Children’s Day is a Korean holiday where parents give their children a present and say how much they love them. Basically, it’s like Mother’s/Father’s day but for kids. But unlike Mother’s & Father’s Day, it’s a national holiday where you get off work and school! Somehow I was lucky enough to have all three of my schools out for Children’s Day from May 5-9. So when a group of teachers said they were going to Jeju Island off the southern coast I jumped at the chance!
My flight was scheduled to leave at 1:50 on Wednesday and I knew I needed to leave early because of holiday traffic. So I got up early and headed to the bus station. I knew bus #8 went directly to the airport but apparently the driver doesn’t care to follow the schedule so you could be waiting for hours before the bus decided to show. If bus #8 didn’t feel like showing up, I was going to have to take another bus, that was more expensive, into Seoul, then hop on the subway and take it down to the airport. Luckily, after waiting only 20 minutes bus #8 showed up, I hoped on, popped in my ear phones and prepared for the long trip. Apparently, Koreans aren’t like Americans and don’t travel much on holidays. There was no traffic and after only an hour I arrived at the airport 3 hours early. Good thing I had a book and my iPod.
The flight was very short. It was basically like flying from Montgomery to Atlanta. And before I knew it I was on Jeju-do (do means island). My friends texted me the hotel’s name and I got a cab and he dropped me off in front of the hotel in about 10 minutes and for only 4,000 Won ($3.52US). I dropped off my bag and we hopped in a cab to our first destination.
We had heard there are many odd museums and parks throughout Jeju-do. And there are several sex and health parks and museums. We all found this so strange since Koreans are so reserved and freak out if they even see a collarbone. We arrived at the park called Love Land, which is located on Mysterious Road. But instead of stopping, the cab driver started talking really fast in Korean, drove past the entrance then put the car in neutral. We were so confused. He then turned the car around headed back toward the park but again put the car in neutral and coasted. We looked around and saw people were in the streets putting bottles of makgoli down on the road. I immediately shouted, “It’s a game, he’s gonna roll over the makgoli bottle!” Of course that wasn’t right. It’s called Mysterious Road because you can put your car in neutral and coast, and it looks like you are coasting uphill, even though you must be going down. So everything looks like they are rolling uphill. The cab driver was being nice and showing us foreigners the phenomenon. It was really cool once we figured out what he was doing!
I am not going to talk much about Love Land. It was vulgar, strange and a one time event. But what made it even more surreal is that Koreans were taking pictures, pointing, laughing and playing with their children (yes, kids were there, seriously.) at a park that was all about sex. Again, Koreans blush if you show a collarbone, but they loved this park! It was very strange. Anyways, it wasn’t very big, and we soon left to go into the city for dinner.
We ate at an Indian restaurant and I had the best curry! We also ordered a bottle of red wine, and the place was very swanky and I forgot I was in Korea for a minute. After dinner we met up with the other teachers who live on the island and had drinks and a night on the town.
After sleeping in, we packed our stuff and headed to the west side of the island where our condo was located. It was an overcast day, but you could still tell the water was beautiful. The condo was nice and located right on the beach; however it was a lava rock beach so there would be no laying out here.
We weren’t sure what to do, so I busted out my Lonely Planet Korea book (the first time I used it) and we found a park that was close to the condo and had everything from botanical gardens to lava caves. It was surprisingly cheap to get in, only costing 8,000 Won. The park was amazing. There were all kinds of trees and the palm trees were tall and skinny like the ones at The Wharf back home. They had Azaleas everywhere which also made me think of home. They had every flower, cactus and plant you could think of and in the green houses also had some reptiles in aquariums.
Next we followed the path along to the lava cave/tubes. Jeju-do is a volcanic island, and these caves are actually lava tubes from thousands of years ago. One of them is a half limestone and half lava cave which is the only one in the world. They were so proud of the fact they had stalactites and stalagmites in their cave. I was picturing something like Desoto Caverns but they were little maybe a foot big at the most—still cool none the less.
Then we went to the bonsai and stone section of the park. I never knew bonsai trees could get so big. I picture them as the little tree in pots on people’s desks. These were very impressive. The stone sculptures were cool and created naturally from lava flowing through them many years ago. Next was the bird exhibit, and although the peacocks, pheasants, and other birds looked well cared to the ostriches looked in bad shape. We couldn’t figure out if they were rescued and that is why they looked bad or they weren’t being taken care of. Let’s hope they had been rescued.
After the park we went to check out Hypogae Beach, which was across the street. Although it was overcast, you could tell that this beach was absolutely beautiful. The water was a teal/green color and with the lava rocks and sand I went picture crazy! While walking on the beach we noticed horses and they looked to be roaming freely but the mom’s were tied up on quite a long rope. The babies were running around and playing and it was so sweet. Unfortunately, when I got to school on Monday my co-teacher asked how my trip was and if I ate any unique food. I said, “No, like what?” He said “Horse. Jeju is known for its horse meat.” God, I hope the little cute horses were the exception.
We wanted to eat on the beach, since it was beautiful and saw a place that said hamburgers. We immediately started running and talking about what we wanted on it. I said cheese first of course. When we arrived I ordered us four hamburgers and four colas (they didn’t have beer, I tried). While we waited in the cute restaurant they brought us lemon tea, and we looked at the pictures hanging on the wall. Turns out these are jumbo hamburgers that feed families, and we just ordered four of them. Great. Well at least we would have a snack for later. Luckily, the woman knew what the stupid foreigners meant and they brought us one hamburger that would feed the four of us. It was good, although it was closer to a sandwich than hamburger. After dinner, we headed back to the condo, rested and played cards the rest of the night.
