A Long Weekend on a Small Island

Well, I'm back in Seoul now after a fantastic Saturday - early, early Tuesday morning trip to Jejudo (Jeju Island). It's a little of the tropical Pacific stuck off the southern tip of Korea. It's a very lush, peaceful island... far different than Seoul: I actually saw real-live grass!!!

We (Mike, Erin, and I) arrived around 8:30pm Sat. night after a one hour flight. We went straight from the airport to our hotel, which was a little bit off the beaten path but had quite nice rooms and a fantastic owner. We believe we were the first ever foreigners to stay there; the owners took our picture to put on their website. After we dropped out bags off we headed back into Jeju-si (Jeju City) looking for some dinner and a couple pints. Saturday night in Jeju-si is less lively than a Tuesday night in Seoul during the worst snowstorm; sufficed to say we wandered around aimlessly for a while. Eventually we grabbed some pizza at a restaurant that was empty except for us. After having the food taken care of the pints were next on the list, easier said than done. We wandered around for what felt like a long time looking for a bar that no longers exists; stupid Lonely Planet. However LP did redeem itself, we went into The Doors bar (listed in LP), complete with massive Jim Morisson mural. It was a tiny basement bar, maybe six tables. We had some fine Belgian lagers, requested all the music we wanted (best music collection I've found in Korea), talked to some locals, and had a great time.

We awoke Sunday morning to a beautiful day, a day when you could really see why Jeju is compared to Hawaii. We took a cab to the bus station in Jeju-si and headed off to the Sanbangul-sa (-sa means Buddhist temple). I've seen a few cool Buddhist temples in Korea and China, but this one was something special. We had a short climb up part of a mountain where we found a single monk sitting in a cave with an app. 10ft Buddha, with allegedly healing waters flowing from the back of the cave. It was a really beautiful place... and the water tasted pretty good. We walked out of the temple and headed to a monument to Henrik Hamel, the first foreigner to reach Korea. It was pretty unspectacular, but I got a picture of myself punching a statue of Gus Hiddink, the former Korean national soccer coach (they were both Dutch). From there we walked the 20 feet to the Yongmeori coastline, it reminded me of Atlantic Canada or New England. We walked around the cliffs and rocks and the sea, then Mike decided it'd be fun to try and climb some of the cliffs. He did eventually descend relatively unscathed, but I walked ahead a bit and found a nice rock to chill out on for a while... until a Korean family decided to camp out right in front of me, but it was very relaxing nonetheless. Following that we headed back into Jeju-si for some uninspiring seafood and a good nights sleep.

We were out the door at the crack of 10am the next day, again to the bus station. This day's destination was, first off, the Gimnyeong Hedge Maze. It was a hedge maze, we got 50% off because we walked in 20min. from the highway. It was a decent hour or so, but nothing too special. Another 15min. up the road lay something very cool indeed... the Manjanggul lava tube caves, which we think are a provincial park, but not entirely sure. The best description of the caves would be a lava-formed subway tunnel, almost perfectly symetrical in a lot of places. We walked as far as possible in the caves and then headed back to Jeju-si to catch another bus to Segwipo, on the SW of the island. In Segwipo we went to Cheonjiyeonpokpo (pokpo means waterfall). It was a pretty cool waterfall, not B.C. cool, but not bad hehe. We had a chance to get some photos at the waterfall for about 10min. before being utterly swarmed by a Korean school field trip; a good time to leave. It was starting to get late so we caught a bus back to the hotel for our final night on Jejudo. After getting back to the hotel, we figured we needed to hit the beach while on the island, even if it was 11pm. We walked down to a beach by our hotel, Mike and Erin went swimming, but I live on an island in Canada, and felt no need for hypothermia that night. I did a much more civilized thing: I sat on the sand, drank a beer (perfectly legal here), and laughed at them. Six o'clock came early the next morning, we went to the airport and got on the plane, after all it was a work day... a very, very long work day.

As you can clearly tell it was a great trip; a relaxing, green interlude from life in sometimes-soul-sucking-Seoul. Before leaving for Jeju I also made some future travel plans with my friend Mike, we're off to Geumgangsan (san means mountain)... did I mention Geumgangsan is in NORTH KOREA?!?! A very cool oppurtunity indeed, a bit pricey, but too good to pass up. We're going with a group from Adventure Korea, whom we've been to Daedunsan, Soraksan, and Namhaedo with. Needless to say I'm very excited to be driving (quite rare, most people arrive by boat or plane) into possibly the most isolated country in the world; I do lead a charmed life.

Keep the comments coming, they're great!