was fun to get pictures of all the minis and take funny pictures with some of the displays. We finished in an hour, which was funny because the cab driver thought we should take two. He thought he was going to get a lazy day with us… think again! Anyway, so we grabbed some ice cream and headed off to Sangumburi crater.

There are other craters on Jeju, but we decided on this one because you only spend less than an hour total getting to and walking around part of the crater. The other main crater to see in on Mount Halla and it’s an eight hour hike total to visit that crater.

We walked up a path and came to an old graveyard that looked like a crater and we were a bit disappointed. We were told this was supposed to be a unique subtropical crater with a unique ecosystem, and all we can see is green grass and a few old graves behind stone walls. We kept walking anyway, even though we were confused as to what all the fuss was about, and that is when Cody came upon the real crater. It was pretty cool, and was probably more so because of the disappointment of the previous ‘crater.’ It would have been nice to see some of the creatures and plant life in the crater, but it was a preserve, so we were not allowed to enter, but we were told there are a lot of unique species to the area in the crater because of the sun creating the subtropical environment within the crater. We walked around and took pictures of the crater and with the crater, and then we checked out the gift shop. I happily procured some of the goofy looking Jeju statues, and Cody got a more serious lava-rock Jeju statue, and then we headed back to the taxi after less than an hour when he was hoping, again, that we would take two hours at the crater.

From here we headed off to Sunrise Peak. The cab driver was a little upset that we didn’t want to go get lunch at 11:30 and that we wanted to wait until after Sunrise Peak. We made him wait though, we weren’t hungry. We got to Sunrise Peak and I was a bit daunted. There were stairs all the way up the side of the almost perfectly vertical cliffs, but that didn’t make the hike any easier. I made it though, and it only took me about a half hour to hike it. I do have to say it was a bit easier than the Greta Wall of China, but mostly because the stairs were more even than on the Great Wall. It really sucked because the higher you went, the more humid it became, and I was convinced that we were in another subtropical region, if not tropical. Either way, I made it to the top and didn’t die, even thought I felt like I was going to. It was so worth it though. The view at the top was amazing and I was happy I made it. After pictures and rest, we headed back down and started walking along the walkway leading around the coast, and that is when we all saw one of the most beautiful sites we had ever seen. The left side of Sunrise peak tapered off into the
ocean and an old rock slide where part of the side of the peak tumbled down wad overgrown with lush greenery. At the base the waves crashed over all the rocks and to complete the picture was a black lava rock beach. It was so pretty and awesome. I don’t even think I do the picture justice with words.

When we got down to the beach, we saw the restaurant that the diving women run. They are some adjumas who can dive up to like 20 feet without air to fish for giant snails and sea cucumbers and such. We also walked in the black lava sand… which actually ranges from coarse sand sized to pebbles. There was also a bunch of glass in the sand, but almost every single piece was like sea glass, but the glass had been ground down quickly by the black lava sand. I even found a piece that was part of a ceramic cup that had been ground down almost smooth. We wanted to take pictures on some of the fallen rocks, but there were these nasty little bugs swarming over all the dry rocks, and we refused to get on the rocks with the bugs, even though they ran away when you approached. Fallon tried getting a picture on one of the rocks in the water, but the surf wouldn’t let her do it without getting soaked, so she gave up on that.

After the beach, we headed to the gift shop and I procured some aloe and berry Jeju chocolate and we all bought a potato tornado. This is a potato cut in a spiral and put on a stick and deep fried then covered in salt and mustard, they are delicious, and we even bought one for our cab driver to try and make him happier. After eating our snack, we decided we needed some real lunch and had our driver take us to a Kimbap restaurant, much to his amusement. He thought we should go to a tourist’s restaurant, but that was before I think he figured out that we live in Korea.

After lunch, we headed to the Manjanggul lava tub, which is the longest known lava tube in the world. We couldn’t take a lot of good pictures because of the really low light, but Cody got a few with his night vision on his camera (yay for night vision!). It was pretty cool, but it was a little chilly and very wet and drippy from the previous day’s rains. The lava flow at the end when it solidified while pouring out of a hole in the ceiling was definitely the coolest part of the lave tube.

After leaving the lava tube we headed to our last stop, a hedge maze. This was pretty cool as well, and a lot harder than you think it will be. For once, the boys actually had better luck figuring out the directions, while Fallon was pulling out the map because we weren’t sure we were going the right way. In our defense though, we didn’t have a lot of time left with the cab, and we only had a half hour to get through the maze and by this time we only had 15 minutes left. We found our way out pretty quickly after that though and we were all happy to hop in the can and go back to the hotel for baths and a nap before dinner and drinks in the evening. I for one took a nap; otherwise I wouldn’t have made it very late that night.

After our rests and refreshments, we all headed out to pick up some aloe gel because we had all managed to get sunburned, as we had all forgotten to apply out sunscreen. Oops. We then went to have a very ’healthy’ dinner at Tom N Toms of pretzels stuffed with cheese and pepperoni. The waterfront was pretty cool. Even at 11:30 at night, everyone was out playing basketball, voccer (a weird volleyball/soccer mix), playing with their dogs, and riding bikes. There were even a ton of little kids out just hanging around. Cody was sweet and even bought me some cotton candy. Unfortunately, the candy was slowly melting while I was eating it, it was so humid out. It was kind of weird!

After the waterfront, we headed to a nearby store to buy some wine for Fallon and me. We opened a bottle and headed toward the hotel. This is when things got weird. As we were heading back to the GS25 to get some beer for the boys, a really drunk adjuma walked up to me (I was holding the wine bottle at the time) and started obviously begging me for a drink. I couldn’t understand what she was saying beyond juseyo (please, or give me please, usually used for things like water please or mul juseyo), but I could tell what she wanted. When none of us responded and kept walking, she actually grabbed my hand and started kissing it and pressing it to her chest, and she wouldn’t let me go! She really wanted our wine, but we wouldn’t let her have it. I decided to hand the wine to Fallon, and she immediately unlatched from me, and we all started walking faster before she could latch on to Fallon. We quickly outpaced her short legs and staggering steps and made it to the GS25, Fallon and I saw her still coming, so we decided to take refuge in the store, but she followed us in! Luckily, she behaved in front of the cashier, and just proceeded to try and compliment us and try to cajole us to give her the wine. We ignored her though and left the store to quickly lose her and make our way to the hotel, when we played some card games and reviewed our pictures from the day.

We rounded out our night by asking the desk attendant to order us McDonalds; because we found out the neighborhood McDonalds did delivery 24 hours! We were so excited to have fast food delivered, but as soon as we all ate, we all realized how tired we were, so we headed off to bed.

The next day we all slept late and then checked out of the hotel. We then headed down to the waterfront to hang out and play more cards until it was time to leave on the ferry.
All around, even with crazy drunken Adjumas attacking me, and pouring rain, Jeju was a wonderful trip. I wish I could have spend a day or two more there in order to see the whole island, but I had a good time and I’ll always have great memories of it.