Jeju Trip...

I want to blog as much of this as I can before it jumbles up in my mind and becomes some huge blobby memory that is only made slightly clearer when I look at the pictures that were taken…

This weekend, a magical four day weekend, ushered us off to the island of Jeju.

I did as much prep work as I could muster. This was Chuseok weekend, which meant that businesses would be closed, at least, on Saturday. Also, the days preceding and following were mass travel days, so tickets were scarce. On Tuesday, with the help of my co-teacher I reserved ferry tickets from Busan to Jeju Island. The week prior, with the help of my co-teacher I bought plane tickets from Jeju to Gwanju (Jeollanam province)… Then we researched how to rent a car on Jeju… So my co-teacher took me to get my Korean license. All I have to say is that this man is racking up the mana/karma/juju whatever you want to call it. He also helped me download Google Earth so that I could see Jeju and conceptualize it. This helped immensely. I did research about places to go and where to stay… On Thursday it was business as usual. I finished work and booked it home. I cleaned and did laundry and prepped to teach yoga.

The Body Design class was wicked. We ran and then did some great stretching and core strengthening. I figured, since most people wouldn’t be back to do yoga until Monday at the earliest, a great sweaty workout would do a body good.

My friends arrived from the US at 6:45 pm on Thursday. They bused it to Dong Daegu because they missed the bus to Gyeongsan… My AMAZING co-teacher picked them up at 2am and drove them to my house. They arrived around 3am and we went out to a kimbap restaurant and chowed down. Their body clocks were all scrambled, but mine was not. I had fallen asleep while waiting for them and then at 4am crawled back in bed only to wake up at 9am, so we could head out to the Gyeongsan train station by 10am. We caught a train at 10am to Busan. We were standing room only and in the party car (the snack car that has singing rooms, internet, food, benches, etc.). We arrived in Busan and headed out to adventure. Jamie smoked a cigarette while we decided what to do. A woman walked up and started rambling at her in Korean. I translated as best I could. Jamie just rolled with it. The woman was drunk and wanted a cigarette. We talked for a while and then headed out to find lunch. We feasted on street foods and pastries from a café. Then we wandered around the China town of Busan. I was surprised by how much Russian was written everywhere.

We hopped on the subway and headed to the famous fish market. We walked around a grocery store and compared and contrasted the cultural differences. Then we headed to the market. We were walking and I was, of course, disgusted, but internalized. As soon as Jamie saw a woman take a small octopus and pop its head like a balloon, she was done. We stumbled into the Busan Foreign Film Festival and reveled in more street food and wandering. Then we hopped on the subway and went to the ferry terminal. We arrived and renegotiated our reservations. We were booked in the cheapest situation (1 room with 125 people), but for roughly $3 more we upgraded to a room with only 10 people. Also, luck was on our side, no one else joined us in our room. So we had a nice big room with its own bathroom to ourselves. We slept. The ferry ride was 11 hours. We boarded at 7pm… Once the ship left port we wandered for maybe 15 minutes around the ship. We looked at the harbor as we left in all of its lit-up beauty and then blackness. With this blackness we slept. I invested in a pair of earplugs and have been using them religiously ever since. They are fantastic. I saw a friend using them on the camping trip I went on. When I thought of the potentiality of sleeping in a jim jil bang I knew what I had to do: ear plug it up.

When we woke it was 5am, an hour till docking. We slowly got moving and packed up. When the boat officially docked with slowly meandered off into the unknown… The Island of Jeju. The sun was slowly rising as we went in search of food. We found a few restaurants, but they either had no veggie option or were not serving any longer. We ended up at our first of many Family Marts. We got triangle baps, kimbaps, and coffee. Then we walked for a while. We took pictures and eventually hopped in a cab bound for a car rental place.

The first car rental place was closed, but after wandering next door and asking where to rent a car we found the place my co-teacher had searched out on-line. It was a great place. We even got free GPS. Upon presenting my Korean license, I received a look of confusion from the employee. He was talking to another guy there and then asked, “Where is your international license?” I laughed. I said, “This is a Korean license.” He said that it was less than a year old and I told him I had driven for many years in the US, but they took my license. The man smiled and ok-ed me. We rented the smallest car available. It was a great little dude. The employee was soooo helpful He drew on our map a course we should take around the island. He even taught us how to use the Korean GPS. It was pretty perfect.

We went to his first recommendation: the beach: Hallim. The water was beautiful and there were children chasing waves. It was so great to see families bonding. For a second I could imagine that being my life. We took some pictures, sat on the retaining wall, and I did some yoga.

Then we hopped in the car and headed for a temple. We ended up finding a really great little hiking trail. There was a temple, but it was closed. It was classically great in the way all Korean temples are. We took pictures and continued our walk. We saw some caves and some massive banana spiders. I love that they live in colonies. It is so intriguing. One day I hope to learn more about them and sharks.

We got back in the car and checked with the GPS to see how far away the Sex and Health Museum was. It looked like a fun place to be (we saw it in a coupon book) and it was only 2 minutes away from where we were. That place was great. It was explicit and honest and way more encompassing than I expected. I was super happy. There were statistics, advice, imagery to help people get creative, STD info, How to guides… Pretty much awesomeness.