We woke up surprisingly early for four twenty-somethings on vacation. We were up at 8:30 and out the door by 10:00. Good thing we left early though. We decided we wanted to go to some Trick Art Museum on the other side of the island and would have to take the bus. We got on a bus from the condo, it took us on an hour and a half ride to the city where we transferred buses and got on one to the other side of the island.
We finally arrived at the Trick Art Museum and I honestly didn’t know what to expect. But it was so much fun. They had painted famous paintings on the wall that looked as if they were coming out from the frame (which was painted on too). Then they had diagrams of how to line yourself up and take a picture to make it look 3D. It started as famous works of art from DaVinci, Monet, David and Ruebens to just random cool paintings. The four of us acted like kids running around, taking pictures then running to get the others to come check out the next cool trick art. It wasn’t as big as I would have liked, but again for the whopping price of 8,000 Won who could complain.
We looked at the map and saw that a hedge maze wasn’t far away, but unfortunately had no idea if buses ran there or how to get there. The nice girl at the gift shop called us a cab, and even waited on the cab to come and gave him directions to get us to the maze. It was a nice country drive, and with everything lush and green it reminded me of summer in Washington, driving up the 101 in the Olympics.
The maze was even cheaper than the other parks, and Julie and I were excited about how we were going to reenact Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire and save each other when the hedges come alive and try to get us. Nothing came to life, and the four of us quickly moved through the maze in a record speed of about 15 minutes. Bryan and I were bummed it was over so quick so ran back into the maze to hide from the others. Unfortunately, karma had a different idea and we got lost in the maze for about 45 minutes.
After the maze we decided it was time to go to the city and meet with our friends. There were no cabs or buses in the country so we decided to walk back to the main highway and catch a bus. It was a little over a mile but it was a beautiful day so we didn’t mind. We must have been exhausted because we all crashed as soon as we got settled on the bus. I woke up right when we got into the city and we all decided we needed some coffee to wake us up. We went to a local coffee/chocolate café (YAY!) and I got a café mocha and chocolate mousse cake. It was fattening, rich and perfect!
We met up with everyone and headed to a Korean restaurant that has good dalk galbi. The meal was great, spicy but not too bad, especially by Korean standards and since there were 10 of us it was cheap too! The whole group went to a couple of bars and had a nice time just catching up since we haven’t seen each other since orientation. Then we caught a cab for the thirty minute ride home.
The plan for Saturday was to wake up, go see these huge waterfalls then meet everyone at the beach. We kinda got a late start, especially since we had to ride the bus again. We rode the bus along the Southern coast of the island, and it was a beautiful ride and I didn’t sleep for once. We then had to be dropped off in the downtown of a small town and walk to the falls. My lonely planet said it was only 15 minutes but after the traffic and several hills it felt like much more.
We finally reached the falls, and everyone was breathing pretty heavily from the walk. So I was quite happy we had to walk down stairs to get to the bottom near the coast. My Lonely Planet says Jeongbang Waterfall is the only waterfall in Asia that flows directly into the sea. Wikipedia says differently, I like to think my book is correct. The falls were huge, and it was nice to put my feet in the cold water after the long hike. We acted like we were on a photo shoot posing and taking pictures.
After about 45 minutes at the falls we decided it was time to meet up with everyone else at the beach. We were sick of waiting on a bus and hopped in a cab for the 15-minute ride to Jungmun Beach. We walked down the hill to the beach and turned the corner to find the beach busy with people. There was a nice restaurant on the water, and the beach had outdoor showers, foot washes, and bathrooms all easily accessible. We had all been craving warm beach weather. The beach was beautiful, the water was amazing, but the sand was definitely not the same as back home. It was more like ground up shells, instead of “the sugary, white sand beaches” we all love from the Gulf Coast. Jules and I immediately put on sunscreen and started soaking up the sun. I fell asleep and at some point decided to try out the water. I maybe lasted 3 minutes at most. It was freezing. What made it worse was that it looked so clear and blue you thought it would be warm but then it was like stepping into ice water.
After the beach we hopped on a bus (I fell asleep, again) and went to a Mexican restaurant in town. We had really good margaritas, and nachos as an appetizer. They weren’t exactly like nachos back home, but they got the job done. Then I had a huge veggie burrito with sour cream and guacamole. It was so good. I would go back to Jeju just for that! But luckily, one of the veteran teachers said there is a restaurant in Seoul that tastes the exact same. Well I know where I am going next!
We called it a night early, said good-bye to our friends and went back to the condo and packed. We all had morning flights so 5:45 came too quickly. We loaded up in the taxi and headed home. At the airport, I got some much needed coffee and I got my schools each a box of orange chocolate (Jeju is know for oranges). Brownie points never hurt right! I flew first class home because that was the only ticket available and was actually disappointed it was only a 45-minute flight back. I landed safely, got my bags and was walking to the bus stop when someone stopped right in front of me. I was startled at first, but then realized Derek had surprised me at the airport so we could take the bus back together to our island. It was a nice surprise and we got to catch up on the ride after not seeing each other for 5 days. By the time I got home I crashed and laid around the most of the day and tried not to think about school on Monday and the dreaded Demo lesson. You’ll find out about that in the next post. Don’t worry.
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