This past weekend I was lucky enough to have a 5 day long weekend! Thursday was a national holiday (Memorial Day), Friday we had off due to being a sandwich day, and Monday was my school's foundation day.
Anyways, for the long weekend I decided to go to Korea's vacation destination: Jeju Island. This is an island of volcanic rock located to the south of Korea.. about an hour flight from Busan. Initially I had planned to go alone, but was surprised by a friend joining me for part of the trip. I did a tour with her on Friday, a tour alone on Saturday, then had Sunday to myself. Unfortunately, the main attraction on the island is the natural beauty and we had horrible weather. Friday was humid and overcast, followed by two days of pouring rain on Saturday and Sunday. Nonetheless, we had a lot of fun! We stayed at Yeha Guesthouse (terminal) which I would definitely recommend. We did the Yeha Tours as well. I preferred the West tour.
I learned a lot about Jeju. It's an island known for having it's own Korean dialect, and for breeding exceptionally tasty black piggies. I came to learn that Jeju also has a long history of having very strong women. Many men were lost to fishing, and also to becoming involuntary Japanese soldiers throughout the years. The abundance of women seems to have led to the development of the Haenya - a super badass group of women who free dive for seafood. It's unbelievable to see.. these women work for their whole lives, so they are in their 60s to 80s and still diving and farming. It's mind blowing to see them emerging from the water, and remove their gear to expose a head of grey curls. (Yes it seems even the Haenya are enjoying the national trend of old ladies getting perms).
The tours were nice, I got to see a lot in a short amount of time, but I always find myself getting antsy on tours. The bus system on the island isn't stellar so it was a good way to move around. Friday's tour my friend joined and it wasn't raining, but Saturday I was alone and it was a downpour.. so not quite as fun. Still got to see a lot though and had a friend tour group and guide. They were surprised I was a teacher, apparently I still give off a student vibe. Poor suckers didn't know that if you ask me one question about teaching you will get endless anecdotes on the adorableness of my kiddies.
On Sunday, I attempted to walk part of the "Olle Walkway." It's a path along the coast of the island separated into different sections. I got maybe an hour into my walk when the rain started. I was soon soaked through my raincoat and down to my skin. While it was definitely an exciting experience trudging through the rain while the sea stormed agaisnt black volcanic rock, I did end up returning to the hostel for a warm shower. I may have channeled some of my old camping spirit and sang full volume while trekking. The rains did allow to experience solitude in a spot with excellent natural beauty, something quite rare in Korea!
In the evening I went to see a show called Nanta. I hadn't heard of the show before, it is marketed as "Korea's first broadway show". It was excellent and a perfect way to spend a rainy evening. It's a "non verbal cooking comedy". Really amazing acrobatics and percussion based cooking, with a lot of comic relief. They communicated mostly in facial expressions and gibberish, but with a sprinkling of real words. Most were, surprisingly, in English. I guess in an international setting more people would have taken a few English lessons thant Korean. Of course, maybe they did speak more Korean than I noticed. The plot is 3 chefs have to cook for a wedding at 6 o clock (one hour away) and their boss is making them work with his little nephew.
For the first time in my life, I was the random audience member chosen to come up on stage! It sure pays to have an aisle seat and be a very visible minority! As the performers brought me on stage (all I had to do was eat some soup) they were being friendly and chatting briefly probably to calm me. Can I just say having these enormous and gorgeous Korean men speak to me in perfect English was probably the highlight of the show, and definitely did not calm me down!! Alas our affair was short lived and after I 'married' the other audience, I went back to my seat. Amusingly, at the end of the show when the wedding finally happened, it was a picture of me and my new groom. I felt so special.
So in closing, Jeju was fun, and the black pork really is absolutely outstanding. We ate a lotttt of barbecue. For the first time in Korea, I was stopped by a family who asked to take a photo of their child with me. That was cute. I also got stopped by a Korean couple looking for directions - boy did they have a shock when I lowered my umbrella! Next time I go, i hope very much for good weather and to hike Mt Halla, the dormant volcano in the centre of the island. This time I can very unprepared for hiking, next time I'll be set!