Then we headed to the town we were hoping to spend the night at. We stopped off at a restaurant and ate foods. Then sat at a Family Mart for 3 hours and drank Makoli. We were across the street from a waterfall. They were charging admission to see it. We laughed and drank more. Three bottles later and a 1 L beer later the sun was setting and we were ready to see what would happen next. The drive was pretty epic. We ended up behind all of this traffic and dead ended into a parking lot. We got out and walked around. I ate ramen and we watched a group of 11 year old girls dance to three Korean pop songs. They were gyrating and all of that -ish. It is interesting to see the sexual revolution in action here. We headed back to the car and started driving in the direction I had seen hotels. We were in search of a love motel. We ended up walking down an alley to a side street and finding a rather nice and cheap love motel. We went in and talked until we passed out.

In the AM with Jamie and Reed still asleep, Rachel and I set out in search of a PC room. We interneted and then searched for food stuffs. We ended up in a Family Mart and bought coffee and noodles and cookies. Back at the motel we packed up and checked out. We walked to a kimbap restaurant and fed. After that we walked down an outdoor market and bought ripe persimmon (홍씨)… So delicious. Then we wandered in search of a bank. We chose wrong. The bank we went with failed. It was in Korean, which was fine, until it spit out a receipt, but no money. I walked with Reed to the PC room and talked with the employee there so that I could get a headset and download Skype. Reed called Wells Fargo and supposedly everything is kosher^^ So then we headed back to the car to start day 2.

We drove to a 3D museum, but due to time constraints and our desire to see lava tubes, we didn’t stay. The drive to the museum and to the cave was amazingly gorgeous. Everything is still so green and lush. At the cave, we realized it was smaller than what we had originally thought. It turned out that there were 2 caves/lava tubes. We were at the smaller one. We got lost in the park several times trying to find the cave. Thanks to Jamie’s logic we stumbled into it and wandering into the magic. The cave was incredible. We walked to the end and took pictures and then decided to find the bigger cave (the biggest lava tube in the world) With only an hour until 6pm (closing time) we hauled ass to the second cave. When we got there they were 20 minutes from closing. The woman who was working was going to let us in without paying. We were only going to go 100m in, but more people showed up, so she charged us. Reed and I decided to run the length of the lava tube. We did it. In just 10 minutes we made it the 1km (with stopping to take pictures)… Then we walked back with the last employee who stands guard at the end of the cave. He had his little flash light and we tried not to splash in all of the puddles. That was my favorite part of the trip. The cave felt so infinite and cool and damp.

When we came out we tried not to be devoured by mosquitoes as we headed back to the car. We drove to get gas, food and return the car. At the gas station, the man was so incredible. I told him to fill it up half way and he asked me how much money I wanted to pay and I told him I didn’t know. He suggested 20,000won and it was perfect. I thanked him for his work and then we took off to find food. After an epic walk we found a sam gyeop sal restaurant and feasted. We walked back to the car and dropped off the rental car. The employee offered to take us to the local jim jil bang. Our party couldn’t agree on staying there, but we went there anyway. We dropped off our bags in a locked area for safe keeping and taxied to Love Land.

Love Land is a park full of statues in sexual positions. There is an art gallery, a sex shop, and a art shop. The park is hilarious and open until midnight. It was awesome to go at night and really made the whole park more enjoyable. We wandered and laughed and took pictures. In the end we taxied back to the jim jil bang.

It was midnight. We decided that we would search for a Love Motel instead of staying at the sauna. The cab driver took us to a really nice motel and we checked in and crashed.

In the morning we woke and got ready to head out. We were planning on finding cheap food and then heading to the airport, but when we came down stairs, one of the employees shuttled us to the airport. It was awesome. We feasted on donuts, coffee, burgers, and makoli at the airport. The whole trip was low stress.

We boarded our flight to Gwangju (a whole 35 minute flight) and it was over as quick as it started. They fed us a piece of candy and we just relaxed. I have been reading “Three Cups of Tea.” I got it a couple years ago from my friend Julianne and have finally found time and inspiration to read it. So far it is pretty interesting.

In Gwangju we exchanged money and hopped on a bus to the Express Bus Terminal. Once there we had a late lunch, drank coffee and hung out for an hour to catch our bus. It was a 3 1/2 hour trip to Daegu. Mainly I slept.

We arrived at Dong Daegu Bus Terminal and headed to a taxi. The guy tried to charge me an extra 5,000 won, but I told him that it was too expensive and he lowered his price. We taxied home in a short 20 minutes and then I bought bread and apples at my grocery store.

Once home I started uploading photos from everyone’s cameras. I received a phone call from friend and he came over. It was awesome to see how much his confidence and English has approved since I met him last year. His understanding is sooo great. We sat around and drank tea. We talked and looked at pictures and then in a very tired stupor, I announced that I needed sleep.

It was weird though because once in bed I stayed on the computer for 30 more minutes. I think I needed time to unwind. And then sleep swept over me and I was out until morning.

To date I have been to: Seoul, Gyeongsangbuk-do, Gangwan-do, Jeollabuk-do, Jeollanam-do, Ulleung-do, Jeju-do, and Busan… Holler.

It finally is totally fall. There is an incredible bite in the air. My fingers actually hurt a little as I type from the chill. Booyah! I loooooooove fall <3

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