day 1

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Jeju Island for Chuseok

For those of you who don't know, this Tuesday through Thursday is Chuseok in Korea, their Thanksgiving basically. For this holiday I get Friday off at work, so Ronald and I decided to come down to Jeju Island, an island in the south of South Korea. Right now I'm writing from a jjimjilbang (씸실방) that we found.

To get to Jeju from Seoul, you take a plane from the domestic terminal of Gimpo airport. There we ate lunch at a place that had Korean fast food. We ordered a hamburger and a ddongass, the breaded pork cutlet dish they stole from the Japanese (dongatsu there). When the burger came, Ronald lifted the bun to check out the fixins and found there to be no meat...anyways, they were embarrassed and took the plate and added the hamburger to the hamburger.

Then we went through security where you are allowed to bring liquids...I had my nalgene full of water and they didn't even look twice at it. However, they did stop me and ask me if I had anything "spray". I couldn't think of anything so I said no and asked where in the backpack the "spray" was. I opened my backpack and pulled out a small bottle of perfume, "This?" I asked.
"No," she replied and proceeded to say "spray" and make strange gestures around her nose. I opened it a bit further and we found a tremendous bottle of bug spray that I had totally forgotten about! I'd left it in my backpack from the last time I'd used it and just didn't think about it. As it turns out, that bottle is also allowed...news to me. Why would they ask to see it if it doesn't matter?

To get to our flight (JejuAir which has a winking face as its logo) we had to take a shuttle bus, but the plane took off at about 16:30 and landed one hour later. We were nervous about the weather because in Seoul it had been raining a bit but when we landed in Jeju it was clear.

Our first stop was Tourist Information in the airport. We got a nice map that has a ton of stuff marked, and asked the women about some of the things I had already researched or gotten suggestions about. We've planned to stay around the island in a clockwise motion, ending with our last night (Sunday) back in Jeju-si (the northern city where the airport is located) because then we can see some of the things that are around that area and not have to travel far on Monday morning because our flight leaves early.

We took bus 100 to the Jeju Intercity Bus Terminal (the first stop the bus made, though the bus driver knew what we were asking when we said it in English) and then went up to the window and asked for a ticket to Seongsan, a city in the east. The woman gave us a ticket for 19:00 (cost: 3,000 won) so we had about 30 minutes to kill. I bought a popsicle and Ronald bought a drink and some crackers. Took a picture of the amazing bathroom sign (I'll upload this when I get back home) and then got on the bus at five to seven. The bus left about two minutes later -- they actually leave early here, not late!

We arrived in Seongsan (or nearby...) at 20:30 and asked the bus driver about a jjimjilbang in the area that the Tourist Information lady had given us. He knew about this one and the bus stop was not even a block away. We thanked him and headed up the small hill/driveway to Pilican 빌리켄 Jjimjilbang. Just before walking in I felt in my right pants pocket and noticed my wallet was no longer there. I knew it had fallen in the bus, but I searched through my purse anyways and didn't find anything.

We walked in the jjimjilbang, Ronald paid the 7,ooo per person, and I tried to call information in Jeju, and the woman told me I needed to call the Seogwipo bus station because that's where my bus would have been heading. I got disconnected and so tried to ask the woman at the jjimjilbong to use her phone to call the terminal. There was a man standing there too, so I somehow managed to communicate to them (through pictures and gestures) that I had left my wallet on the bus and needed to call the terminal. The woman took my notebook with the number (which turned out to be a fax number, thanks, information lady) and when she got off the phone she told us that the police were on their way.

So we put away our bags, changed into our scrub uniforms, and by the time I came out, the police officer was there talking to Ronald about what happened. We gave him all the information we had to give and he told us that the bus companies were already closed for the day so he'd have to call tomorrow.

He called a couple hours later and told me they'd found my wallet! They have it at Seogwipo Bus Terminal and he wanted to give it to me at 6pm tomorrow. Since we are on vacation, we don't have much time to see everything, so he asked where we would be tomorrow. I told him and he said that maybe I could just go to the terminal myself and ask for the wallet. I'm not really sure what he decided, but I know he is going to call me tomorrow. Either way, my wallet seems to be safe and under supervision -- yay Korea! If this had happened in South America, I would have had to kiss all that goodbye. No way would that be returned to me.

So tomorrow we're going to see what things we can get to before the policeman calls. Will update later.

Chao!

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Photos

Bathroom sign
I love the woman...