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| Unrelated to this post.. Here is Bowser The amazing doggy of my neighbours, Jessica and Spencer. |
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| Amazingly, when I realized I had forgotten my swiss army knife in my backpack, it was not taken from me. Instead I got to check just the knife in this handy dandy package. Also I was allowed liquids. I love Korea. |
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| Look how happy he is! |
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| So happy also. |
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| I did not sample this. |
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| Note to self: Coral fish = HAGFISH |
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| Very funky Starbucks. |
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| Insanely over the top "nature themed cafe" |
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| In this coffee shop, there were magazines. In this one was a page about special teas... |
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| Twinnings Lady Grey!!! |
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| Pork!!!! |
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| Man and Woman Cutting |
Ok - let's begin the tour! Day 1, first stop was Halim Park. The park included a ton of stuff, and I would definitely recommend it. It had a bit of everything, from lava caves to a bird park.
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| Chilling with a Grandfather statue. Apparently they were made to channel man strength on the woman dominated island. A higher left hand means he was a general, and a higher right hand means a writer? Something like that. |
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| Stalactites! |
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| I'm in a cave! |
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| Where is Anne? |
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| Traditional village |
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| I could barely look at this ostrich it disgusted me so much. Poor thing. |
Day 1 - Stop 2. Suweolbong Trekking, part of the Olle Trail. Gorgeous, as you can see in the photos.
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| Snacks for later. |
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| Spot the dragon! |
Day 1 stop 3 - Lunch at the Spirited Garden. Very reasonably prices amazing buffet, at a bonsai (Korean spelled Bonjae or something) garden.
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| I am a Bonsai tree! |
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| They cultivate a cactus fruit on Jeju. This taffy was AMAAZING. |
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| All palm trees were once imported, so don't buy Jeju coconuts. The non native palm trees don't produce fruit. |
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| A bunch of templey pictures coming up are from this mountain. |
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| It was garlic season. |
Day 1 stop 5 - Mount Sanbang. Beautiful mountain temple. I'd say this stop was worth it!
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| The humidity made it a pretty tough little hike! |
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| Scary anti-rock ceiling. |
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| All worth it to see the Buddha! I tried to ask for no rain, but it didn't work. |
Day 1 stop 6 - Cheonjeyeon Waterfalls. Gorgeous!!
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| The water was actually that blue! . |
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| Note what a day of humidity can do to curls. |
Ok back to the hostel briefly...
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| The hostel had a currency wall. I like it. Hong Kong money is gorgeous! |
And on to Day 2! Due to the rain and being alone, I took a lot less photos. Also I got annoyed of posting them on the blog ahah.
First stop, the trick eye museum. Amusing, but these are also located on mainland Korea so I wouldn't make it my destination on Jeju.
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| Trick eye museum. |
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| What an amazing illusion! Get it, the hooves are EYES. The bird is a NOSE. And the floating lips are LIPS! |
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| Terrifying monkey statue. |
Day 2 stop 2 - Seongeup Traditional Village. Interesting, especially that people still chose to live here. Apparently, super unsurprisingly, mostly older generations.
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| Here you can see the net and floating device of a Haenya diving woman. |
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| Way to capture rain for water. |
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| Traditionally, the black pigs were only fed human feces. Poor things. They aren't anymore, and some people argue they aren't as tasty for it. |
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| Before kimchi fridges, the ubiquitous side was fermented in buried pots like this. |
Day 2 stop 3 (or 4 if you count non pictured lunch) - Sunrise Seongsan Peak. This spot is apparently breathtaking for sunrise. Was still neat in the rain, but of course limited visibility.
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| Tangerines and tangerine hybrids are a main export of Jeju. Here are some orange fruit being sold beside an orange cat! |
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| Need to work on my selfies. |
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| Up we go. |
Though we were told the rain was cancelling the Haenya diving demonstration, I managed to find them finishing up a show! People in my tour group didn't believe me, but I have photographic evidence!!
Last stop was this huge lava cave. While extraordinary, I was pretty tired and cold by this point and none of the pictures look great. Here's a lava blob called the turtle.
End of the tours!
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| Eat me I'm so delicious |
Last day I went on a solo adventure across the island. Was a very beautiful experience despite the rain. Midway, I took a break in a coffee shop. It was full of very local looking Koreans watching a Korean drama, but I was far too wet to feel out of place.
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| There's a lot of respect to the awesome Haenya. Good to see! |
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| Inappropriate footwear. |
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| May have been a little lost before finding this. |
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| Spectacular show of ocean vs. rock. |
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| These plants reminded me of a flower my mom grows, only these were huge and so I felt like I'd been shrunk. |
The rain soon got so heavy I had to put my camera away! I passed many Korean tourists in those garbage bag like raincoats you buy at tourist shops, so while I looked crazy walking through the downpour in sandals, I didn't look the craziest!!
And FINALLY - me in the Nanta show! They used a better photo for our wedding, but sadly this is the only one online.
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